#inked!sammy

Those leaking pipes could certainly be one hell of a problem. Henry had gotten trapped in the music department again, ink flooding the stairway. In order to get out, he’d have to activate the pump switch in Sammy’s office - and, in order to get in there, he’d have to shut off the valve from his sanctuary first. These faulty pipes sure were a hassle to deal with.

Henry switched on the projector in the balcony overlooking the recording studio, then ran down there to play the right combination of instruments in time. How on earth doing this got Sammy’s sanctuary to open, he had no clue, but nothing made sense in this studio anymore. All that mattered was that it worked.

The sanctuary opened, and Henry entered to find none other than Sammy Lawrence himself, slouched over in the far corner, his mask lying on the floor nearby. This was quite a surprise; he was sure Bendy had killed Sammy after the attempted sacrifice a couple days prior. Henry approached him cautiously, unsure how dangerous he was.

“Sammy?” No response. When Henry got close enough, he could see Sammy was clearly unconscious. “Sammy, are you alright?” He put his hand on Sammy’s shoulder and shook him gently in an attempt to wake him. Sammy shot awake and instantly recoiled in pain, holding his injured shoulder.

“You again... who are-” He suddenly began coughing violently, even coughing up a little blood.

Wait, blood? Human blood? Not ink?

That was both relieving and concerning. It meant he was still human - well, probably human - but he was also in need of serious medical attention.

Henry gently placed his hand on Sammy’s uninjured shoulder reassuringly.

“Sammy, you’ll be alright. You’ll be okay. I’ll get us out of here. I’ll get you help. Everything’s gonna be fine, okay?” In truth, he was trying to reassure himself as much as he was trying to reassure Sammy. He still had no idea if he’d ever find a way out of the studio; even if he did, he wasn’t sure if Sammy would last long enough.

“Who are you?” Sammy asked again after his coughing fit had subsided.

“It’s me, Henry. I used to work here with you, remember?”

“Henry...” Sammy just stared at him, wide-eyed. Henry couldn’t tell from his expression if Sammy actually remembered him or not.

“Do you remember me?” No response, just a vacant stare. “Sammy?” Henry waved a hand in front of his face to recapture his attention, somewhat concerned by his unresponsiveness.

“Yeah, I remember...” he eventually answered.

“What happened to you, anyway?” Henry asked. Sammy immediately tensed up at that question and began to tremble in fear. He looked absolutely terrified.

“Bendy... Bendy happened. I tried to appease him, but-” He suddenly began coughing again. “But he- he didn’t-” His attempts to keep speaking only made his coughing fit worse.

“Take it easy,” Henry told him. “Don’t push yourself. I understand what’s going on.” For now, it was enough to know it was Bendy’s attack on him that left him in this state. He could ask more later if he needed, but, right now, he didn’t want to force Sammy to keep speaking when it was clearly causing him pain. Once Sammy had recovered himself again, Henry offered to bring him to the safe house.

“Come with me,” he said. “I’ll get you somewhere safe.”

“No, it’s- it’s too dangerous out there.”

“You’ll be okay. I’ll keep you safe.” He helped Sammy up to his feet. Sammy barely had the strength to stand, even with Henry’s assistance, so he had to bear most of Sammy’s weight, Sammy’s good arm slung over his shoulders. He could only hope they didn’t run into any danger on the way to the safe house. Defending both himself and Sammy while supporting like this would not be an easy task.

Unfortunately, avoiding danger in this studio was practically impossible. The pair made it about halfway to the safe house without incident. Henry hadn’t noticed that he’d been bearing more and more of Sammy’s weight until he felt Sammy begin to slip. Great. Sammy had fallen unconscious. He adjusted his hold on him to better support him - and that was when the ink appeared. On the walls, the ceiling, the floor - the telltale sign that Bendy was near.

There couldn’t have been a worse time for this.

In the middle of a hallway with neither a hiding place nor Bendy in sight, Henry didn’t know which way to run - or if he even could run fast enough while carrying the unconscious musician. Standing in one spot wouldn’t do any good, though; Bendy would surely find them.

So he picked a direction and ran. It was a fifty-fifty shot he’d be running away from Bendy - certainly better than keeping still in plain sight.

Unfortunately, Henry picked the wrong direction and quickly found himself face-to-face with the ink demon. Almost instantaneously, he was being held up against the wall, a few feet off the ground, entirely helpless. He gripped his axe tightly, despite knowing it’d do him no good at this point.

This was it. It was all over. And he was utterly terrified.

“Please, Bendy... I-I created you, I drew you.” Trying to reason with the demon was almost certainly impossible, but pleading to be spared was his only remaining option and his last desperate attempt at survival. “Don’t hurt me, don’t hurt me, please, I-” Bendy cut him off with a harsh growl.

Okay, talking to him was not going to work.

“Hey! What do ya think you’re doin’, ya filthy demon!”

Suddenly, Wally Franks ran in, chasing off the demon with a wet mop. Bendy dropped Henry and fled.

“You alright there?” Wally asked, offering a hand to help Henry up.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine,” Henry replied as he got up, still a bit stunned, moreso from what he had just witnessed than from his fall.

“Franks...? The fuck are you doin’ here?” came the voice of the barely-conscious Sammy, who was still lying on the floor where he’d been dropped.

“You again?!” Wally readied his mop to strike. “I swear, if you’re even THINKIN’ of sacrificin’-” Henry had to grab his arm to stop him from hitting Sammy.

“He’s harmless. Leave him alone.”

“Fine, fine, whatever ya say...” Wally grumbled.

~

Henry safely returned with Sammy to the safe house, with Wally in tow. Henry laid Sammy down on the bed when they arrived, got him cleaned up as best he could - with nothing but a dry towel to wipe away the ink, he was still quite covered in it, but he was at least clean enough to be recognizable as human now - and brought him some soup to eat.

Now that he wasn’t covered in nearly as much ink as before, it was clear just how beaten and bruised he was. It was no wonder he was in such bad shape, given the extent of his injuries.

He had to find a way out of here, and soon. Sammy needed medical help, yet the studio didn’t have so much as a basic first aid kit.

Maybe Wally could offer some clues to getting out. He seemed to be surviving well here.

Henry told Sammy he was leaving the room to speak with Wally for a bit and asked Boris to look after him in the meantime.

“Hey, Wally... first of all, thanks for saving us. I really appreciate it. I honestly thought I was done for back there.”

“It’s nothin’,” Wally answered. “Just doin’ what I gotta do.”

“Anyway, I wanted to ask - do you know if there’s any way out of here?”

“If there was, don’t ya think I woulda left a long time ago?” Wally had a point there. Henry wondered why he’d even thought to ask when the answer was so obvious. “Believe me, Henry, there’s no way outta here. I’d be long gone from this dump if there was.”

“Figures...”

“Hey, no need to look so down about it! This place ain’t so bad once you get used to it!”

Henry forced a smile, though he certainly couldn’t agree with Wally’s statement. Getting used to life in such a dangerous place just didn’t seem possible.

“Kid, I admire your spirit, but-”

“Kid?” Wally echoed. “Look, I dunno how many years it’s been, but I do know I’m way too old for ya to keep callin’ me a kid.”

“Sorry,” Henry apologized. “Force of habit. Anyway, as I was saying, we need to find a way out of here. We can’t stay here forever.”

“I still don’t see the big deal.” Wally shrugged. “The rest of us have been livin’ here for years. You’ll get used to it sooner or later.”

“I can’t live here. It isn’t safe.”

“Sure it’s safe! So there’s some ink monsters here, big deal! All ya need is some water to wash ‘em away!”

That actually made sense. No wonder Bendy had run off when Wally had chased him with the mop. Unfortunately, there was still a more urgent issue.

“Sammy’s been hurt. Badly. We have to get him to a hospital.”

“So what? He’s tried to kill us all at some point or another; who cares if he’s hurt?”

“I care,” Henry said firmly. Perhaps Sammy was a dangerous person, but Henry wasn’t going to leave him to die. Not while he was hurt and defenseless.

~

A few days passed. Henry was still determined to find a way out. Wally had urged him to take some downtime for the sake of his own health - so far, Henry had hardly had a second to relax since he’d arrived - and Henry somewhat complied, if only to stay back and help take care of Sammy.

Sammy had become much more alert and had recovered his strength enough to be up and about at times within the safe house. He was clearly still in a lot of pain and in need of proper treatment, but, thankfully, he seemed to be nowhere near as close to death as he had been when Henry had found him.

“Either of you know what’s happened to Joey?” Henry asked that day.

“No one’s seen him in years,” Wally answered. “If you’re lookin’ for him, you’re outta luck.”

“He sent me a letter a couple weeks ago,” Henry informed him. “He’s still here. I’m sure of it. I’m heading out to look for him.” He took his axe and left the safe house to look for Joey in what seemed to be the most likely place: his office.

Joey’s office was locked when Henry arrived, but Henry wasn’t going to turn back without going inside. Either he’d find Joey there, or he’d at least find some answers as to what had happened here. Good thing he’d brought his axe. He broke down the door and the boards blocking it from the inside.

“Joey?” He called out, stepping inside. His messy office certainly looked like someone had been living out of it, littered with empty soup cans, ink-stained clothes, and various personal items. “Joey, are you here?”

“Henry...?” Joey cautiously crawled out from hiding under his desk and looked toward Henry. “Henry, thank goodness it’s you! You really scared me there. Just knock next time, will you?” He grabbed onto his chair to help pull himself to a standing position and leaned on the back of it for support. He was visibly shaking, possibly from fear, possibly just from the difficulty he had getting to his feet. His bad leg had given him trouble enough in his younger days, and his age certainly wasn’t making it any easier on him.

“Sorry about that,” Henry said. He’d gotten maybe a bit too used to having to force his way into places that were blocked off. “Joey, I need to ask you something. What happened here, and how do we get out?”

“Take a seat,” he replied, sitting down in his chair. “It’s a long story.” Henry pulled up another chair and sat down.

“This started about thirty years ago,” Joey began. “After you left. I... may have made some mistakes.” He looked down, clearly ashamed. “Things I’m not proud of.” A sudden noise from outside the room caught his attention, and he immediately looked nervously toward the doorway.

Perhaps breaking down the door hadn’t been the best idea.

Joey remained fixated on the doorway for a good couple minutes. When he appeared to relax a little, Henry spoke up again.

“Joey, what did you do? You can tell me. We’re friends.”

“Nothing that I expected to get out of hand. I didn’t see any of this coming.”

Henry waited for him to get to the point. He didn’t.

“I need you to be honest with me. I won’t judge.”

After a moment of silence, Joey finally admitted what it was he’d been meaning to say.

“Listen, Henry, after you left... it felt like something was missing from my life. It truly did. I made some bad decisions to cope with losing you, and I regret it,” he explained. “I had a couple books on dark magic lying around - now, before you jump to conclusions, I didn’t intend to do anything with them when I bought them. I only got them out of curiosity. Anyway, I had those books lying around, so I thought why the hell not? What’s the worst that could happen? Worst-case scenario, it turns out to be complete nonsense and nothing happens, right?”

“So, are you saying you brought these...”

“Yes.” Joey sighed. “I thought I’d found a way to bring cartoon characters to life, but something went wrong. Very wrong.”

Henry sighed. Leave it to Joey to make stupid impulsive decisions like that.

“Is there any way to fix all this?”

“I wish I knew...” Joey replied. “I don’t dare mess with that magic again. But there is a way out.” He took a key from one of his desk drawers and handed it to Henry. “Here’s the key for the exit. This is why I had you come here. If anyone’s still alive in here, I need you to get them out.”

Henry was, admittedly, bothered by the fact that Joey had the key all along yet kept everyone trapped in here for so long with no escape.

“Why couldn’t you have unlocked the door sooner? You all could’ve gotten out long ago!”

“Henry... I can’t leave my office,” Joey admitted. Henry saw the fear in his eyes. “I don’t stand a chance out there.”

“Nonsense. You’re coming with me.”

“Henry-”

“I said you’re coming with me. I’m not leaving you behind.”

A/N: I’d also like to throw in some various ideas I’ve got for this that haven’t been included yet. First, the obvious - if I continue this, I’m definitely going to add more characters. It has to have a happy ending; everyone’s gotta make it out alive. I just don’t have any real ideas on what to do with the others next.

Now, they’d be added in before Joey’s scene. He comes in just before the end. After that is when everyone finally makes it out. Then they probably burn down the studio or something. I mean... you can’t exactly leave that place standing. It’s far too dangerous to take the risk of letting some unsuspecting person wander in there someday.

Then there’s Sammy. SAMMY. He was a bit hard to work with in this, but, boy, do I have some ideas for him that are DEFINITELY going in once I find some way to work them into this. Sure, he’s in no shape to be directly useful to the plot in any significant way (and, NO, I am not killing him off), but you know what he is useful for? Exposition. Oh yes, he’s got some interesting stuff to tell. That whole worshipping Bendy thing he had going on? That was just an act in the hopes of getting Bendy to not kill him. And his attempts to sacrifice people? They weren’t sacrifices. They were bait.

Okay, that’s kind of a dick move. But, hey, he’s just trying to survive. Even if that means leaving others to be killed instead. (No, Sammy, that does not justify it.)