Chapter Text
When they returned, Stanley could still feel the thick, wet, heavy atmosphere that had accumulated over thousands of years in the same room crawling into his lungs like it wanted to choke him. He could still feel the rush of hot, dry air across his skin, the overwhelming relief as it cleared it all out and his mind went blank with the empty expanse in front of him.
He didn’t think about it, though. He was a simple man with a simple life and simple motivations, or at least he was supposed to be one. He didn't need to think about these things.
The air conditioning in the office was always perfectly benign, totally neutral. Wasn’t it? Was it a little warmer in here, now? Had the air been going stagnant all this time, and he just hadn't noticed it before? Did it always cling to his skin like a fine, oily film?
It was difficult to hold on to these details at the best of times. His own state of being could shift from a floating pair of eyes and ears with the ability to feel pain to the complex, realistic, full-bodied physicality he was experiencing now, though he couldn’t tell you why. There were times his actions felt defiant, times they felt controlled, and times they felt natural, even deceptively so. And the office was always changing, always throwing him off, always demanding attention. Now more than ever.
Everything around him felt like it could blink out of existence the second it was out of his sight, or, at the very least, like it was seriously worried about the possibility. Every pencil sharpener and coffee cup and door handle was begging to be made real in his hands. The texture of every carpet dreamt of dragging itself across his skin. The humming of every fluorescent lamp tried to burrow into his brain.
The doors to 417’s office were particularly needy. If he didn’t open and close them a couple of times, then they’d simply lead to each other, as if he were trapped between two mirrors. The employee lounge tried its very hardest to get him to powernap in it, but he didn’t trust that it’d let him wake up again. The slides in the meeting room had taken to revealing arcane knowledge in an attempt to get him to stay and watch the presentation.
He’d seen the office confused. He’d seen it breaking down. He’d never seen it lingering at the edge of unreality like this, but he could wager a guess why it was happening.
Sure, a coffee cup needed lips wrapped around it, but he couldn’t get to every single one at once. At the root of it all, though, a narrator needed an audience, and that was something he could provide. He waited for his opening lines. He started walking and he did not stop for anything. Over and over. And he did not think about it.
“...Stanley? Are you in there?”
He hoped that following the story would reintroduce some sense of stability. He hoped that he could soothe these corridors. All they wanted was to be walked. He only had to make himself believe that all he wanted was to walk them.
"Stanley, can you hear me?"
If Stanley lost himself in it, then it was only fair that he'd end up haunting this place the way it haunted him. If he'd spent millions of years in stasis, it was only fair that he'd spend the same amount of time in motion.
“Stanley!”
Stanley's own name had long since faded into the background, constantly called out all around him. The airhorn did the trick, though, making him jump like a startled cat. He pressed his back up against the walls of the office, then looked up at the ceiling, eyes wide.
"There you are, Stanley," the narrator's voice rang out, jovial, but strained. "I’ll admit, I was starting to worry. Well, maybe not worry. It's more like I felt a touch of friendly concern on your behalf." He paused. "It's just that I'm not used to being met with such stubborn… obedience."
Stanley frowned. Could he not tell the state this place was in? He felt like the wallpaper was about to peel itself off the walls and wrap itself around him to get him to appreciate its patterns more deeply.
“Not that I’m asking you to disobey me, but if I wanted a mindless automaton to walk these paths for me, I would’ve made one. I want the man who strikes out on his own in the face of uncertainty! I want the man who breaks free! I want- Oh, hold on. Do I? What do I want?”
Too much, too much, too much. Stanley exhaled deeply, letting himself crumple up in the corner.
“Well- Stanley, I suppose I just want you to engage with it. I really want that more than anything. I just want you to go through my story like it means something to you.”
That remark almost stirred the fire inside him. The fire that could drag his broken body up as many flights of stairs as it took to escape any of the dead ends that he’d declared a happy ending. He should act like his story meant something to him? It meant a lot of things. Hearing what they were might actually kill the narrator on the spot.
“I understand that the impact of it must’ve worn off by now, diminishing returns and all that. But, Stanley- The thought of writing something new- It’s a very vulnerable process, is the thing. I don’t feel like I’m ready to expose myself to that, artistically speaking.”
No. He was not.
“Oh, but then- What I wouldn’t do to experience it all over again, to run through every twist and turn like it's the first time! How could I make that happen for us, Stanley? Do you think I could wipe your memory? Start it all over?”
Where Stanley’s memory was a mess of layers, the narrator’s memory was a mess of holes. Consequently, he didn’t think that he was the one who got to make calls like that, but if he tried it, he’d find a way to make him regret it. He communicated as much with his eyes alone.
(Wouldn’t it be easier to let yourself forget, though? It would be a miserable thing to know. It would be miserable for both of them.)
“No, no. You’re right. I wouldn’t want us to start from zero, not after everything we’ve been through together. And I’d have to wipe my own slate clean, as well. Ha! Maybe I’ve already done it! Maybe I’ve already done it a thousand times. Wouldn’t that be funny, Stanley? Us, sitting here, discussing a plan that’s been failing for millenia?”
Stanley was silent.
"Hmm. Maybe not ha-ha funny, I admit. But sort of… cosmically so, don't you think? I can't think of anything else it'd be."
With a sigh of resignation, Stanley let his forehead rest against the wall. It was hot, and he could swear that it was running a ragged heartbeat under his fingers. Its foundation might be crumbling, but it was still doing a fantastic job of holding up the ceiling, wasn't it? He scratched lightly across the carpet, noting the excellent grip it provided for walking on, overlooking the way it seemed to bulge off the floor and up into his hands. He even let the narrator’s voice echo through him, as much a part of this place as anything else. He devoted all his attention to it - to him, he thought, and didn’t - in the hopes that giving it freely would quell the desperation for it.
Strangely, it seemed to soothe him, as well. He supposed- He supposed it went both ways. Everything in this office wanted to be recognised, wanted to have a purpose. What was Stanley's purpose, if not to exist in this office? To validate its existence, whether it was by embracing it or destroying it? Who else had weaved such a complex web of relationships with its many rooms?
"Oh, Stanley. Look at you."
The more he gave himself over to it, the more deeply satisfied he felt. He couldn't describe it in any way other than that he was cradled in the palm of it. Maybe he wasn't trapped at all, he thought. Maybe here, in this symbiotic relationship, was simply where he was meant to be. Maybe it had taken the end of it all to make him appreciate that.
"I don't know if you understand what you mean to me. I don't know anything that goes on in that head of yours, really. I don't know why I decided to keep you so independent, but-"
Stanley's whole being was receiving the same intensity of attention as a single detail in the face of a lover. A lock of hair, a beauty mark, a bottom lip. He felt it like a thumb stroking across him, warm in its intent.
"No, I suppose I do know why. Stanley, if you ever want to write anything- A word of warning. If you aren't careful, the subtext of your story can overtake it."