Work Text:
Rain is pounding above Susie's head, the sound almost peaceful, if it weren't for the striking similarity to the ink that now coursed through the studio halls in the pipelines above, trickling along the walls to drip onto the floorboards. The meeting room is almost empty, save for Wally, who's busy whittling at the edge of a table with a pocket knife -- it's something Joey had told him long ago to stop, but Wally rarely listens to things like that -- and Susie can't bring herself to make him. Sammy is sitting hunched in the other corner, arms crossed, eyes on his watch. He's been incredibly grumpy and short-tempered lately, driving several band members to tears in only the last two days, and is currently the reason why this 'meeting' is being held.
Susie doesn't understand why he's been acting this way.
Always Joey's fault, Sammy had seethed to her just yesterday, and she had nodded, smiled, and backed away.
Joey's fault, Wally had said automatically once she cornered him in the hallways.
Probably Joey's fault, Norman had told her once she managed to straighten her sentences to him so they didn't mush into a jumble of words, like they always do whenever she's stressed.
Joey's fault. Honestly, she's not exactly surprised. The installation of the Ink Machine has been getting to them in so many ways, none of them exactly positive.
But besides that, the only problem right now is that Norman's late.
Or she would assume he's late. The projectionist always seemed to be lurking in corners that she never thought possible, only emerging when someone noticed he was missing, but today doesn't seem the case at least.
"Do you know where Norman is?" she asks Wally, partially because Sammy doesn't seem up for conversation, and partially because she needs something to do. She'd bet a whole five dollars that the janitor had no idea where the other was.
Wally shrugs, side-eyeing Sammy as well. "Nah. Haven't seen him all day, really."
Sammy returns Wally's glance with a glare and Wally quickly looks away again, earning a huff from the music director. He stands, pushing back his chair with a resounding screech and as both occupants in the room turn to look at him, he gestures sharply to the door. "This is a waste of time. Those tunes aren't going to write themselves, you know."
Susie lets him go. She doesn't want to deal with another outburst today. "Just don't murder anyone," she reminds him, half teasing, and he grumbles something under his breath that sounds vaguely like 'Joey Drew' before leaving.
The door slams shut so forcefully, it's a wonder it didn't fly off the hinges altogether.
So much for trying to get him to quell his temper.
Susie sighs and sits down across from Wally, who's now trying to etch something akin to Bendy onto the table. "I thought Joey told you not to do that."
"Eh, it's not like he really pays attention to what's on the tables."
She shakes her head in exasperation and is about to reprimand him that the whole point is to not provoke Joey to do anything more than he has already -- which included cutting wages, whittling it down to the bare minimum of twenty five cents -- but the door reopens.
She half-expects to see Sammy in the doorway, but instead, it's Norman, drenched in rainwater, the bottom of his trousers coated in a thin layer of ink from the hallways.
"Norman!" She stands quickly, moving towards the projectionist. "Is it really that bad out there?"
"The ink or the rain, Miss Campbell?" he asks, smiling slightly.
"The rain, of course," she replies, noting the way he's slightly hunched, hand pressed inside his coat. "And what's that?"
He withdraws the item. To her, it's a jumble of wires curved in a half-circle, strange padding on the sides and thin pieces of metal jutting from the pads. To him, though, it seems much more valuable.
"They're headphones," Norman explains, setting them on the table between the trio. Wally edges closer to it, lowering his face so his eyes are almost level to the headphones. Susie notes that he doesn't try to touch it, probably for risk of breaking it. It seems to be in terrible condition, anyway, almost falling apart. "I thought they might be able to help our problem."
"How?" Wally asks, judgmental gaze smoothing over into curiosity as he gazes at the metal wires on the table. "This barely looks like it's gonna work."
"Not now, it doesn't," Norman explains patiently. "But I can try to fix it--"
"And it'll help Sammy?" Susie frowns. "What is it supposed to do?"
"Listen to music," Norman says, as if it's the most obvious thing in the world, "and block out sound. The radio had a jack for the wires last time I checked. I can hook 'em up to the radio, and Sammy will be able to block out whatever poor soul is throttling their instrument instead of yelling at the entire band and holding up schedule. I know the ink problem is still an issue, but maybe this'll help."
There's silence for a full minute before Susie claps her hands in delight. "That actually sounds like a good idea! We'll have to get him out of his office to get to the radio, though. How long do you think it will take to get the headphones--" Here, she pauses, the word tasting rather strange in her mouth. A phone for your head? It was an interesting concept, even more so that it was currently sitting before her very eyes. "--get the headphones working again?"
Norman shrugs, glancing down at the object. "I have no clue. I've never worked with these before. Spooling film reels is all I'm good at, really."
That wasn't really the most encouraging thing he could've said, but Susie smiles at him anyway. Thank god they now have a way to diminish some of Sammy's annoyance. Now if Norman could fix the headphones, and they could somehow distract Sammy long enough for the technology to be installed, things could potentially work out.
--
Norman spends more than a week working on the headphones. It's hard for him to find time, which Susie understands. Joey's been compressing their schedules into tight time slots to get each episode out of the way. Everyone is working overtime, all while barely earning enough to live.
But still, part of her irrational side is impatient. Things aren't getting worse, as far as she can tell, or maybe because the work days blended into a constant cycle of ink and complaints. It's only a matter of time before someone explodes, more namely Sammy than anyone else, and they need those headphones.
Something inside her completely glosses over the fact that the headphones could just not work and they'd be forced to find another solution in addition to Sammy's frustration at being distracted for no reason. Maybe she's a hopeless dreamer. Maybe she just couldn't afford to think of the consequences if it didn't work since they were all in too deep to allow any other setbacks.
Norman pulls her aside after one of Sammy's tirades interrupt the band for the tenth time about a week later, and the look on his face is enough to tell Susie everything.
"You did it?"
There's a nod in response, and she giggles softly in relief. "Oh, that's good! We just need to get him from his office."
Norman smiles. "There's no need for that. He went upstairs to rant to Mister Drew. Wally's following him to try to keep him distracted a little longer, but we have five minutes at most."
Susie nods. She knows Wally probably took a lot of convincing to follow the music director. The janitor definitely liked to look for trouble, but when it came to Sammy, it was a hard stop. "What did you do to persuade him?"
"His keys," Norman says and Susie stops, staring at him in mock horror.
"Not his keys! He's been looking for them for a while. Where were they?"
"In my pocket." The projectionist moves ahead of her as they venture down the hallway and Susie just smiles and shakes her head at his attempt to deadpan it. "It wasn't too hard to find 'em. I saw him drop it in the break room and he didn't come back to get 'em for two days."
"You're a mystery, Norman. All that sneaking is going to get you into trouble someday," Susie chastises him and he has the premonition to duck his head slightly.
"Hey now, he had two whole days."
They're in front of Sammy's office now, and Susie notes the ugly pump switch and puddles of ink across the floor as she treads carefully through the mess. She can see now why Sammy is so on edge. All this mess would go to someone's head eventually. Norman has reached the desk, extracting the fixed headphones from his trouser pocket, fiddling with the wiring to try to tease it into the radio. Susie keeps one eye on him and one eye on the door, because if Sammy got in...
Footsteps.
She turns, opens her mouth to warn Norman, but the projectionist merely grunts. "I know, I know. Give me a few."
"We might not have a few," she hisses back, and the door slams open to reveal Wally, panting hard.
"I tried to get him to stay away from his office, but he just kept getting more suspicious."
"Is he coming?" Susie returns, and Wally nods frantically, his cap nearly falling off his head.
"We gotta get outta here," the janitor manages, as the door swings open again and nearly slams him against the wall. Sammy stands there in the doorway, narrowed eyes taking in the scene in front of him: Wally positioned awkwardly near the door, Susie standing in the middle of the office, and Norman near his desk, tweaking with the radio.
Sammy allows them two seconds of horror before he speaks. "What. The hell. Are you doing."
There's a click and a sharp sparking noise and Norman makes a triumphant noise before turning to face Sammy, face somehow looking both wary and composed at the same time. "Try it out."
"Try what out, Polk?"
Susie seems to break herself from her frozen position to gesture to the radio, now connected to the headphones. "Music, Sammy. It's like portable music for you to listen to--"
"I have a radio for that," Sammy interrupts, looking slightly less pissed. It's probably because Susie is the one talking, but she presses onward anyway. "Why do you need to connect all those wires to it?"
"Here." Norman offers the music director the headphones, and Sammy reluctantly crosses the room to take it, staring down at it without comprehending.
"What am I supposed to do with this?"
The question is directed at Susie, who shrugs helplessly and turns to Norman. The projectionist sighs. "Put it on your head."
Sammy makes eye contact with each of them, slowly, as if to say if anything happens to me, you'll regret it, before slowly placing the headphones on his head, the pads covering his ears. Norman watches him until Sammy lowers his hands and then turns on the radio.
The look on Sammy's face is one of surprise. It's not the bad kind, the one that Susie knew to clear out whenever it showed, but it's a bit more.. pleasant, maybe. And then he smiles, something that she hasn't seen on Sammy in a while. Susie smiles in return.
"Well?"
Sammy tilts his head slightly and removes the headphones. "What?"
"How is it?" Susie asks. "We thought that if you could just listen to music or just block out the sound of the band and the people coming in through to the ink switch, you could focus more."
Sammy nods slowly, eyes trailing from Norman to Wally, who is still standing frozen near the door, to Susie. "It's... good," he says finally, and Norman laughs through his nose.
"We'll leave you to work, then." He moves past the music director and heads towards the door, Wally breaking from his trance long enough to receive the keys the projectionist hands to him, Susie following not long after. But all three of them hear the two words that no one ever heard Sammy Lawrence say in such a long time.
"....Thank you."
--
The radio lays discarded on his desk, jumbles of wires stretching from it, covered in ink. He stares at them, trying to remember what they were called. Headcheer? Headpony? Head--
Headphones.
With the name comes faces, faces he doesn't recognize, doesn't remember. There were feelings of gratitude there, too, and he briefly closes his eyes to the memory of it, trying to grasp it with tendrils of his mind, but it slips away, just out of reach.
The angel, the projectionist, the janitor. The angel, with her smile and way of calming him down, a voice that would lighten the mood. The projectionist, with his experience for technical things, hands working at the film the same hands that produced this piece of metal. The janitor, always in his way but that one time he was in his way, he was doing it to help, wasn't he? They weren't really friends more so than coworkers, but what were their names, what were their names, what were their--
Whispers fill his head, blocking out the sound and he laughs, the sound jarring to his own non-existent ears, broken and cracked, insanity seeping through the fractures in whatever mind he had salvaged by staring at this thing, this absolute worthless thing that he hated he didn't know why but he loved it but he didn't want it near him what were these memories, what--
His Savior. His Lord, his Savior was calling to him. Now was not a time to delve into the inky darkness of his lost mind. He sweeps the object to the floor, crushing it underfoot as he heads back to the door.
His Lord doesn't allow for distractions.