Work Text:
Joey had had a lot of monumentally bad ideas in his life. This one, though, this one really had to take the cake. The result was now at the front door, cold and stiff. Joey pressed his ear towards the door to listen in, brow furrowed and trying to keep his hands from trembling.
“So he’s here?” A young woman was asking, her tone sharp and direct.
“Yes, he’s here,” Esther replied. Her voice was calm and soothing, with a casual tone as though she was used to talking to the woman at the door. “I’m... assuming you got the letter.”
“He said he’d explain everything.” The young woman sounded angry, which was completely understandable.
“And he will. I’ll make sure he will,” Esther reassured her gently. “But you need to keep in mind, the things he’s going to say are going to be... strange.”
“Strange? How?” This seemed to catch the young woman off guard. “He’s done the classic trope of ‘going to get some milk’. How strange could that get?”
Esther paused, her head moving back as though about to call Joey, then reconsidered the action with a quiet sigh and slight sardonic smile. “Your father has been involved in some... very unbelievable events. And if I hadn’t witnessed some of these things with my own eyes, I wouldn’t believe them either.”
“What does that mean?”
Joey’s grip on the doorknob tightened, the nails on his other hand digging into the wood of the door. Good lord, what was he thinking with all of this? There was no way she would even come close to believing anything of what had happened to him. Esther hadn’t even believed it at first. Luckily he had had at least half a dozen witnesses who could confirm his story.
“Well, he promised you answers, didn’t he?” Esther laughed quietly, knowing her audience well. “Come on in and ask him. Slight warning; he looks… maybe like you remember him.”
“Okay?” The young woman said slowly, inhaling long and deep. “Okay.”
Joey heard her step inside and the door close behind her. This was it. It was now or never. He could either stay in the guest bedroom and hide or he could go out and face her. Face the child he had abandoned. He could not hide anymore. He was done avoiding his mistakes.
With a deep breath, he turned the knob and stepped out. He could not see the living room from where he was down the hallway, which somehow both helped with and increased his mounting anxiety. He was not yet face-to-face with her. A part of him whispered that he could still go back, could still hide. He tried to shake it off.
“Joey? Are you ready to come out yet?” Esther’s voice was kind at his door. He swallowed hard, pushing back some of his hair, glancing at his hand to make sure no ink-stained his fingers after the action. He was relieved that there was nothing, seeing as no matter how much he showered, he still somehow managed to find ink somewhere on him. Especially when he was nervous. And now, he was definitely beyond nervous. Rachel had joked that after all his time spent within the Ink Demon he probably sweated ink now. She was probably right.
“I’m... I’m coming!” He called back, wincing at how much his voice shook. He took another deep breath and forced himself to walk forward, ignoring how much his body was trembling. He flashed a smile to no one, and felt himself relax just the slightest bit. He stepped out of the room and came into the kitchen, forcing himself to look at his little girl; not nearly so little anymore. She was around, what, half his current physical age? God, what had he done? “Alright. I’m here.”
He almost lost his nerve again when he finally caught sight of her. She was seated on the couch, arms folded. Audrey. His daughter. She looked so much like him. The same sharp brown eyes, the same gentle curve of the jaw, the same arrogant, defensive stance. She looked even more like him when she was frowning like this. He wondered vaguely if Esther would bring this up to tease him, but it did not seem likely at the moment as she was in the kitchen, getting a pot of tea.
Meanwhile, she was looking directly at him, her clear eyes like twin daggers on his face. She narrowed her eyes slightly.
“Why do you look so young?” She demanded. Mistrustful, quick to judge. Remind you of someone, Joey old boy?
“Perks of being suspended in ink for 20 years,” he laughed weakly.
Her brow furrowed, evidently unsure how to reply to such a statement.
Joey sighed, sitting down across from her. “Look. I know you have questions. I’ll do my best to answer them. And maybe… maybe after that, even if you can’t forgive me, you can understand it all a little more, at least.”
“Where were you?” was the first question, immediate and commanding. “For twenty years, suspended in ink? What does that mean?”
Joey let out a long exhale. Alright. This was the difficult part. “I... performed a spell that trapped me and the other employees of the studio in magical ink for 20 years. I... don’t remember what my original goal was with it. I just... didn’t want to admit I’d failed.” He still remembered how hopeless he had felt. How angry. How much he had so desperately wanted to just tear everything down, and take as many people down with him as he could. Shame bubbled up in his chest at the memory. It had not been fair for him to take everyone with him into his misery.
“You can’t seriously expect me to believe that.” Audrey scoffed. She folded her arms tighter, sitting straighter from her position on the couch. Joey spotted Esther in the doorway, nodding at him encouragingly.
“I understand how ridiculous it sounds,” he conceded, spreading his palms open and upwards. “And I understand that you probably think I’m lying to cover my ass and make myself look better. This is not going to make me look better, trust me. I want...” He faltered, his breath hitching. “I want you to know the truth. I don’t want to hide anything.”
“Well then, who was my mother?” She asked, almost challenging him with how impossible to answer that question felt to both of them.
Joey grimaced. “That is... a long story.”
“You said you’d answer my questions.” She smiled slightly, the expression defiant, daring him to answer. “And I think this one is good to start with.”
“I’m dying to know the answer as well.” Esther reentered the room with a tray of tea cups and a teapot. “You just dropped a baby on me, told me it was a long story, and never elaborated. And I can’t imagine you having sex with a woman. Without protection, though, that’s another story.” She gave Audrey an apologetic smile. “Sorry you had to hear that, Audrey.”
Joey buried his face in his hands, cheeks hot with embarrassment. This was the last thing he wanted to talk about. He would even have preferred to talk about the multiple murders he had committed. But no. This was where he had to start- and maybe it would be better this way, too. “Alright.” He sat up, folding his hands. “So, I had... a bit of an ink- er, alcohol problem in the later years of the studio. Which was one of the things that led to... poorer than usual decision making.”
“I don’t like where this is going,” Audrey said, lip drawing in a sharp curve. Esther recognized the frown to be identical to her brother’s. It would have made her smile if her sisterly disapproval was not driving a hole in her heart.
“It’s only going to get worse from here. Anyway, one day, when I had gotten... much drunker than I probably should have been at work, I decided it would be a genius idea to create an ink copy of Henry. I’m assuming you know who that is.”
“Oh, Joey... You didn’t....” Esther groaned.
“Didn’t what?” Audrey looked between Esther and Joey, fear and terror dawning on her face. A sense of dread began to form in the pit of her stomach.
The memory came flooding back. He tried to ignore it, time and time again, always pushed it out of the forefront of his thoughts, but it persisted. The stress of the deadlines, the loneliness that breathed over his shoulder. The anger burning on a simmer, and the numbing buzz of the ink and drink.
The wanting, the needing of Henry. The way the ink molded to his thoughts and desires, dark and sinister and imperfect, but good for the moment. More than good. Desperately summoned forth, answered with the pains of a man still in love, so in love, and yet missing the object of his affections.
He remembered the taste of ink on his tongue, the feeling of liquid given form under his fingertips, the smell of those fumes messing with his head further, his warmth met with frigid coldness.
Yet it was enough.
More than enough.
“I had sex with an ink copy of my best friend.” There. He said it. The words were bitter on his tongue. “At first I thought that it was some weird alcohol-induced dream, but a few months later a baby popped out of the machine.”
“Oh, Joey.” Now it was Esther’s turn to bury her face in her hands.
“The machine?! What machine?!” Audrey demanded, panic in her eyes.
“The ink machine,” Esther supplied, her voice muffled. “Joey commissioned a man named Thomas Connor to build it. It was supposed to create figures.”
“It did much more than that. Tell me, Audrey, have you ever broken a bone?” Joey asked quietly, looking at her intently. “Or even bled?”
“I... I’ve bled!” Audrey pressed herself back against the couch. “I’ve gotten cuts and scrapes before!”
“And what color was it?” Joey was calm now, frustratingly so. He shrugged lightly, though his eyes did not leave her face. “Red? Purple? Blue? Black.”
“Red! Of course!” Audrey shot back, but her voice faltered as she went back through her memories.
A skinned knee on the playground prompting the other children to ask why her blood was so dark. A papercut that stained the paper black. Not tasting copper as other people described when she bit her lip but something more bitter.
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner.” Joey’s voice was soft. “But… I didn’t want to confuse or upset you. Having a progenitor of metal and ink probably would not have been a welcome revelation for you.”
“Did you know about this?” Audrey looked at Esther, who shook her head.
“No, I didn’t.” She answered more clearly, rather shaken. “I… had no idea.”
“I didn’t tell anyone. Not even Tom,” Joey muttered, his cheeks still red.
“You probably should have told him.” Esther finally sat up, folding her hands. “He might have been able to figure out how it happened.”
“Oh, right, tell him I had sex with ink, that would go well,” Joey replied sourly. “He already thought I was a pathetic degenerate. That would only have made it worse.”
“He didn’t think that-” Esther began, only to stop, sighing and pinching the bridge of her nose. “Let’s just move on, alright?”
“Fine by me.” Joey folded his arms in sullen defiance.
Audrey silently looked between them, brow furrowed in the same way- Joey tore his gaze away.
“I’m... sorry I didn’t tell you sooner,” he said quietly.
“This can’t be real...” Audrey murmured and shook her head, wrapping her arms around herself. “That... That can’t be right.”
“Would it make you feel better if I distracted you by talking about my war crimes?” Joey asked, hoping this would lighten the mood. “Well, they’re technically not violations of the Geneva Convention, but they’re atrocious nonetheless.”
Esther gave him a disapproving look and swatted at his shoulder.
“What?” Joey rubbed his shoulder. “I thought it would lighten the mood!”
“How would talking about war crimes lighten the mood?” Esther asked incredulously.
“I don’t know!” Joey threw his hands up. “I just thought it would take her mind off of things! If she’s angry and disgusted with me, she’s not thinking about heavy existential nonsense!”
“You could have at least approached it more tactfully.”
“How do you approach war crimes tactfully?”
The argument was broken up by a small laugh from Audrey. The siblings looked over to see Audrey covering her mouth, trying to stifle the giggles that were bubbling up.
“Like that,” Joey replied smugly. “As tactfully as falling down an elevator shaft.”
Esther rolled her eyes, but the tension seemed to leave her shoulders at seeing Audrey smile.
“Well, at least I know it’s really you now,” Audrey said, unable to hide her smile. “You can’t fake a sibling dynamic like that.”
Esther smiled over at the surprised-looking Joey, giving his shoulder a slight squeeze. “Yeah. You’re right about that, aren’t you?”
Joey awkwardly cleared his throat, looking away. “Maybe we can... get back to the crimes later. I...” He hesitated before looking back at Audrey. “I’d like to hear what you’ve been doing.”
Audrey’s expression clouded for a moment but she smiled just a touch.
“It’s a long story.”
Joey smiled back. “I’d love to hear it.”