Chapter Text
Shouting, glasses clinking, laughter.
Slot machines, cards shuffling, dice rolling.
Fighting. Fighting. Fighting. Fighting-
Bendy had grown up in a casino. Likely not the best place for a kid, but he was a demonic ink toon. Entertainment was in his bones but certainly not in his appearance, at least. That's how most other toons had acted anyway.
“No use dancing on a stage, boy. Try your luck at the tables instead.”
He learned how to count cards at eleven. Was taught to mix drinks at thirteen, knew what to say to get people to drink and smoke more at fourteen. Learned how to swap out normal dice for weighted and watched the hope drain from a person's eyes as they shook hands and signed their name on the dotted line at fifteen.
“Keep busy in here, you really think they'd look at you with anything but hate out there?”
“Look at our crowd, kid. Compared to theirs, don't you see the difference? We're everything they want to throw away just because it looks a little strange or acts a little broken. You're better off here then with them.”
He ran at sixteen. Cut himself loose in the middle of the night and scattered out into the woods, hitched a ride on the nearest train and got the hell out of dodge.
Toon Town had never been much of a home anyways.
Most of the in-between was a blur he really didn't want to recall at the moment, he stopped by a few places. Picked up small work, things that could tolerate a demon working in their space part time before he was eventually kicked out for one reason or another. He'd found Boris half a year into his escape, and the pup had refused to leave his side ever since, even when he tried to explain he'd be better off without an ink demon stuck to his side.
He locked down a solid job at eighteen, working at the Witches Brew's Bar and Casino in Nexus City and in turn, for some gang called the Crimson Court.
He had found out he was sick at twenty three, when he woke up in the middle of the night choking on his own ink, His body melting his ways he wasn't in control of and his muscles locking and spasming at random. He remembers rolling himself out of bed, sheets tangling in his tail and legs as he threw himself down heaving and hacking up the ink in his throat, trying desperately to breathe.
Faintly, he recalls his brother practically kicking his door down at the commotion and hauling him upwards into his lap despite Bendy’s weak protest for the sake of Boris's clothing. The wolf hadn't cared, shaking almost as bad as Bendy had been and clutching him close while he coughed and sputtered and gasped for air.
He didn't get to sleep on his own for a year following the incident, he'd had a few more similar situations however both at night and during the day, So he supposed the company was important while he adjusted to it.
The doctor he'd gone to had simply said it was a genetic toon disease called the blot, that there was no fixing it.
That eventually, it would kill him.
…
Bendy's twenty five now. He works at the Witches Brew Bar and Casino, his brothers a drug dealer for the gang that runs the place, much to Bendy's displeasure of him stepping into the dangerous scene he was already used to comparatively. They provided them protection though, paid them extra for information, dealings and Bendy's demonic enforcement on deals. He's sick, but that's okay. He's happy enough with the life he's building, the one he's getting to have. His brother worries more about it then he does really, insists there has to be some sort of cure or…anything. But he's tired of always needing to run and find something, he just..wants to exist.
Is that so wrong?
Something shatters in the distance, rattling him loose from his thoughts. From behind his spot at the bar he raises his head, meeting at his surroundings with his tail anxiously swishing behind him. Patron, or the pit? That was the big difference in the sound.
If it was the pit, it was fine. All plays were fair, and everyone signed a waiver going in. If it was a rowdy patron at his section, he'd have to handle it. And if it was in the casino, then Jevil would. Which he would simply have to hope was the case, his shift ended in fifteen and ink didn't mix well with the more…electrifying personalities of Nexus City.
He examined his surroundings, peering through the swaying, moving, and dancing bodies of his section..
And wilted at the sight of shattered glass on a table and two men seemingly screaming at each other while the rest of their table looked exasperated with them. Just his luck, of course. Something he'd have to handle and something he'd have to simply hope went well.
He heaves a sigh, steps out from behind his bar, and makes his way through the crowd.