Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Within the depths of the long-abandoned Joey Drew Studios, an inkblot roamed the vents.  Despite being relatively deep in the studio, around level 5 or so, the air hung thick and silent with tension and the choking smell of rubber, waiting to pounce with the promise of danger.  The little inkblot failed to heed the weighty air’s warning as he trundled along the ducts with purpose.  He stared down into a nearby grate and, spotting something of interest despite his ink covered eyes, popped the grate off of the vent and clambered out into the abandoned office.

The room was dusty and comparatively  untouched in contrast to the rest of the ink-drenched studio, the drawers in the desk opened haphazardly and overturned onto the floor.  Discarded objects lay scattered on the floor and debris cluttered the corners.  It almost looked like there had been a fight in here.  The little inkblot pittered deeper into the room, picking up a snapped pen or shattered piece of inkwell every now and then before discarding the refuse to the side and continuing to explore the room.  Ignoring his growing discomfort and his second mental voice telling him to leave, he kept exploring the room he’d subconsciously avoided. He kicked a small stone pendant under the bookcase, the noise and sudden sensation catching his attention.  

The tiny, drippy toon squeezed his mitten hand under the dresser to reach the pendant, downcast horn and round white face squishing against the wood as his ever-present necktie brushed against the floor.  The nameless devil gave a staticky chirp in triumph once he managed to grab the leather strap of the pendant and fish it out.  The stone of the pendant was an inky black, carved and painted with a weird-looking rune in red.  The thing was oddly warm to the touch, and the childish cartoon took an instant liking to it.  He wrapped the leather cord around his hand despite the voice in his head protesting the action and stood back up to look around some more.

He finished exploring the room with the necklace in hand and was about to leave when he noticed the door.  It was a fairly standard door, a cracked glass panel taking up much of the upper half with faded reversed lettering displaying a name everyone in the studio knew with the remains of a bronzed doorknob dangling from where it should have been affixed with a dark stain splatter he knew instinctively wasn’t ink.  The inkblot tried to swallow past the lump now present in his nonexistent throat as he realized where he was and why exactly the voice in his head told him to leave.

It was an unspoken rule to never enter Joey Drew’s office.

He scrambled to the vent, finally understanding his own apprehension, and he closed up the grate as tightly as he could.  After being sure the vent had been closed securely and leaving a quick warning marking on the floor of the vent with his tail, he made a mad dash to Level 2 where some commotion was going on.  At least there was safer than Joey Drew’s old office.  Anywhere was safer for any of them than there. That’s what their instincts cried, as they’d been poor souls tricked into being sold to demons for their inky forms.  

It’s only natural to hide from a man that deals with devils.

___

Buddy skittered down the corridor after Bendy, having paused to examine his weird rune pendant again.  Every time he got close to the larger toon, the pendant would warm up, it seemed. The pendant itself doesn't really change despite its temperature fluctuating.

“Buddy?”

The smaller of the two inkblots jumped at his name, looking up at the sweaterclad demon up ahead.  “You alright there?” Bendy asked, concerned but concealing it as aloofness.  Buddy answered with a pop of static and a nod, dashing forward a bit to nab the hem of Buddy’s hoodie.  Before the two could continue on, Buddy tugged a bit on the bit of sweater he was grabbing, showing off the runed pendant in his other hand before he could think twice about it.  “What do you have there?” Bendy puzzled aloud, gingerly taking the pendant and inspecting it for himself. “What is it?”  Buddy shrugged in answer, and the two demons wore the same baffled expression.  After examining the stone for a few moments more, Bendy handed it back to Buddy, who wrapped it around his hand again as Bendy climbed the staircase to the projector room again.

_______

The day had started normally, she supposed.  A partially overcast sky, bustling sidewalks of a small city, fairly standard where she lived.  She stared out the bedroom window into space, ensnared in her musings and attempts to recall the bizarre dream she’d had the night before, something about living cartoons with Splatoon physics.  She was glad to have gotten a good night of rest for once since her job called for late nights, even if she’ll fall back into her late night habits by the end of the week.  Some wispy drafts were all that remained of her dream from the night before and she lamented the loss cause it had been awesome if a bit weird.

She snapped out of her weird spacey session and rolled off of her bed, straightening herself out and pulling on her heavy blue sweater with faux fur trim in the hood. Even if it wasn’t snowing yet, the December air would still have its cold bite. Making sure her bedroom door was closed, she tapped her way down the stairs and pulled on her boots.  Her hand purse yoinked out of its drawer and she was ready to go to the store.   She’d started to run low on food, so she has to leave her house for once.

Before long, she’d left the house for the store.  When she got there, she did her shopping.  Nothing to write home about.  It was on the way back home did anything letterworthy happen.

She was going down the street at around 30, the speed limit for this part of town, when a small black figure darted into the road. “Holy shit!” she blurted out, swerving panickedly to avoid hitting the cat(?) and pulling over to make sure she hadn’t hit whatever that small black thing was.  She practically exploded out of the car and sprinted over to where the small black thing sat on the sidewalk, trembling in shock as three other black and white figures appeared to comfort it.  As she got closer, she slowed down in confoundment.

The four figures were almost mind boggling, looking like toons that had jumped straight off the animation reels from the 30’s.  The smallest of them, the one she’d almost run over and confused for a cat -- drippy and tiny, almost half-formed compared to the other three -- was staring at the palms of his mitteny hands. She shook away the shock of living cartoons (part of her was thrilled at the prospect, animation was her life’s dream and she adored cartoons) briefly and sped up to a power walk over to the small group.  “Are you alright?!  I’m so sorry I almost hitcha, I should-should-should-should’a been payin’ more attention!” she apologized rapidfire, stumbling over herself a bit with how fast the words came out.

The little inky one nodded his head, smiling shakily in her direction though still clearly shaken by almost dying.  The toony creature tries to speak to her, static coming out.  He gets visibly annoyed at his own unintelligibleness and the young adult holds up a finger. “Hang on a sec, lemme grab you a notepad or somethin’ from my car.” she offers, and she briskly walked over her car, waving the toons over with her.  Quickly snatching a pen and lightly used notepad from the glovebox, she offers the implements to the staticky inkblot after testing the pen with a quick scribble on the corner of a used page covered with messy doodles.  With a chirp in thanks, he writes down what he was trying to say.

We need your help, miss.

While the short sentence ran her blood a bit cold with the implications (what did they need help with and what the hell are there living toons doing roaming around on the streets), she still suppressed her burning curiosity and protective instinct and gave the tiny toon a warm smile.  “Of course I’ll help you guys out,” she said.  “I was jus’ on my way home from the store, actually, so if ya get into my car we can work things out there.  It’s gettin’ chilly this time’a year, and only one’a you’s wearin’ a coat.”

The toons all clambered into the car.  The tall doglike one sitting in the front with her while the angel, the one in the coat, and the smallest of them all sitting in the back.  After ensuring they were all buckled in, she resumed her drive back home with toons in tow, humming along to the radio as her affection grew for these lost souls.

Chapter Text

The drive home was fairly uneventful, Bendy thought.  The lady that they’d asked to help them was nice enough despite Bendy’s own skepticism of her kindness.  After a few moments of silence aside from the electro swing song bopping out of the radio, she started asking them questions.  “So, what’re all of your names?”

“I’m Alice,” the angel started. “Boris is the one sitting next to you in front, Bendy is the one wearing the coat, and Buddy is the one you almost ran over.” At the mention of her blunder, the lady winced. “Sorry again ‘bout that,” she repeated.  “Whatcha guys need help with again?”

“Just somewhere to stay, really.” Boris supplied.  Buddy tapped Bendy on the shoulder and showed him a quick doodle of the woman driving.  Bendy gave Buddy a small smile and a small pat on the head.  His understudy beamed up at him and went back to doodling on some of the busier pages in the notebook.  

Bendy stared out of the window in mild boredom, listening to the lady babble about something.  Her voice was lilted with scattered shorthands and enunciations, speaking quickly regardless of topic, and fluctuating between too loud and a mumble.  Her tone had a certain timbre and cadence of genuineness, slightly reedy like his own with the richer undertones of a singer.  Buddy was enraptured by her, fascinated with whatever she was saying.  Her eyes and nose crinkled oddly every time she looked into the rearview mirror to check on them, and the more pessimistic side of him thought she was sneering in disgust the first few times she did it; as she did it more, Bendy realized that she was smiling.

Bendy tuned back into the conversation in time to catch the tail end of some story. “ - and when I woke up, I was so sad when I figured out it was just a dream.  That dream made me so happy all day.”  the driver beamed back at them, icy blue eyes full of a strange, protective fondness.  Bendy got suspicious again, because no one got protective or fond of anyone within minutes of meeting them for the first time.

They arrived at a small, suburban house before long, and she stopped the car.  “Welcome to La Casa de Mango.” she announced semi sarcastically as she popped the trunk with a small flourish.  She stepped out of the car and around the back, where plastic started rustling.  Boris climbed out too and offered to help their new caretaker; she let him grab a couple bags and chattered about how carrying the shopping bags in with her is a contest to see how many she can carry at once.  Bendy helped unbuckle Buddy and helped him climb out of the car.  

Inside, she was already in the kitchen, unloading all of the bags next to the fridge and sorting through them to put them away.  “Hey, any’a ya want somethin’ to drink or eat? I could getcha guys some hot cocoa if you want.” Buddy dashed over to her and jotted something down.  Reading it, she chuckled.  “I dunno if coffee is such a good idea for a li’l guy like you.  I’ll still make ya some, though, since you were polite.”  Alice called in response to the original question, drifting towards the couch, “I’d like some tea please, Miss Mango.”

Bendy suppressed the urge to snicker at the bizarre name. “Come into the kitchen and pick a kind then, I have a lotta tea.”  Miss Mango responded cheerfully, opening a cupboard door to place a couple boxes inside.  “Hey, Bendy,” the wolf started quietly. The demon responded by turning to Boris.  “Do ya want anything?” the wolf asked.  “Some hot chocolate, I guess,” Bendy answered, trying his best to stay aloof.

“Oh!  Speakin’a hot cocoa, is it safe for you to be havin’ chocolate, Boris? ‘Cause real life wolves can’t digest it properly so its poisonous to them,” the squat woman asked, popping her bobbed blond head out of the kitchen.  “I’ve had chocolate before, so it’s probably safe.” Boris responded, slightly confused at the sudden question.  With a nod, she disappeared back into the kitchen and the sound of water running started dancing out.  

About twenty minutes later, she came back out of the kitchen with a tray of their drinks and a plate of sandwiches.  Boris snatched up a sandwich the second the plate met the surface of the coffee table and started chewing away.  Buddy took a sandwich and took a big bite as well but screwed up his face a bit at the flavor, causing Miss Mango to laugh. “Not a fan of peanut butter?”  Buddy shook his head no and set down the food, making strange faces as he tried to unstick the thick substance from the roof of his mouth before eventually just shoving his hand in to dislodge the bread manually.  “I hate it too, the way it sticks to my mouth is annoying.” she continued with a humored tone, pulling a different sandwich from the pile.  “This one might be more your style.  Lunchmeat instead of mouth glue.”

Buddy accepted the ham sandwich and hazarded a bite.  He gave a crackle of enjoyment and scarfed down the rest of the sandwich in surprisingly large bites for one his size as Boris claimed what remained of his peanut butter.  Alice daintily pulled some food of her own from the pile and settled into her seat better.  Finally deciding to chance it, Bendy grabbed some food for himself and took a tentative bite.  He’d gotten some simple tuna fish, which was alright he supposed, certainly no bacon soup that was for sure.  Whether it was a good or bad thing it wasn’t bacon soup was up for debate.  While they all ate, Miss Mango distributed their drinks and disappeared back into the kitchen to grab the sugar and creamer for the coffee and tea.  Setting them on the table, she settled sideways into the big lumpy armchair across from the couch while nursing an enormous mug of tea for herself.  “Lemme know if any of ya need anything.” she practically murmurs to them as she pulls a strange device (Bendy thinks it’s a phone?  He’s not sure) out of her bulky sweater pocket and stares at the screen, presumably reading something.  Bendy took another bite of the tuna fish, relishing the flavor.

An awkward but comfortable silence settled over the room as the toons slowly emptied the plate of sandwiches and the human read whatever on her phone.  It was a complete 180 from the car ride here, which made it a bit disorienting.  But it was peaceful and safe -- truly safe and not the foreboding, fake “safe" the studio offered, where an attack from some ink monster was due around the corner at any given moment.  A good forty minutes passed like this, the final remaining sandwich having sat on the plate for about 10 minutes, the toons all hesitant to just take it - even Boris, who normally wouldn't mind taking it for himself.  Miss Mango hadn’t taken any sandwiches to eat either, causing the toons to silently debate with one another about who would try to give it to her.

The toons all sat in perplexity over the issue, sending each other looks, before Buddy finally decided to do it himself and hopped off the couch to bring the sandwich to their hostess, who was so lost in her reading that her tea sat forgotten and cold.  Hesitantly tapping her on the foot (the highest he could reach) caught her attention.  She seemed startled for a moment, almost as if she’d forgotten what had happened, but quickly got over it upon spotting Buddy.  “Wachu need there, dooder?” she asked with a friendly smile and level tone.  Buddy quickly scribbled something down onto a ripped scrap of paper on hand and handed her the paper and the plate.  “Sorry, kiddo, I made the sandwiches for you guys, so --" she started, smiling sheepishly at him before he climbed up on her like a monkey and shoved the sandwich in her mouth before nimbly hopping off the chair and dashing away to hide behind the couch as Bendy, Alice, and Boris all tensed in expectation of some form of retaliation.

She choked on the food briefly, laughing between gagging on the chunk in her mouth.  After successfully clearing her throat of bread and roast beef she took a deep breath before saying, “I guess that settles that! You drive a hard bargain!” with a huge grin in her face, eyes tearing from coughing so hard.  Bendy relaxed once he heard the laughter, but Buddy, Boris, and Alice all remained tense.  They just didn't know how to react to the lack of anger.  Whether or not it was Joey’s fault certainly isn't up for debate.

Chapter Text

The toons had been staying with Miss Mango for all of 3 days and she already seemed to love them to pieces.  Alice was admittedly a little wary of her behavior, but decided that for the moment a roof over their head was preferable to someone being weird.  She gave them their own room separate from her own to stay in and had lent them all a couple of her shirts to wear as nightshirts.  She had a taste for sarcastic and humorous shirts and dark colors as it turned out.  For the most part, over the three days they’d been trying to catch up on things that had happened in the world while they were trapped in the studio.  They’d missed entire wars, a lot of iconic music, and quite a bit of questionable fashion choices.

Miss Mango was a peculiar bird; for one  she insisted that she be called by her nickname Ink Mango and hadn’t yet given her real name, which was a bizarre choice.  She wasn’t very tall but made up for it with wide shoulders and hips, having a generally stocky build.  Her blond hair was short and fluffy with natural curls, a perpetual streak of purple near the front oft swept to the side with a hair clip adorned with her zodiac sign.  Her overall shape was round and homely; she seemed to like wearing slightly baggy clothing and constantly had some form of sweater draped over her plump frame.  

She was absent minded but intelligent, clear blue eyes glittering with mirth and creativity when they retained focus.  She had a weird tendency to tap her fingers and hummed when she wasn’t paying too much attention to what she was doing or had forgotten something.  She walked quietly and quickly, so it seemed like she teleported everywhere, and she seemed to relish in startling someone this way.  Judging by the memorabilia everywhere and the occasional reference she’d spout, she was a bit of a nerd and damn proud of the fact.  

She doted a bit on the toons, Buddy especially.   They’d caught her saying things like “protect him" and “precious cinnamon roll son" (not that they knew what it all meant, but the connotations were clear) to herself whenever he did something considered cute.  That was just plain weird in their books, but she did it with all of them so they figured that was how she reacted to something she thought was cute.  Even without that, she’d been incredibly patient with the toons.  From Bendy’s wariness and Boris’ general apathy for anything that wasn't food to Buddy’s skill at hiding and Alice’s mild bipolar episodes, Miss Mango endured it all with nothing but a kind smile and reassuring words.

At the moment, she was scrambling some eggs for Boris as breakfast, singing along to a bouncy techno song she’d put on before starting.  The sizzle of cooking foodstuffs harmonized with the tune as she pulled the eggs off the heat and onto Boris’ plate next to his with a synchronized whistle riff and a cheeky grin.  She returned the pan to the stove, pouring her own mixed eggs out of the cup and into the pan in one fluid motion.  She tossed the emptied cup at the sink, where it bounced off the faucet and the counter onto the floor.  With a curse, she turned down the heat on the skillet to pick up the cup and deposit it into the sink properly as the toons snickered at her failed trickshot.  “Laugh it up, peanut gallery,” she jokingly scoffed as she returned to the stove and stirred her eggs with a spatula.

The atmosphere of the moment was homey and warm, Alice guessed.  The eggs were good, if a little too peppery, and the peppy song with strange lyrics helped her feel more relaxed.  This place was filled with happiness and light (ignoring an underlying stench of apathy and self loathing), something an empathetic angel could tell even after just 3 days.

“I’ll admit,” Ink started.  “This is the most energetic I’ve been in years.  Normally, I’ll just sit around on my computer all day, maybe knittin’ while I do so. But since you guys have gotten here, I’ve gotten up and done a lot more around the house.”

The techno song ended and a jazzy base started the next ditty in the playlist.  Ink had started to hum along when her phone rang.  She lowered both the flame and the volume before answering it.  “Hello?”

The toons took this as an excuse to take their leave to explore the house some more.  Even after 3 days here, there were things they hadn’t looked into yet.  Alice took Buddy and Bendy’s plates and put all three of them into the kitchen sink as the two’d forgotten to do it themselves.  Boris was finishing up his eggs and gave Alice the thumbs up telling her she could leave him there.  Alice wandered into the living room and plopped herself by the bookcase with Buddy, who had procured a newspaper from somewhere and was working away at the crossword.  Bendy had disappeared upstairs like he tended to do since they got here.  Before long, Boris lumbered out of the kitchen and the day continued as it had for the previous two.

“ WHAT?! ”

The shout was angry and dangerous, its suddenness and volume causing everyone else in the vicinity to jump.  Bendy climbed back down to investigate the shout.

“ I WORKED MY ASS OFF FOR FIVE MONTHS’ WORTH OF OVERTIME FOR THIS BREAK, AND YOU’RE GONNA CUT IT SHORT BY 3 WEEKS??? ”

The toons all almost scattered to hide.  Ink hadn't gotten mad once with the toons, but hearing her actually angry was a bit scary by the volume of her voice alone, not including the threatening and vicious undertones she suddenly spoke with.  Bendy, the less scared of the toons, hopped down the stairs and peeped into the kitchen to check on Miss Mango.

Her outburst of rage seemed to have quelled a bit and Alice worked up the courage to steal a look alongside Bendy.  Miss Mango hunched over, visibly bristling in an attempt to look bigger.  Her face was screwed up into a cold snarl and she paced in circles so small, Alice wondered how she didn't get dizzy.  Her voice had dropped in volume but certainly not tone.  She almost seemed like she was growling threats instead of actually conversing or screeching with rage like some certain bad memories Alice had.

After a few more minutes of angry dialogue exchange, the phone call was ended and Miss Mango’s face went blank, dropping all emotion as her eyes went vacant and she went still.  Her cheeks reddened as she shook herself back into reality, anger resuming where it left off.  Listing explicatives under her breath, she scooped her slightly burnt omelet onto a plate and stormed in their direction, toons scrambling out of the way to not get caught up in her wrath.  She spotted the toons and her rage completely dropped as Bendy fixed her with a hard stare.

“Sorry you guys had to see that.  I can have a bit of a temper sometimes,” she apologized quietly, voice and face guilty.  In that moment, the woman looked fatigued, as if she’d pulled late nights her entire life.  Alice gave their host a small pat on the shoulder and the most patient smile she could muster.  “It’s alright, Miss Mango.  It’s better we learned about it sooner rather than later.”

“I guess.  I shouldn't have been so loud though.”

Buddy, who had hidden during the outburst, peeked out of his hiding place (behind a pile of books on the floor) with his newspaper and gave a scolding chirp at then.  Alice giggled at the faux scandalized look Ink donned in reaction, and the quiet tenseness broke.  “What do you have there, kiddo?”

Buddy, emboldened, brandished his mystery newspaper with the completed crossword, and she took it and compared the completed section to the answers. “Holy Kahl, you’re good,” she muttered in surprise, her pun completely flying over the toons’ heads.  “But where the hell did you get this? I don’t have a newspaper subscription.”

Chapter Text

Magic was a finicky thing.  Buddy was proof enough of that.  If you didn’t know the exact spell, you could end up turning yourself into a bagel or accidentally summon a version of you from another universe if you read one word wrong. The magic that Buddy was handling, while not nearly as complex, was still rather baffling.  

The rune pendant he’d found was very clearly a protective amulet, but he was starting to wonder if it was contributing to Miss Mango’s rapid attachment to them.  After meeting her, the pendant’s face had turned white with the red paint shifting to blue for whatever reason, possibly as an indicator of being under the best protection.  

The toons have always been allowed to go outside as long as they didn't wander too far, thankfully, so he went outside in the chill (making sure to bundle up in the scarf left by the door for him as Miss Mango reminded him) and hid the pendant in some bushes at the edge of the property.  After taking a moment to commit the location to memory, he skittered back inside because man is it cold out, he’s glad he wore the scarf.

He gave one big body-jiggling shiver upon entering the house and hung up his scarf as best as he could.  He scampered over to the staircase and clambered up, intending to observe Miss Mango for any behavioral changes.

Upstairs, Miss Mango was showing Alice how makeup works, drawing stars by their eyes in colorful eyeliner.  Miss Mango noticed Buddy in the doorway and gave him a wide grin.  “Hey there, Buddy! How was it outside?” she greeted him jokingly, and he pantomimed a shiver for her, having forgotten his notebook in the toons’ shared bedroom in his rush. “Yeah, it tends to get chilly around here this time of year,” she commented.  “Will we get to see snow?” Alice interjected, looking a little excited.  “We’re in a prime location to see snow this winter, actually.  This area tends to get a lot because of the Lake relatively close to us.”

Alice squealed a bit in excitement at that, bouncing in place.

Nothing much else eventful happened that day, as Buddy had learned by ghosting Miss Mango the entire time.  She’d made a couple comments on his behavior, but nothing too different from before.  He helped her a bit in the kitchen ‘cause he might as well while shadowing her.

The sky was dark by dinner, and Buddy doodled in his notebook that he’d retrieved at some point in the day.  There were a lot of scribbly sketches in the margins and messy handwriting scattered among the pages from the previous user (clearly their current host), and he was fine with that.  He’d drawn a quick picture of Miss Mango and was now listing behaviors he’d witnessed, both before and after discarding the pendant.

The results were ultimately inconclusive.

Buddy made sure to go back out to grab the pendant before dinner.  That night, with the other toons all asleep, Buddy clambered out of his bed, grabbed his notebook and the pendant, and tiptoed his way over to Miss Mango’s room.  After lightly tapping on the door, he entered after hearing no response.  Miss Mango was still awake, drawing something on her laptop with her weird wireless headset plugged into her ears.  

He pittered over to her and gently reached up to tap on her foot.  When she didn’t respond outside of the appendage twitching a bit, he climbed up onto the mattress next to her.  He started making questioning staticy noises as he tapped her on the shoulder. Miss Mango jumped a bit at that and looked around for the source, quickly finding Buddy.  She tugged an earplug out and pressed a button on the headset as she turned her attention to the tiny toon.

“What do ya need there, kiddo?” she asked quietly (which he appreciated) as he flipped to a blank page in the notebook and scribbled I have something I need to ask you and placed the rune necklace in front of him.  “What, do you wanna know what this is for?” she asked before he could explain.  He just shook his head and wrote down a quick explanation of the pendant, ending the paragraph with Have you noticed yourself acting weirdly since we got here?

She was silent for a couple moments when he let her read what he had written.  “I don’t think I’ve been acting any differently,” she mused aloud.  “I had a rough past so I have a tendency to get attached quickly to people that tolerate my presence.”  Buddy gave Miss Mango a strange look as her musing turned into unintelligible mumbling.  Before Buddy had a chance to react much more beyond that, she gave him a quick pat on the head and scooped him up in her arms.

Caught off guard, he struggled and squirmed in an attempt to get her to release him but she remained unfettered as she carried him out of her room.  Buddy bleated a little in his garbled voice when she finally let him down onto his bed.  He hadn’t even noticed her stand up.  He stared up at her as she pulled the blanket up onto his lap and gave him another pat on the head and a soft smile before turning the light off and leaving the room.

He watched her slink out of the bedroom curiously, dim fascination at how enigmatic Miss Mango could be at times.  Shoving those thoughts to the side, Buddy snuggled the rest of the way under his blanket and let his teeming mind lull him to sleep with floating thoughts of kind Maidens offering solace to the weary.

Chapter Text

Boris hadn’t seen snow often, not even in the Christmas specials for the cartoon.  There, the snow had been static, background noise when it fell.  Real snow was a shock of electric cold, icy and white and deceptively fluffy as he learned as he slipped a bit on some packed snow leading up to the door of the house in the woods.

Miss Mango (The Maiden, as Buddy seemed keen on calling her as of late) had driven them all up to her parent’s place for a couple days because she had to help them stack up wood.  She’d let the toons help if they wanted, but if they didn’t want to they didn’t have to.  They’d all elected to help though, so here they were standing by a pile of lightly dusted wood.

“Okay,” she began, catching everyone’s attention. “Before we’re stacking any wood, y’all are wearing work gloves. Before you interrupt,” she sent a pointed look at Bendy, who had opened his mouth to protest. “I am well aware you already wear gloves.  These,” several pairs of gloves were brandished in her grip, flopping a little, “are meant to keep your hands from getting too cold and preventing splinters.” She began handing out gloves, even procuring a pair of insulated children’s mittens for Buddy.  “Now, this is how we’re going to do this,” she continued once everyone was wearing their gloves. “I am going to be taking wood from the bigger pile and tossing them into smaller piles for you guys to throw in the trailer.” She gestured to what she spoke of as she mentioned them.  “Bendy, Boris, and Alice, you’ll be handling most of the bigger pieces.  Buddy, you’re in charge of the smaller chunks and really light pieces, okay?  If any of you get too cold, don’t hesitate to tell me and we’ll all go in to warm up.”

Once they all conveyed understanding, they all got to work.  It was quiet and rather monotonous.  It left him plenty of time to think.  He knew what the wood was for, he’d seen the big furnace with its smokestack. He started debating with himself on how fire itself worked.  It occurred to him to just ask, but he was a little hesitant to do so after their previous caretaker; he reprimanded himself for thinking that Miss Mango was anything like Joey, prompting a traitorous little voice to remind him that Joey was nice at first too.  “Excuse me, Miss Mango?” Boris asked a little warily before his inner war escalated. She hummed in answer, fixing her scattered focus on the wolf. “I was just wonderin’, how exactly does fire work?”

Her face lit up a bit like a match had been struck behind her eyes. “It’s pretty simple actually, basic molecular combustion.  What happens is when the spark is generated, the flame starts consuming oxygen and whatever fuel is available and, through heat generating reactions, burns parts of the molecules away.  Ash and smoke are the leftovers from the reaction,” she explained as she threw a few more pieces into the short pile.  Buddy darted around carting the little chunks over to the large bucket trailer like a busy little ant. “Cool, right?”

Boris nodded enthusiastically, fascinated by the new information. She rattled off more facts about fire and wood as they worked, even bringing up stars at one point.  Boris may not have understood it all, but it was real neat to know.  As they worked, the toons didn’t exactly tire or get cold or achey quite yet, but she certainly did if her grimacing a bit by bending over again or her breathy breathing were any indication.  Every now and again, she’d pause in tossing the wood to bend over and rub at her lower back a bit, which the toons would all share a look at.  She only complained once about it, and that was to herself before doubling down on her work.

“‘Scuse me, Miss Mango?” Boris started, tapping the addressee on the shoulder. “Buddy’s startin’ to get chilly.  Can we all go in?”  She looked up at him with slightly unfocused eyes before regaining some clarity and processing the question.  “Yeah, of course.” she responded, and she escorted them all towards the house.

Inside was warm and cozy (like it is at The Maiden’s, Boris thought) the toons making sure to tap their shoes and feet clean of snow.  “Make sure you stick your gloves on the registers to dry them off" Miss Mango reminded them as she removed her shoes,  half-limping over to the mint green recliner sitting by the roll top desk and practically collapsing on it with a woosh of air and a faint groan.  The toons all followed her instructions, unsure of what else to do.

“Hey, Boris?” the wolf responded to his name by looking The Maiden’s way.  “Could you get hot cocoa for you guys? and maybe some tea for me?” she requested, pointing towards the kitchen.  She quickly stuttered out the locations of the mugs and hot chocolate packets as Boris hunched around the kitchen, feeling like a giant with the low, sloping ceiling as he followed the woman's instructions while Bendy, Buddy, and Alice all fought over the other armchair.

The door between the refrigerator and the desk opened and a greying middle aged woman shuffled out.  She froze once she spotted Boris, who struck his best Bigfoot pose by accident, and shrieked in fear.  Miss Mango was up immediately, eyes wide and suddenly sharp as she powerwalked over.  Boris whined at the sudden loud noise and started pulling at his ears.  The other toons jumped, Buddy disappearing behind the armchair as a default.

“Mom, it’s cool, they’re with me!” the blond attempted to explain, grabbing at the other woman’s shoulders.  The shrieking stopped as the greying lady’s frantic eyes darted between each of the toons and her apparent daughter.  Boris decided to give the apparent mother a friendly wave hello as her daughter explained to the best of her ability.

“So, you just… took in living cartoons?” summarized the greyed brunette. At Ink’s sheepish expression, the elder just chuckled and hugged her. “Oh, Emily, what am I going to do with you.”  Boris’ ears perked up at the new tidbit of information.

The Maiden’s real name is… underwhelmingly common.

Miss Mango’s mother helped Boris out with the hot cocoa while her daughter tried to coax Buddy out from behind the chair and reclaim her seat from Bendy, who had attempted to steal it after the whole fiasco was over.  He was eventually booted to the swivel chair, which he promptly spun on like a miffed planet, pouting the entire time until Alice crept over and spun him for herself.

Boris snickered at Bendy’s spinning as he brought over the mugs and set them down on the coffee table.  The toons formally introduced themselves to Miss Mango’s mother, and they all relaxed after a long few hours of work.

Chapter Text

Bendy snuggled deeper into the saggy couch and the comforter he was sharing with Boris as the snow came down in big clumps outside Miss Mango’s mother’s house; it was the sort of weather perfect for getting cozy and having a drink like they were. The sky progressively got darker as Ink’s father and siblings came home from work and school respectively. At one point before the snow had started coming down as heavily as now, Miss Mango had attempted to finish up the wood, only succeeding in driving the trailer over and dumping it.

Currently, Bendy had gotten a clipboard and was doodling pictures while some colorful cartoon about rock people Miss Mango had put on played on the TV mounted to the wall. Stomping could be heard near the door as the blond progressively peeled layers of cold weather insulation off. “I checked the fire, but at the rate it’s snowing it looks like we’ll be stuck inside for at least the rest of the day and half of tomorrow. We’re gonna get snowed in.” she announced to the house as she dropped her work gloves onto an unoccupied register.

Bendy went ridgid upon hearing that and bolted for Miss Mango’s room, abandoning his clipboard for a secluded space to hide. He never did do that well with being stuck in relatively limited spaces, and the studio had just made it worse. He paused in front of her bed, seeing the bottom shelves under the bed filled with books. He pulled out a bunch from some sort of wizard series and scooted into the hole, curling up into the duvet he stole off the bed. He dozed for a little while while The Maiden looked for him once she noticed he was gone; she’d even gone back outside to look for him to make sure he wasn’t going to get stuck out in the snow.

He didn’t hiss at her at all when she finally found him an hour later, and he definitely didn’t swipe at her hand when she tried to coax him out. Eventually she gave up trying to get him out with a suffering sigh. “If you’re gonna be down there, at least read some of the books you threw,” she joked as she organized them into a stack by the shelf he sat in. “Want me to bring you your cocoa?”

“Yeah.” his voice definitely didn’t squeak.

She softly padded out of the room and was back within seconds as Bendy started eyeing the books next to the shelf. In the studio, books were a relative rarity. The only books one would be able to find are Joey’s book often reserved for the Altar and the occasional novel left behind by bored employees. Once he’d found a Bible, but that made him feel weird so he avoided it. To suddenly be surrounded by a previous luxury was… something. Invigorating, tempting, either way he wanted to read. He sipped away at the cooling beverage as he pulled the book at the top of the pile to him and started reading about an orphan kid named Harry. Bendy couldn't help but relate to the poor guy, his aunt and uncle were horrible to him. The Sorcerer’s Stone thing was confusing though.

“Excuse me, Miss Maiden?” Bendy asked, poking his head out of his hiding place and not noticing the verbal slip. Within moments she was in the room. “What do you need there, kiddo?” she asked. “What’s a Sorcerer’s Stone?” the horned toon continued, cocking his head at an angle.

“It’s supposed to be the Philosopher’s Stone, but the localization company thought kids wouldn't get that so they changed it. A stupid change in my opinion, Fullmetal Alchemist did the Philosopher’s Stone thing just fine.” she explained, noticeably annoyed at the localization.

“That does sound kinda stupid,” Bendy said as he resumed his reading. This story was just so interesting! He couldn’t help but grin as he absorbed the words on the page about a Halloween feast. “Oh wow, you’re already halfway done with that?” The Maiden commented in awe. “I don’t think even I can read that fast.”

Bendy blushed at the comment, noticing the hidden complement, and will absolutely deny ever hissing at getting pat on the head by his host. “Don’t forget about your hot chocolate, it’s losing half its name, and dinner’s done so you can come out and get your plate.” The Maiden said as she placed a doodle-covered index card onto the book pile and walked out of the room. Bendy debated either leaving his cave to grab his own food or bugging Alice, Boris, or Buddy (his siblings he supposed) to grab it for him so he could keep reading.

He reluctantly uncurled and crawled out of the shelf, sticking the index card into the page he was on before leaving the room and carrying the book the whole way. In the kitchen, The Maiden was doling out plates to the toons. Her smile widened when she saw him. “Hey, you came out! That’s good.” she chirped as she handed him a cream plastic plate with some shepherd's pie heaped onto it. He grabbed his plate and a fork that was also offered to him and swiftly retreated back to the bookshelf, finishing off his hot chocolate before digging into the food. He wanted to eat before he got lost in the world of Hogwarts again. He’d hate to forget to eat while he read. He was done in record time and dashed to drop his dishes into the kitchen sink so he could get back to reading asap.

Back under the shelf, he cracked open the well-worn paperback and started devouring the story once again. He was at the giant chess game the next time Miss Mango checked on him. “How you doing there, Bendy?” He pretended not to hear her, eyes skating over detailing of how Harry, Ron, and Her-something completed tasks. He heard The Maiden chuckle at his absorption with the story and leave the room with no further comment.

He finished the book half an hour later and started tearing his way through the second one in the pile as the clock ticked later and later.

_____

Ink smiled fondly at the sight. Bendy had fallen asleep reading, a scant few chapters into Prisoner of Azkaban and curled into himself with a faint smile and a relaxed brow. The woman took a moment to appreciate how comfortable he looked as opposed to his always being slightly tense in waking, as well as to reminiscence about how she’d devoured the series with just as much fervor. She knew that the toons had come from someplace bad, but seeing them comfortable around her warmed her heart. She may not exactly want kids, but she was more than happy to have the toons with her if it meant they were safe and happy.

She gently pried the book from Bendy’s hands, bookmarking his place with the stray index card and placed it onto the larger book pile. She picked the demon up, cradling him in her arms and carrying him over to the couch with the mattress pulled out where the other toons were sleeping. She tucked him in next to Alice and gave him a soft kiss on his forehead, making sure to kiss the other three on the forehead as well even though she had when she put them to bed (she’d attempted to give Buddy a bath earlier and succeeded somewhat, his big blue-green eyes were no longer ink-covered but he had clearly suffered from some sort of wound to his face). Bendy shifted a little and mumbled something about someone named Henry before settling into his spot as the other toons subconsciously reacted to the new addition to the bed by curling around him. Alice wrapped one arm around the smaller demon and Buddy, who insisted on sleeping at the foot of the bed perpendicular to the other toons, slowly scooted his way up to cuddle Bendy’s feet.

Miss Mango yawned and slouched off to the adjacent loveseat after turning off the light and closing the door to her room. She may have her own room, but no way in hell is she leaving the toons to wake up somewhere unfamiliar without her. That’s just bad parenting.

Chapter Text

Sorry this month's chapter has been so late, this latest chapter has been giving me writer's block. Also, since i've been getting a lot more writing practice in as of late, i'm honestly not too happy with the chapters i've posted anymore. so, i'm going to be rewriting all of la doncella that i have written. the major plot will stay the same, i'm just going to add more details and charaterization i felt i missed in the earlier chapters. thanks for reading so far <3