Chapter Text
"Joey, go to the corner, you did bad."
Joey’s brow furrows and he opens his mouth to argue, but no sound comes out. After a second, the finger he had raised in objection curls just a bit, right as his mouth shuts once more. Finally, he brings that hand to his chin and he squints in thought with a small “….hm.”
He turns around and walks to the corner.
"Hey Joey!!! How did you come to start Joey Drew Studios and the Bendy shorts?"
The ginger-haired man’s eyes gleam alongside the bright grin upon his face, a giggly “oh!” quickly falling out of his mouth as he claps his hands and lifts himself to the tips of his toes in excitement. “Lovely question, lovely question!”
He stills himself just as quickly, readjusting his top hat, and a brief, playful eyebrow raise can be seen under the shadow of the hat’s rim. “All Henry, you see! Well, I don’t think he’d care for me saying that, BUT-!” The words come as quickly as he can think, whimsy unfiltered. “I’ll say that the studio as we know it wouldn’t exist without him, that’s for sure! In fact, he uh-”
The last part of that sentence begins to trail, and soon we are left with someone wading waist-deep in their own reminiscence. The expression upon his face is gentle and lost in memory, a small smile slightly open mid-thought and eyelids lowered further over his honey-colored eyes.
“He drew the first sketch.” His shoulders rise and fall in a silent sigh, and his gaze falls to the floor and then returns to you, now filled with emotion. The next statement is tinged with both the delight and the heartache of a younger self’s dreams. “We just wanted to make the world a more magical place.”
"OC you should tell sammy more stuff abt modern culture, like new music and shrek"
he young woman finally lifts her eyes from the question, lower eyelids lifted so far upward that it affects her vision. The grimace is long across her face, trying not choke from her own laughter.
“What is it?” Sammy chimes, leaning into the doorway after hearing these odd noises. He notices her shoulders shake from containing chuckles, and so his tone is of concern.
“It- it’s- nothing,” she hardly speaks.
His mask moves up and down as he looks the woman over, observing her odd demeanor. “You don’t seem well, my friend.” He watches her shoulders lurch up and down with a small huff of air from her nose. Facing her back, he can’t see her having to bite her lip to keep from bellowing.
“I’m great!” She suddenly dips her head. “I’m an all-star,” she mutters.
There’s an awkward moment of silence, she trying to still herself as best as possible. Outright screaming could hardly be contained when Sammy finally leaves her be once again. Once the laughter is finished, she says to herself more than you, “I’m not sure I’m f*cking ready for that just yet!”
"Alice, do you remember a man by the name of Joey Drew and if so, what happened to him?"
A gasp, a shaky one, one of surprise and of…discomfort. She thoughtlessly puts one hand to her mouth, and her lone eye widens. “Joey…” she repeats, for herself rather than you. Her head tilts slightly down, looking at the floor. “…I do,” she responds, voice loud but its weakness evident. “He wanted- he just wanted Alice-” She corrects herself. “…Me to be perfect. He knew I could be, and I’ve…always agreed.” She shifts a little, brow furrowed but still unwilling to meet your gaze. To say she’s thinking isn’t the right descriptor. No, it’s more like she’s struggling with something.
“He’s still here somewhere. I know it.” She returns to you, hand at her mouth now moving down in front of her torso, a light striking motion to match her determination. “I saw him. Yes, I saw him!” She’s growing louder and louder, more and more sure of her frustration. “Early on, before Henry came, he…found me. He saw me, too.” But suddenly, it drops. You see her eye and the empty socket mirroring it crinkle in painful memory. “…He screamed.”
Her expression grows into a scowl and her next words are yelled, filling the emptiness with echoes.
“WELL, I’M HERE, JOEY! I PROVED TO YOU I CAN DO IT! I’M FINALLY ALICE! I’M PERFECT, JUST LIKE WE WANTED!!!”
She’s lying to herself.
"Prophet is a good boy"
Sammy is…very still. Simply standing there, silent and unmoving except for the slight runniness of his inky skin. You can almost see him blink behind his mask.
“Ah…uh…” Almost resolutely, he nods slightly. “Thank you.”
"Ok I finally thought of a good question: Are the OC and Sammy good singers? I know the OC has sung once and Sammy is known for being pretty musical--but are they any good? Either in your opinion or their own of each other?"
The young woman seems lost in her own mind for a second, a daydream to be precise. This question brings to her a strange swirl of different emotions- softness, awe, novelty, joy, admiration, and finally…pity.
“There was- there was one time I heard him sing,” she confesses quietly, gaze looking down and to the side with a faded smile. “In his music room, the place with all the instruments?” The small smile widens till it reaches her eyes as she recalls this special moment. “It was…unexpected. Lovely.” She nods affirmingly at you, finally looking your way. “He’s a lovely singer.” The grin remains, but inevitably the grim nature of it washes over her eyes. “He really…puts his soul into it. You can tell.”
The woman looks over her shoulder where Sammy sits a ways back unawares, using his four-fingered hands to teach himself how to play a song of the banjo meant for five.
“You can tell it’s all he’s had,” she mutters solemnly.
(Pipes here to add some detail! Sammy is definitely a good singer but I imagine his voice isn’t necessarily conventional. There’s something unique about it that’s somehow beautiful and utterly his own. As for the OC, she’s sung multiple times in the story but never in Sammy’s presence, so he has no opinion as of yet on her voice. I like to try to convey that her singing is at least decent but obviously untrained- also a sort of special quality to it, I think! If I had to guess, I think he’d enjoy hearing another person’s singing for once.)