Chapter Text
As Tommy opens his eyes, he finds himself tucked underneath a desk. He hears a deep-soothing voice that says “this is a story of a man named Stanley…” along with clicking sounds, he almost falls asleep until he realizes that he woke up in some place unfamiliar to him. The room looks to be an office of some sorts, but it’s all gray and… boring. He tries to get up but he’s unable to, it’s like his whole body is frozen.
Tommy starts to panic and his eyes dart around to try and find an exit. There’s a door that’s open and it leads to a slightly bigger area. Freedom! His mind screams. While focusing on the door that leads to his freedom, he hears a loud creak near him and he almost shits his pants. There was a man that roughly stood up from an odd-looking yet kind of comfortable chair.
In front of the chair on the desk is a big gray box. There’s a black void in it with a couple of green splotches and on the desk itself was a thick gray rectangle with a lot of bumps in it. It’s almost mesmerizing to Tommy until he sees the man go for the door. The thing that kept him frozen has melted and he can feel himself move again, but it ached.
He has pins and needles from sitting in that position too long so it results in pain every time he tries to move. Tommy makes a mad dash to the door (ignoring the pain) but he doesn’t make it in time as the man shuts it, almost seeming smug as he looks up. He jumps and gets out of the way when he sees Tommy trying to open the door but fails to do so as it’s suddenly locked.
“You bastard! Let me the fuck out or I’ll pummel you!” He raises his fist as he’s about to defend himself but the man stands there… confused? “A child- why is there a child, Stanley?” The man, who Tommy assumes is Stanley, shrugs his shoulders. He can excuse the man speaking in third person and to himself, but without his mouth moving?! “How the hell are you speaking without using your mouth?! It’s fucking weirdchamp.”
“As far as I know Stanley, there aren't supposed to be any children in the script. Perhaps this is a bug… or a glitch?” He talks as if Tommy isn’t there with him, which Tommy finds offensive. “You bitch, answer me when I ask shit- what the fuck is a script? I’m not a bug I’ll have you know-”, “It talks and curses too much. Oh I know, I’ll just reset it and hopefully that’ll fix it.”
Tommy’s voice cuts out as he curses the man out and threatens him. Everything suddenly turns black and he’s unable to speak. He opens his eyes and finds himself in the same position as he did earlier, tucked underneath the same fucking desk. What the fuck?! Is this some type of witchcraft or some shit? “This is a story of a man named Stanley.” He hears the same voice say the same lines.
He zones out again, trying to figure out what the fuck just happened. He’s unable to wrap his head around it. “ Timeout - Timeout, Stanley? What do you mean, timeout ? Do you not want to play anymore-” The new line brings him out of his frozen state as he jumps up from underneath the table. “Alright, you bastard! You better fucking explain to me what you just did or I’ll kick you in the narts!”
Stanley raises his hands, causing Tommy to flinch in fear that he’d use them against him. Yet he just gives him a questioning look as he signs something. Tommy recognizes it as sign language as it’s something that Ranboo occasionally uses when he speaks with Tubbo when he doesn’t want Tommy to know something. He’s picked up some words but he can never understand a full sentence.
“They appeared in a previous run?” Stanley nods his head. “Hm, that’s quite odd. A reset normally fixes this. Not that this has happened before, by any means. My game is perfect and I hadn’t had anything like this before.” The voice rambles on as Stanley rolls his eyes. A game- this isn’t- “What do you mean by ‘game ’? This is real life buddy, I think you need some therapy if you’re using this as a coping mechanism. I’d be happy to help you if you tell me what the fuck is going on.”
It’s completely silent as Stanley just stares at him. Tommy feels the tension in the room increase as he shuffles in place awkwardly. “This is a topic for another day. What is your name, glitch?” Stanley says, completely avoiding the question (Tommy still has no clue how he’s able to speak with out moving his mouth, it’s creepy as fuck). Tommy grunts in annoyance, he doesn’t even know what that word means! He assumes it’s rude by the tone of his voice.
“First of all, I am not a ‘glitch’. I am Tommyinnit, the biggest man you will ever meet.” Tommy puffs his chest out proudly. He gets another silent stare in response. “...Tommy…Innit? …That’s the weirdest name I have ever heard.” He feels offended again. “Excuse me?” He scoffs, “like ‘Stanley’s’ any better.” The said man gives him a glare, but Tommy doesn’t think that there’s any real heat behind it - he hopes.
“You’re just a stupid child, why should I care about what you think-” Stanley says with an annoyed groan. Tommy feels hurt and feels the need to defend himself from those words. “I am not a child, bitch! I’m turning sixteen soon-” Stanley looks surprised and slightly mortified, for what - Tommy doesn’t know. He signs something again and sighs, “you’re right, Stanley. If you aren’t a glitch then- explain to us where and how you got those scars.”
Tommy freezes as Stanley facepalms. “What Stanley, you’re the one who wanted me to ask.” He signs something again but a bit more hurriedly. “Oh… well um, if you want to tell us you can.” Stanley says, almost sounding embarrassed. Tommy thinks back to the moment before he arrived here but struggles as his memory is blurry and it hurts to think about it.
The last thing he remembers was climbing up one of the cobblestone towers he made during exile, looking down as the ground kept getting closer and… “ oh,” he frowns as he puts the pieces together. “Oh?” He doesn’t need to tell this bastard anything! He doesn't know Stanley and Stanley doesn’t know him either. Stranger Danger, he thinks almost jokingly until he realizes how true the situation is.
Right! He needs to escape if he wants to get back home. Wherever that is - He's been too focused on conversation that he had yet plotted out a way to escape. Tommy looks around, finding the same door from earlier but this time, it's opened. Stanley stares at him, expecting an answer until Tommy runs out the door. “All of his coworkers were gone. What could it mean? Stanley decided to go to the meeting room; perhaps he simply missed a memo.”
Okay, now Tommy is even more freaked out. The place is completely void of life other than the man he just ran away from. It’s filled with even more of the boxes he saw on the desk. Half-walls guarding the desk from hitting each other. It looks like an even bigger office! “Wait! Where are you going?!” Tommy jumps as his voice still sounds as if it’s above his head, despite Stanley being still back in the office.
He keeps running until he comes across a room with two doors. Tommy stands still, debating which one to choose as he hears his voice again saying “when Stanley came to a set of two open doors, he entered the door on his left.” what the fuck. He hears light footsteps coming behind him. They were slow, as if they were walking. Tommy didn’t know if there’s anyone else in the office building with him and he isn’t taking any chances so, he chooses the left door.
Tommy goes into this big room with a huge-ass white board, tables, and something that he can’t even comprehend. “Yet there was not a single person here. Feeling a wave of disbelief, Stanley decided to go up to his boss’ office hoping he might find an answer there.” He follows the path out of the meeting room and goes down the long hallway, avoiding the ‘broom closet ’. Despite his usual nature of dis-obeying whenever he can, he follows the voice as it guides him along. As if- if he followed it, it’ll lead him to his freedom.
This place is fucking huge! He thinks as he enters this giant luxurious room. Tommy stands there for a moment, admiring it and taking it all in. There’s this thing on the wall which Tommy assumes is the ‘keypad ’ with numbers on it. He presses the corresponding numbers which a voice tells him, (he still thought it’s weird how Stanley could talk to him even though they’re not anywhere close to each other).
He freaks out as soon as he hears something loud as a part of a wall opens up right in front of his eyes, allowing a bright light to enter the room. Tommy goes down this moving platform and follows the voice to a room with big text above the doorway saying ‘Mind Control Facility’. He’d laugh if he isn’t so freaked out and overwhelmed.
There were these huge platforms where Tommy couldn’t see the end of when he looked down. He felt sick as he did so, feeling something familiar. He ignored it as he pressed the third button. Normally he’d be scared if there were multiple buttons in the same room and looking plain and… square. But it calmed him down as there were little silly designs on them. The button brought down a similar platform he used to get there and he stepped on it.
As the platform rose, so did the feeling of being free. He feels as if it’s just mere moments away. The entire time during this trip, the voice just kept talking and Tommy didn’t bother to listen to it ramble on-and-on, slowly morphing into words slurring together like holding one long note on an instrument. Though now he regrets it as he’s given a choice to press ‘on’ or ‘off’.
His hand shakes as it switches between the two options. Tommy thinks of all the times a single button almost (and did once) destroy everything he loved and cared about. He doesn’t want to become like him. The only difference right now is, he doesn’t know the outcome. It could lead to utter destruction, or it could lead to something else.
But Tommy is unable to make that choice right now as he feels something behind him, causing him to jump and not let out a high-pitched scream. “What the fuck man?! You can’t just scare the shit out of me like that!” Stanley looks smugly at him, almost as if he’s proud. Tommy huffs, “Bitch.” He signs something along the lines of ‘what’ and ‘choice ’ “What’s your choice, Tommy?”
He jumps again for the second time. “Jesus Christ, stop doing that-”,“He just wants to know what your choice is. And frankly so do I… ” he mutters at the end, seeming to shove him into making one. Tommy looks at the buttons again, feeling like he’s going to be sick again the longer he stares at them. He goes with his gut feeling and hesitantly presses the ‘off’ button.
“Blackness. And a rising chill of uncertainty. Was it over?”
Like once before, it all goes black. All he could think about is ‘what the fuck is going on? Why can’t I move? I better not be underneath the fucking desk again'. The feeling melts away and his mind calms down as the black wall in front of them opens up and goes down painstakingly slowly. They can see a small amount of freedom poking through with bright light, almost blinding. Tommy could almost cheer, relishing the feeling of being able to go home.
“Yes! He had won. He had defeated the machine, unshackled himself from someone else’s command. Freedom was mere moments away. And yet, even as the immense door slowly opened. Stanley reflected on how many puzzles still lay unsolved. Where had his co-workers gone? How had he been freed from the machine's grasp? What other mysteries did this strange building hold?”
Despite the overwhelming feeling of curiosity taking over Tommy, he couldn’t care less about the shit that happened here. (Okay, maybe he is a little. And Stanley is a pretty interesting person even if he talks in third person and has an omniscient following Tommy wherever he goes - and narrates the entire time.)
“But as sunlight streamed into the chamber, he realized none of that mattered to him. For it was not knowledge, or even power, that he had been seeking, but happiness. Perhaps his goal had not been to understand, but to let go.”
At this point, he tunes out the voice and moves and shuffles in his spot, wanting to finally leave this confusing place. Stanley glances at him with a light smile. He’s proud that the kid made the right choice (for the first time). He makes a little motion for him to signal ‘calm down’ and he assumes Tommy understands as the kid rolls his eyes in response but listens.
“No longer would anyone tell him where to go, what to do, or how to feel. Whatever life he lives, it will be his. It was all he needed to know. It was, perhaps, the only thing worth knowing. Stanley walked through the opened door.”
The door was finally low enough that they were able to walk on the path to freedom together. They hear the birds sing as the grass and pebbles crush underneath their feet as they go along the rocky path. The air has never felt so fresh to Tommy after staying in the office for so long.
“Stanley felt the cool breeze upon his skin, the feeling of liberation, the immense possibility of the new path before him. This was exactly the way, right now, that things were meant to happen. And Stanley was happy.”
And then, everything turned black.