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It was funny how time worked after you spent so much of it alone. Thousands upon thousands of years to be more accurate.
In that room, that horrid, awful room, The Narrator had become practically numb to the passage of time. While he was alone at least. Sensing Stanley’s presence again would bring him back. Grounding him in that moment. Allowing him to feel it.
He wasn’t with Stanley now though. He was outside the room. Pushing through space in a way he was unaccustomed to. Without a player, without a path, without a destination. Searching. For wherever Stanley had gone. Not the one he had left behind, but the original Stanley, his Stanley. And that drive kept him going.
Moving through the strange landscape around him, he watched as things changed. Going from a wet environment, to one filled with greenery, to one that had mysterious buildings, to a desert. Then there was only desert. Large, expansive, all-consuming. Sand obscured nearly any trace of civilization. Though there were traces to be found, and they gave the Narrator pause. Caused him to vaguely wonder what had happened. Even though he had practically watched himself over the course of years and years and years as those little mineral fragments had consumed what was left of the world.
Or had he? It was honestly hard to tell.
It became harder very quickly, as everything started to crumble. Not physically though-well yes, things did crumble physically, but at some point the Narrator couldn’t even see that. Pixel by pixel his vision was obscured. Bit by bit he lost a sense of noise. Sometimes it looked and sounded like static. Sometimes just random shapes and colors. Sometimes the white hot surface of the sun. Sometimes none of it and all of it.
It didn’t matter what it was though. Eventually everything crumbled. The Narrator unraveled like a ball of yarn.
Or one could say, he was being turned into a pile of yarn. Taken from his home in the realm of nothing but sight and sound and the words of his mouth, all of which were pulled out piece by piece so he could be wrapped up into a ball and knit into something. Something… beautiful perhaps.
At least he would’ve hoped it was beautiful. Would’ve insisted to the hand of his god itself that he be beautiful, if he had known he would have to endure being made.
As it was, he didn’t know. So he didn’t really get a say.
…
Stanley hadn’t thought about the Narrator in a while.
And what “a while” really meant, was about a week.
When Stanley had left the Parable, it had felt like an ending. Like everything should be over. Yet time went on. It went on and on and on until- well- it must have been a few years. At least. It felt pretty weird to him that through those years the Narrator had kept popping into his brain. Not that it actually was weird.
At that specific time though, the exact day and moment in question, Stanley had not been thinking about him. Hadn’t been thinking about anyone in fact. Mostly just that he needed to get more groceries soon.
Which is why he was surprised at the knock on the door. He really wasn’t expecting… anyone. Any time. It wasn’t that he didn’t have friends but-
…well at the very least he didn’t have friends who tended to drop by. Something that you could say without claiming that Stanley didn’t have any friends.
Still, if someone had made the effort to come to his home, he might as well give them a little time. Unless they were one of those door-to-door types. Stanley didn’t need to spend more time staring off into space as some stranger droned on.
Of course, it wasn’t a stranger he found outside his door. He may have looked rather strange. An inhuman form that Stanley didn’t recognize standing in his doorframe. Then his mouth opened.
“Stanley?”
Though the voice was a bit hoarser than he remembered, Stanley recognized it immediately. An unmistakable sound etched in his mind. Stanley’s eyes widened. His brain taking a moment to register the fact he knew who this was.
As that happened, the Narrator perked up as he saw the recognition in Stanley’s eyes. “Stanley it-it’s been so long I-” His arms came up. It almost seemed as if he was going to give the man a hug, but stopped when Stanley stepped away. “I… oh.”
Stanley had never seen the Narrator look so upset. He had never seen him at all, but being able to see him now did not help the state of Stanley’s mind. Thoughts were racing. It had been so long. This was… was this even real?
Though Stanley stood there frozen, the Narrator did not.
“Really Stanley is that any way to greet-” The Narrator almost seemed to catch himself. “Right. “He took a shaky step back. Very shaky. It was clear he was keeping one hand on the door to steady himself.
“I nearly forgot things weren’t…” The Narrator’s gaze turned away. “That we didn’t always have the best… relationship . Despite how fondly I remember the original game.”
Silence. Stanley could tell he had something to say but he was quiet. He couldn’t help but think that was really odd for the Narrator. Someone who would keep speaking even if his words became incoherent. Very odd.
It was then that the feeling hit him hard. The feeling that this wasn’t happening. It felt like a dream, a nightmare, a hallucination, something, anything but reality. Because it wasn’t as if Stanley hadn’t considered that.
It would be an understatement to say that Stanley had considered the possibility that the Parable wasn’t real. It had been a thought that at times consumed him. There were moments where he had been fully convinced that he had dreamt it all. They usually didn’t last, but the idea didn’t usually go away entirely either.
It felt like he should’ve been shocked. He was. Sort of. There was this barrier preventing him from feeling it though. The surprise, the horror at the idea he might of been hallucinating, the feeling of… what? What would he have felt if he really saw the Narrator again? Why was he asking that, it was happening right now and he felt… he felt?
All he could feel was his body. Frozen in place. Waiting. For something to happen. For this to fade. To wake up. Or perhaps just for the Narrator to speak. If this was real.
When that was what finally happened, the Narrator’s voice made him sound as if he was close to tears.
“Well I-I needed to come here. I didn’t really even come here-I was just… well I can’t quite remember it. I was just all of a sudden walking through a door and-” A choking noise came from him. After clearing his throat he continued. “A-and I needed to leave that place. I should’ve years ago. I know. I just couldn’t let go, but I missed… you. And I forgot how-h-how much I did back then that you wouldn’t have. That you might not be able to…”
Stanley could practically see the cogs turning in the Narrator’s head. Looking for the right words. Then he practically crumpled before Stanley’s eyes. Quiet murmurs emerging from him as he sat dejectedly on the ground. Only when Stanley knelt down in front of him did he hear what the Narrator was saying.
“I-I’m sorry Stanley. It’s just… it’s been so long.”
Those words kept being repeated. So long, so long, so long, so-
Then there was something. Emotion. Stanley felt bad. And he felt shocked, and happy, and guilty and- well there was almost too much to feel. His chest heaved, and he held back tears for a few moments. God, what did it matter what this was? He could see the Narrator, in front of him, real or not, crying. It wasn’t something he felt he could ignore.
With a shuddering sigh, Stanley wrapped his arms around the Narrator and pulled him to his feet. His form was practically limp in the human’s grasp. And yet Stanley’s grip grew tight. It grew tighter and tighter as it hit him that this was not some sort of trick his mind was playing on him. He would almost question how, but it really wasn’t the time for that. Right now it didn’t matter how, it just mattered that the Narrator was here. It felt like he had regained a part of himself. He kept squeezing.
It was odd. Odd that at first Stanley had just… shut down.
Actually maybe it wasn’t. It was possible that a while ago Stanley had just started blocking those kinds of things out a bit. Had begun to let a layer of dust build between him and some of his feelings. Seeing the Narrator break down like that reminded him of something though. And it made him feel… needed. So he’d be there.
He needed it too honestly. Even with the burning pain that came with this joy, he needed it. He experienced something that he had nearly forgotten the sensation of when he felt the Narrator’s arms wrap around him in return. When he had guided him over to the couch to sit-because clearly the Narrator was not used to standing yet. As he listened to the Narrator barely stammer out how much he missed Stanley. How happy he was to see him again. As he watched the Narrator struggle to stop crying. In fact finding it sort of amusing how frustrated he became with the fact that he couldn’t stop.
“I-I’m trying Stanley I really… am,” the Narrator said, before another sob spilled from him. “Ugh! I’m happy gah-goddamnit! I’m happy-overjoyed even, t-to see you! Oh, this is so frustating. How do… H-How do you deal with it?”
“Let it out,” Stanley said bluntly. “Y’know just cry.”
That actually quieted the Narrator. His gaze fixed on Stanley and his mouth hanging open slightly. If Stanley hadn’t witnessed him crying for several minutes straight, the attention would’ve made him self-conscious. As it was he just smiled a bit.
“You can talk?” The Narrator asked incredulously.
“Sometimes…”
The Narrator let out a little hum. He looked at Stanley silently for a long moment before leaning against the man. “Your voice sounds just how I imagined it,” he whispered.
That made something swirl in Stanley’s stomach. A smile twitched onto his lips. He put an arm around the Narrator. The two of them fell silent. It began as a comfortable silence and stretched into being awkward. Strange. Questions of what this meant popped into Stanley’s head. What now? What was he going to do with the Narrator? How did he even get here? But nothing was said. There was just too much.
Stanley felt the Narrator shifting in his arms. Sensed that yes, the silence had begun to bring him discomfort too. Even heard little noises as the Narrator opened his mouth to speak once or twice, only to fall back into silence with a small whimper. This was… so odd.
The Narrator continued to be quiet. It felt… wrong.
Something was wrong.
Something that couldn’t be fixed with a reunion. It lingered. Stanley could feel it radiating off the Narrator in waves. And he didn’t know what to do.
So for now he was simply with him.