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It's been months. If only based on the number of times Stanley's had to shave, awkwardly bent over a dusty sink in a dark bathroom, shaving off those little hairs with all the ease of muscle memory and all the awkwardness of conscious loss. He hasn't had to shave in a while. He hasn't had enough time to shave in a while. He's always been - (three o'clock, three o'five, a pipe through his chest and blood in his throat, three o'clock, three o'clock) - … busy. Dying. Like people do.
It's been a while since he'd last found a bathroom. If he runs his hand along his jawline, he can feel the shorn bits of stubble starting to grow back, an unfamiliar itch beneath his fingertips. He could always turn back to familiar territory, of course, for whatever counts as familiar in this newly broken world - but there's something in him that rolls low in his stomach at the thought. He's never had the luxury of turning around before, either.
He's not sure he remembers how.
There are pale yellow monitors on the ground ahead. Stanley doesn't stop moving, quite, but he does glance down at them briefly. They're cracked and tilted on the uneven floor, and flicker wearily before going out completely with a sharp click. He's close to the control room, then. Or, as he looks warily at the shattered window, he is in the control room. Hopefully the Narrator isn't around.
Stanley keeps moving. Over the stairs, down the ramp, with nothing but his own footsteps to accompany him. But when he peers behind a broken wall, he sees a dark, shadowy cube with legs, looking out across the wasteland. Two yellow monitors swing around slowly, casting a cone of light across the ground.
Instantly, Stanley throws himself behind the wall, heart racing. This close to the creature, he can hear the faint metallic wheezing and clicking, the crunch of stone beneath its hands as it walks. Stanley bites back a curse. Why now did these things decide to show up? He's already on edge in the control room, and getting shot by one of those things is so low on his bucket list of ' things to do before he dies again ' it's off the page and buried in the floor. He was lucky the first time he saw them. He knows better than to trust luck again.
Plus, he'd much rather work on doing literally everything else on that bucket list, which currently consists of ' Escape' and 'Have some ice cream.' Look, he's working on it, ok?
The thing moves with a whoosh of displaced air and the faint smell of ozone, and Stanley watches it scuttle across the floor and down a cliff. Yes, down. Walking sideways on the cliff face. He'll never understand how this place works.
Coast now clear, Stanley jumps down from his small ledge, walking towards a hastily barricaded door in the distance. Hopefully he'll be able to find something to eat inside, having burned through his last granola bar a dozen buildings ago. He has some soup stock cubes and a pot, but that requires a fire, and he neither has the wood nor the safety to light it. Considering the cliff that the cube-thing had just scuttled down, here is decidedly not a good place. Best to move on.
He's just ducked under the board over the door when he hears the clatter of glasses hitting the ground. The other man instantly spins around upon hearing Stanley's footsteps but relaxes marginally when he recognizes him.
"Hi?" Stanley hadn't really counted on meeting the Narrator, and truthfully hoped not, considering their relationship was… less than friendly, but based on the look in those yellow eyes he suspected that the Narrator was now just as powerless as Stanley was.
Also, he's holding a pipe. As a weapon. Not exactly omniscient time-controlling Narrator material here.
"Oh. It's you. It's been a long time, hasn't it."
Stanley laughs nervously. "Well, I was hoping that -"
The Narrator carelessly tosses the pipe aside. "Save your breath. You've already destroyed this place quite thoroughly, and I'm not helping you escape."
"So I guess I should thank you instead for killing me over and over?"
"Oh, please. Do you have any idea what you've done?" The Narrator stalks a step forward as his voice raises.
"You selfish brat, always thinking that everything's about you and your desperate little exits. Do you know how much bigger the world is outside you? As if your quest is so all-important that you'd destroy the very fabric of this world to reach it!"
"Well, how was I supposed to know all that!? You've never told me anything about this world!" Stanley yells, and swallows down the bitter tears.
Because it's not fair. It's not fair at all, that Stanley's just trapped in this world to kill and be killed over and over and over and -
He seizes on the rage instead. That's easier than the rising grief.
"After all the shit you've done, you think I owe you anything? "
The Narrator snarls right back. "You owe me your life, you stupid idiot. Do you really think that you owe nothing to me? I've had it up to here with your nonsense-"
Stanley grabs him by his collar and drags him close enough to strike, half-mad with fury -
And then a gearling drops down from the ceiling.
"What's your name?" Stanley asks, shifting uncomfortably against the broken wall. The newly bandaged gash on his side burns in protest, but he ignores it with practiced ease. The Narrator carefully piles some scavenged wood a fair distance away, and glances at Stanley briefly before continuing his work. His hands are shaking, faintly. Stanley pretends not to notice.
"The Narrator."
Stanley sighs. "That's not a name, that's a job title."
He frowns. "That is my name."
"No, it's not? It's what you do. Like, as a job. A name is who you are, not what you spend your day doing."
The Narrator says primly, "Well, that's a ridiculous definition. I am my job, and my job is to narrate. That's all."
Stanley stares. This guy's even more fucked up than he thought.
"Well, do you want a name then? I can't exactly just keep calling you 'that guy who's killed me a lot' in my head." He's pretty sure that that's not what you're supposed to do to people you want to spend time with. Probably. He found a book on mental health once on a bookshelf, though it didn't have a chapter on 'I was trapped in a time loop where I was repeatedly traumatically killed each loop and now I'm stuck with the guy who was killing me', so it's debatable how much its advice applies here.
"I suppose you could… try… to give me a name. It does seem rather inconvenient to refer to me that way, though I don't see why The Narrator isn't acceptable as a name." The Narrator had now moved on to struggling to start a fire with flint and steel. It's a bit pathetic.
Stanley snaps his fingers. "Well, Narrator it is then!" He's too tired and hurting to come up with a good name anyways, and whatever this is deserves more than just an awkward few sentences said while Stanley's missing a fifth of his blood. Stanley really just wants a nap and some warm soup, not trying to think of a good name for his… companion? Tentative ally? Murderer times eight thousand? Whatever Narrator is to him.
Narrator stares. "That's exactly the same name."
"You said it was acceptable!"
Narrator sighs and turns away to the fire.
He'll come up with a better one later, but now is now, and later is later, and now Narrator is offering Stanley a rather dusty blanket. He doesn't look too happy about their yet-unsettled partnership either, but that's ok. The blanket's warm.
Seriously, though. What kind of person doesn't even have a name ?
Narrator's right hand glows in the flickering firelight.
…Right.
They settle down. It doesn't take long for the stock cubes to dissolve into the boiling water, and the soup is good, if not overly filling. Narrator doesn't really eat it, though - he merely picks at it, staring into the fire as if he's waiting for the flames to unveil some elemental truth for him. Stanley would probably be a little more worried, but this is The Narrator, here. The gap between them yawns so wide that Stanley could throw a thousand dead Stanleys into it and it'd still be mostly empty space.
There's still something that's bugging Stanley, though. Something simultaneously profound and existential, the reason why he's here and the reason why he can't leave, but also unimaginably simple.
"Why did you save me?"
When you didn't before? When you went out of your way to kill me, over and over and over and over, just to stop me from escaping. Every trick in the book, every hallway and camera and door and shelf, weaponizing this entire world against me.
Why?
And what changed?
Narrator sighs, a great gusty heave that shakes his whole body. He's still not directly looking at Stanley, but Stanley still catches that fragile look in his eyes, something small and terrified and guilty before it's quickly shoved beneath masked annoyance. "Because I have no idea what will happen if you die now. I mean honestly, anything could! Maybe we'd all turn into goats, or this world spontaneously explodes, or nothing happens at all! You're so - fundamental." And then, softer. "That, and… I suppose I couldn't just let you die."
"Fundamental? No one told me about that." Stanley suspected, yes, there are only so many times you specifically can be killed before it starts feeling personal, but to hear it confirmed? Something else entirely.
Narrator's brows furrow sharply. "I - yes, I suppose so. You're essential to these timelines, or something like that. That clock always reset when you died, after all. I don't control it, regardless of what you might have thought."
That's interesting. "You don't? Then why were you holding it?"
Narrator sputters angrily for a second, before gesturing broadly at the empty room. "Because THIS is what happens if it breaks! As if I wasn't clear enough earlier!?"
Ouch. Fair, though. Stanley can't quite bring himself to regret freeing himself from the timeline, but he doesn't exactly enjoy this endless expanse of broken code, either.
Narrator sighs. "In any case, it's late and you're likely tired, especially after an injury like that. You should rest. I'll keep watch."
Stanley feels a flicker of irritation and narrows his eyes at Narrator. "And why exactly should I trust you?"
Narrator glares back. "I just saved your life, you absolute imbecile. Do you really think I'm going to waste all that effort just to make sure that the both of us die now?"
Stanley rolls his eyes at the man's usual snappiness but reluctantly concedes the point. He opts to roll away instead of answering, properly wrapping the moth-eaten blanket around himself and becoming a blanket burrito. Hehe. Stanley burrito. Tasty.
…He really should sleep.
The next day dawns, for a given value of both day and dawn. They pack up, they move on, and they walk. On and on and on. Stanley walks in front with the Narrator a few paces behind, and Stanley carefully doesn't show how unnerved he is not to have the Narrator in his line of sight. Who knows what he might be planning - what weapon he might have in his hand, ready to kill Stanley again and put him back in his office again and -
Stanley spins around abruptly, and Narrator startles. "What? Did you see something?"
There's nothing. Nothing except Stanley's own rising anxieties, now dissipating under the light. He carefully exhales, and ignores how his heart thunders in his chest. Belatedly, he remembers that Narrator had spoken.
"No, sorry, I just - startled, I guess."
Narrator hums contemplatively, before saying "Here, I'll walk in front. If only so you don't jump at everything, of course." And he does, and Stanley breathes a little easier for it.
The days cut themselves up after that. There are no clean divides, but each one runs more or less the same, barring the occasional incident or discovery or what have you. They walk, they scavenge, they rest. They breathe. They relax, little by little. Narrator catches Stanley before he trips off a cliff, and Stanley keeps watch for them at night. They walk together, and bit by bit, piece by piece, they build that bridge between them.
One day Stanley walks in front, and Narrator walks behind, and nothing else happens for the rest of the day.
Narrator sighs. "They're called gearlings, you idiot, they have gears in them-"
"They're weird glitchy cube things, I'm calling them things. Gearlings sounds stupid."
"They're only… glitchy, as you call them, because the world itself is broken! They were never supposed to exist in the first place!"
"Well, I don't see why they should have names if they're trying to kill me!" Stanley has decided to ignore the fact that the broken world is his fault. He didn't intentionally break the clock, he just tripped on that pipe and it was all downhill from there! Not his fault that he decided to crush it beneath his shoe!
"Yes, they should, because that way you can more easily describe and categorize them, and the more you know-"
"Things trying to kill me! That's a category!"
"Honestly, I don't even know why I bother explaining this place to you." Narrator sighs again and tries to adjust his glasses, and then looks baffled when he only feels empty air. Stanley decidedly does not sympathize because you'll never catch him sympathizing with the Narrator, but his traitorous mind still thinks "oh mood." Stanley doesn't even wear glasses, what mood? "It's not like you even listen anyways, just going off and doing your own thing regardless of consequences or other people's opinions."
Ouch, harsh. And only half true - Stanley does care about people's opinions, he just doesn't particularly care about Narrator's. The guy killed him! A lot! He's allowed to be bitter about it!
So, turns out the Narrator actually sleeps. He'd mentioned feeling tired, and then proceeded to have an android panic attack about that fact, but Stanley hadn't been prepared for the sight of Narrator curled on his side with Stanley's backpack as a pillow. He's utterly motionless, not even breathing, just the slight glow and fade of the yellow veins below his skin. It's oddly hypnotizing to watch.
However, Stanley is a very hungry human who can't just recharge by sleeping, so he gently takes the backpack strap and tries to wiggle it out from underneath Narrator's head.
Tries is the key word, because Narrator grumbles in his sleep-shutdown-whatever and grabs blindly out into space. Stanley lets go and stumbles back, but the damage is done - Narrator has managed to turn facedown into the backpack and grabbed it with both hands, ensuring that nobody can steal his backpack-turned pillow. Not even very hungry humans.
There's a metal water bottle in there. That can't be comfortable.
In lieu of trying to wrangle an out cold Narrator for the backpack, Stanley opts to just open it from the side and shove his hand into the backpack instead. He eventually emerges victorious with a slightly rumpled granola bar and the dusty old blanket. Narrator somehow doesn't move through all of this, even when Stanley's hand pokes him in the eye through the backpack fabric while he's pulling his hand out. It would be impressive if Narrator was a person.
Stanley eats, and breathes, and tries to ignore the warmth he can feel radiating from Narrator. He's not very successful, even when accounting for the uncanny-valley way that Narrator doesn't breathe at all.
Narrator certainly isn't awake to keep watch like he normally does, but Stanley isn't that tired. He can watch over both of them. Just for tonight, though - Narrator doesn't sleep nearly as much, and has kept watch in Stanley's place for… several nights now. Stanley can spare him a nap or two.
He sits next to Narrator, though. It's to better keep an eye on him in case something happens, Stanley swears to himself, and ignores the way he wants to ruffle Narrator's hair. And if he scoots a little bit closer to Narrator's warmth over the course of the long night, that's between him and whatever higher power governs this hellhole.
He still covers Narrator with the blanket, though.
Stanley grins with poorly restrained delight at the Narrator. "So you do like it!"
Narrator crumples the candy bar wrapper in his fist. "It's the only thing close to decent in this god-awful world! Do you even think I have a choice?"
Stanley smiles brighter at Narrator's mulish expression. "You know, you could… not eat it."
"...No." Narrator chews a little faster.
It's late at 'night', and Stanley and the Narrator have set up camp in what was formerly an employee lounge, now burnt out and glitched almost beyond recognition. There's a ratty old couch halfway in the wall, as if physics turned itself off briefly and then flickered back to life. Neither of them bothers to comment on the strange spectacle, considering how unsurprisingly common it has been in this apocalypse-adjacent world. Instead, Stanley has opted to wrap himself in the blanket and see how much he can bother Narrator. The answer is quite a lot.
"Not going to tuck me in?"
"No." Narrator pointedly does not look at the Stanley-burrito (Stanlurito? Burritanley?) on the floor. Instead, he looks up at the ceiling, as though asking some higher power for patience.
Stanley grins cheekily. This guy is so fun to rile up, especially now that he doesn't have to fear dying via weaponized office parts. "Are you sure…? You could give me a little good night kiss~"
Narrator's hand makes a jerky, aborted movement to shove Stanley's blanket burrito as far away from him as he could. Stanley wiggles closer in response, resembling nothing less than a man-sized inchworm crawling across the ground.
"Aw c'mon, please?" Stanley wheedles, trying not to let on how much he's enjoying this and failing miserably. This close to the Narrator, he can see the dust in the fine seams of his pants, and the creases and scuff marks on the sleeves of his jacket. He even thinks he can hear the low humming whine of the circuits inside the Narrator.
It's the closest he's ever been to another person in… forever. He ignores the longing to reach out and touch Narrator directly. Stanley doesn't think that he'd appreciate that.
Narrator sighs. "For the last time, no. Now go to sleep, I don't need to rest right now anyways."
Stinky old fart. Stanley pouts, but obediently rolls away against the wall and shuts his eyes.
Stanley wakes up. And -
There is a computer screen in front of him, flashing accusingly. A stack of papers in the corner, his hands on the keyboard ready to type, the familiar tie around his neck, clean and unblemished and new -
He looks up, knowing and terrified of what he will find.
A simple office clock, set to precisely three o'clock.
Stanley's already panicking when the cameras swivel towards him.
And he dies again and he dies again and he dies again and every single time he wakes back up the office is waiting for him, ready to strike again and again and -
Stanley ?
Someone's calling his name, but there's a dozen pipes buried in his chest and he can't breathe and they pull out with a sickening crunch and he slumps in his chair blood pooling on the floor and time stu t te r s
Stanley! You need to wake up, you're having a nightmare -
He can't even leave his chair and he can't stop the bleeding and the echoing pain from a dozen timelines of death is ringing louder and louder and he can't think it hurts so much and the end is never the end is never the end is never please let it end -
Stanley! Stanley! WAKE UP !
Stanley wakes up. And -
It's dark. It's dark and it's warm and he can see the faint glow from Narrator's hand, the scratchiness of Stanley's jacket, and the warmth from Narrator's trembling hands on Stanley's shoulders. There is no pain, no office, no pipes to impale and blood on the floor and an endless feedback loop of hurt, knives in his back and cameras in his face and -
He doesn't realize he's sobbing until he chokes.
"Shit, Stanley, here just breathe with me, it's ok, you're ok. How do you comfort someone - agh just, just calm down, you're ok, you're safe." Narrator's hands slide up and down his arms as though he's trying to press Stanley back together between them.
And Stanley tries to breathe, he really does, but that single movement has torn open that touch-starved part of him. And he's been strong enough to fight it off before, but now it's just overwhelming and too much and -
He scrambles into Narrator's arms. Narrator makes a small surprised oof and sways back a little, and normally Stanley would apologize and back off because he knows how much Narrator dislikes touch but he just - can't. He can't do this. So he curls up against Narrator's chest instead, and selfishly hopes that his friend will forgive him this.
Narrator's hands hesitate for a second, before pulling Stanley closer. He rests his head on top of Stanley's, and holds on tightly as Stanley falls apart.
"I'm sorry. I know you don't like being touched, but-"
"Shh. It's ok. You were having a nightmare, it's natural for humans to seek comfort afterwards."
"I know, but still…"
"Hush. It's fine. You're only human." A soft, slightly bitter laugh. "I'm, well, not quite happy, but I am willing to hug you if you need it, like earlier."
"O-oh. You… mean that?"
"I don't say something I don't mean."
"Oh. Okay then. Thanks."
In the end, it goes like this.
Stanley trusts the Narrator. And it is the worst decision either of them will make.
One day, Stanley rounds a corner and finds the bedraggled exit door. It's half-buried in the ground, and the EXIT sign is crooked and flickering, but it's an exit. The exit. Stanley can feel the hope blazing in his chest, and he's sure his joy shows when he beams at the Narrator, who nervously smiles back. It's worth a shot, his eyes say, and Stanley wastes no time in running towards it. He's going to take this shot with both hands or die trying.
…And then he trips on the slope, and Narrator catches him. Like usual. Stanley has been tripping on a lot of stuff, recently.
But then he's sliding down the slope and running across the plain. The exit door flickers almost invitingly in Stanley's eyes, and he puts both hands on the door handle and pulls. It jerks but it doesn't quite open, and Stanley can see where the door is half-buried in the floor from this world's decaying physics.
"STANLEY!" Familiar footsteps ring behind him, rushed and desperate, and Stanley turns to see -
It all happens too fast to blink. One moment, Narrator is screaming his name, gold-black hand outstretched, blank terrified panic writ wide across his face, then they're rolling across the floor, Narrator's body cushioning Stanley from slamming into the wall.
And then pain blossoms through his chest and back and Stanley can already feel the blood seeping into his clothes. He raises his hand and stares at the blood on it, cooling in the open air.
Narrator shouts something, but it doesn't make it past the ringing in his ears.
Stanley's died long enough to know when a wound is fatal. This is one of them. And this time, he's not coming back.
Suddenly, Narrator's arms tighten around Stanley, and the sudden burst of movement is enough for Stanley's vision to white out momentarily.
Time dissolves.
"-ley! Stanley! You need to stay awake!" The sudden pressure on the wound makes Stanley cry out, lurching forward - but Narrator's hand on his chest stops him, trembling and desperate. Stanley grabs at his sleeve instinctually, delirious because it hurts hurts hurts - he can feel the blood loss clouding his mind, the shot must've hit his heart because he can feel it slowing down despite Narrator's best efforts to keep the blood inside him.
He coughs, choking - there's blood in his throat, seeping out between his teeth, and the tears in his eyes pool and spill out.
Stanley doesn't want to die. Stanley doesn't want to die, he doesn't want to die, he doesn't want to die -
"You're not gonna die, it's okay, you're okay." Belatedly, Stanley realizes he'd been gasping out loud, wrecked wheezes between the hole in his chest and the blood in his throat. It's too late, he wants to say, because he knows and Narrator's face blurs in his vision with eyes wide and terrified, and when he blinks he can see the office behind him, like an afterimage, with that three o'clock waiting for him waiting for him waiting
And Stanley
shuts
his eyes
he knows he's dying
and it hurts
but Stanley's too tired to run anymore
faintly, Narrator snarls something, but Stanley's already too far down to hear
silence
so this is what death feels like
it's nice
LOADING… THE END IS NEVER THE END IS NEVER THE END IS NEVER THE END IS NEVER THE END IS NEVER THE END IS
Three o'clock.
Stanley doubles over, heart pounding with the sudden lack that fills his body, his blood back in all the places it's supposed to be and not spilling between his friend's fingers and onto the floor. Well-worn habit presses his hand against where he is - was - shot, feeling the smooth skin and cloth beneath his fingers and trying not to think of the blood and pain from thirty seconds earlier and a lifetime ago. It's a familiar movement, and soon enough, the phantom pain fades.
The betrayal doesn't.
Stanley had hoped that those long nights by the fire, walking through that broken world together, saving each other's lives - had meant something to Narrator. Anything. But instead, here he is, waking up in his own personal hell, precisely at three o'clock, back where he should be.
He'd been so close, too. He'd literally been at the exit door, Narrator by his side, and now time's been reset. Nothing he did mattered anymore. Not with that blasted clock (three o'clock, three o'clock) back, trapping him again.
He doesn't realize he's crying until a tear splashes onto his hand, and even then it's a soft, raw hurt. Nothing that could describe that terrible storm within, sucking the air from his lungs and flooding his eyes with tears, demanding why why why why on an endless loop. Stanley is so, so tired of hurting, but he doesn't know where to press to unspool this storm. There's no blood for his hands to stem here.
The door opens. Familiar footsteps sound behind him.
Stanley turns, slowly.
The Narrator stands behind him, perfectly pressed and precise and proper. Everything is neat, everything is organized - his hair is kempt, his hands are skin-colored again, and that blasted clock is back in his hand.