Tides of Longing (Bendy and the Ink Machine)

6- Mask

Author's Notes: The art for this chapter is by Insane-Control-Room on Tumblr.

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"For we walk by faith, not by sight." – 2 Corinthians 5:7

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Mindless wandering often ironically means someone is in deeper thought than you could ever guess. So it was now. Sometime after Bendy left them be, one of the two disciples had finally felt that they couldn't just be- at least as they were- so they then decided to be somewhere else. The other followed suit, lulled by the draw of companionship and reflection. Which was the first to get up? Neither could recall, and so it didn't matter.

Both were immersed in emotions and reminiscence nonetheless. It was all they could do after being confronted with something just on the cusp of their understanding- just within sight but not within a grasp that wouldn't leave them tumbling off the edge entirely.

Sammy's chin lifted, memories and feelings of one kind drifting into those of another as familiarity overwhelmed his senses just enough to snap him back to the present.

The last time he had reached the end of the hallway of his- he still couldn't believe it, his- old office was so shortly after the woman had first arrived. Back when he had abandoned her to sort out his reeling mind-

Having stopped unconsciously, Francine had done so as well and was now looking up at him in gentle, unquestioning but still curious wait.

-...All this they experienced together since had led him to promise he wouldn't do so again not just once but twice, only for him to break it as many times.

All he could do with her unearned trust was to sigh and turn his head back forward, taking in the view of the piling ink that entrapped the glass room that bore his name, where he had first kept her "safe" from the rest of this eternal abyss.

He still didn't notice the glass was more broken than when he saw it before.

Although Francine didn't grasp his ways this moment- or well, ever- she still accepted it, and so the woman leaned against her side of the hallway with folded arms and one foot crossed behind the other as he observed his fragmented past. Shoulders rose and fell with a sigh of her own as she recognized this place too, but a small glimmer at his side reminded her of a conversation that had almost drifted away.

Sammy almost didn't perceive it as she slightly unfolded one arm, using it to point at the nearly forgotten pair of glasses.

"Really don't know what those are, huh?" she asked not mockingly but with genuineness- consideration for the man who could distinguish little from the outside world. And as he merely nodded, she began to wonder why she was so perplexed that he didn't. Must have been because whenever he was from must have had glasses, but doubtlessly they had shirts, too, and he said before that he hadn't seen those in God knows how long. The repetition of endless eternity without certain objects must have done a good number erasing knowledge they existed, she surmised.

Again, trying to push back that this was the spell in which she now lived.

...Although Sammy's mental walls built brick by brick by the swamping of ink didn't help either. When would he tell her that a few of the blocks had fallen out, allowing him to barely peer into a sliver of something beyond his comprehension?

Maybe never. As much as his lord's inexplicable behavior had shaken him- his entire perspective of his existence and purpose- he still clung to one thing that her last encounter with the angel made him believe.