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It's the sound that startles the Narrator awake. Not quite awake, since you would've had to be asleep to be awake in the first place, but something close to it. Meditating, perhaps, to use a more human word for it. The Narrator is still fully aware of his environment while he meditates, he certainly wouldn't leave their shared safety up to chance, but it makes the time pass just that bit faster. It's boring sitting here and watching Stanley sleep, even if he does enjoy the little microexpressions that cross Stanley's face from time to time and the mesmerizing way his chest rises and falls. Humans are so painfully inefficient sometimes, what with their fragility and constant physiological needs like oxygen and food, but Stanley's soft snores have become a comforting background hum to the Narrator's watch, even if they truly only represent another error in the other man's organic body.
So when that snore stutters to a halt, the Narrator is instantly aware of it.
He looks over at Stanley immediately, analyzing - heart rate normal, blood pressure normal - but something's wrong. Something's very wrong, because Stanley's face has scrunched up as though he's in pain.
That doesn't make any sense, though. Stanley's asleep, and neither of them has been injured in quite a while now. He shouldn't be in any pain.
"Stanley?"
Stanley whimpers and all logical thought flies out the window.
Narrator is at his side in an instant, hands hovering over him. Heart rate elevated, blood pressure normal, breathing is too fast , that's bad humans need oxygen . He's having a nightmare, it's obvious, and Narrator takes him by the shoulders and shakes him firmly. "Stanley! Wake up!"
Stanley whimpers again as though he hasn't heard Narrator at all. He curls up and into himself instead, protecting his vital organs as best he can with his arms and legs. Narrator freezes for a second, hands still resting on Stanley's shoulders, remembering that familiar movement from a hundred resets ago. He'd managed to get Stanley through the side that time - a painful and debilitating injury, but not one that he thought would stop him. He'd gotten ready to attack again, pipes curling like striking snakes, when he realized that Stanley wasn't getting back up from where he'd fallen after the hit. He'd just lay there, just like now, and waited to die. The spreading pool of blood underneath him looked black through the cameras.
Sure enough, time reset not long after, but the memories echo.
Narrator shakes his head sharply and tightens his hands on Stanley's shoulders. Focus on the present moment, and not the ten thousand times he's - killed Stanley.
There's a terrible hurt slowly ripping open in Narrator's chest. He does his best to ignore it.
He shakes Stanley again, gentler this time. "Stanley, you need to wake up, you're having a nightmare." He never knew that Stanley was this heavy of a sleeper, but he's also never seen Stanley sleep until a few weeks ago, for what passes as weeks here.
Stanley abruptly starts muttering. "No, stop - I'll be good I'll stop running just stop please - " then gasps suddenly, body arching as though he had been stabbed through the back.
Narrator has a sudden memory of a particularly unpleasant run where he'd accidentally summoned too many pipelines at once, a dozen of which ran Stanley through the moment that he stumbled on a raised slab. It all reset, of course, but Stanley still hadn't moved for a long time after that. The Narrator had gone into sleep mode at his controls while waiting for Stanley to leave his office chair.
Narrator certainly isn't sleeping now, but Stanley is. The role swap tastes bitter in his mouth.
That hurt is now crawling into his throat, freezing his simulacrum breathing and choking his voicebox. If Narrator were to put a name to it, he would call it guilt, and would claw it out of his chest if he could. He thinks for a moment, dizzyingly, that he might let Stanley try to get it out instead, if only so that Narrator doesn't have to feel the way it curls into his chest and crushes that fragile machinery inside.
Stanley cries again, and Narrator's hands tighten a little more, yellow veins flaring brighter at the increased power drain. He swallows, trying to force down the lump in his throat, and tries again to wake Stanley up. "Stanley, you need to wake up. You're dreaming, it's all a dream."
Stanley flinches away from his voice. "The cameras, they see - " and Narrator falters.
It makes sense, is the thing. Of course he's afraid of the cameras, who knows how many times he's killed Stanley. (Another lie. He's killed Stanley 8,427 times.)
It's simple, really. The Narrator is Stanley's hunter, the one thing that keeps him from escaping, over and over and over and over. He's seen Stanley break under the weight of his gaze, watched him die a thousand times more, can recount every little exploitable weakness and invisible scar and blood spilled on the office floor. 8,428 resets that brought Stanley right back to the start just to die again. The Narrator haunts Stanley's nightmares, waking lives, and everywhere in between. He has seen every inch of Stanley, inside and out, but the Narrator has never cared .
But never has he been witness to the aftermath, either. Not like this. He has never seen - never been allowed to see - Stanley gasping and writhing in his sleep, begging for it all to just stop. It's painfully visceral, and the Narrator suddenly understands why Stanley avoids sleep when he can. He notices a lot more than Stanley gives him credit for, and he knows Stanley didn't really sleep those first dozen nights.
But that was then. This is now, and Stanley still isn't awake.
Narrator gives up trying to be quiet and gentle and instead yells. "Stanley! WAKE UP!"
Stanley gasps awake. Instantly, his hands wrap around himself, checking his body for any remaining injuries or blood. Another familiar motion to the Narrator's eyes. He's watched Stanley do this after every reset, but Stanley isn't usually gasping for air while he does. An abrupt, choked sound rips from his throat, and Stanley crumples into himself, hands still from where they've stopped on his sides.
Narrator quietly panics. He'd been hoping that this whole nightmare business would pass easily once Stanley woke up and realized it wasn't - (real it was real the Narrator remembers every frame of it) - actually happening, and Narrator could let Stanley go and pretend like the guilt wasn't choking him alive.
"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 drags his hands up and down Stanley's upper arms, trying to pretend that he knows what he's doing. He also consciously turns up the intensity of his breathing, hoping that his loud, even breaths will give Stanley's gasping, uneven breathing something to follow.
Stanley sobs louder. Shit.
Well, never let it be said that Narrator didn't try.
But before Narrator can do anything else Stanley decides for him and practically leaps into Narrator's arms, his arms clutching around Narrator as though a drowning man clinging to a scrap of wood. The impact knocks a bit of air out of Narrator's lungs, but what rings even louder than that is the sheer surprise of it. The Narrator's killed Stanley 8,427 times. Why would he seek comfort from him now?
The Narrator's hands freeze around Stanley. He knows, with a sudden sinking clarity, exactly what he should do in this situation.
Here are the facts: The Narrator controls every part of Stanley's life and death. The Narrator is the gatekeeper of the exit door, and his sole job is to prevent Stanley from reaching it through any means necessary. The Narrator has killed Stanley 8,427 times, and will kill Stanley an infinite times more.
Despite all of the above, Stanley trusts the Narrator.
Logic dictates that this - this trust - makes no sense. The Narrator should push away Stanley right now, deny him this human comfort because the Narrator knows that this is only going to end in fire and pain. The clock will inevitably reset the both of them back in the office, eternally at odds and exactly where they belong. Stanley should not be seeking this from the Narrator in the first place.
And yet.
Somewhere along the way, between the jokes and the bickering and the gearlings and the candy bar, the Narrator found that Stanley had found whatever passes for his human heart and made a home right in the middle. He pulled those pieces together using nothing more than dusty blankets and elbow grease, and the life in his heart now means that watching Stanley sob into his chest hurts unlike anything he's felt before. The Narrator knows error codes and thrown exceptions, the sting of overclocked components and the sharp jerk of his vocal cords knocked out of place, but he doesn't know pain. Not like this. Not this heartache in his chest, like a lost child blown open by the howling wind.
The Narrator wants to hate Stanley for it. He really does.
But he can't. In the same way that Stanley can never behave, the Narrator finds that he can never make himself stop caring.
So instead, he embraces it.
He pulls Stanley closer with both hands, wrapping his arms around Stanley as though he's the only thing holding Stanley together. He thinks he's holding a little too tightly, but Stanley doesn't seem to mind based on the unpracticed way he shudders and curls a little closer. His sobs get louder, but Narrator is fairly sure that this crying is more relieved than agonized, so he tries not to worry about it. Instead, he focuses on maintaining his exaggerated, even breaths, even as Stanley's tears soak the front of his sweater.
It takes a while for Stanley to calm down. Slowly, Stanley's gasping breathing settles into a more even inhale and exhale in a mirror to Narrator's own, and his death grip on Narrator's sweater relaxes. He still doesn't move away, though, and Narrator decides to allow it. If anything, he's starting to understand why Stanley craves touch so much - this warmth is very, very comfortable.
Eventually, Stanley speaks, still leaning against Narrator's chest. His voice is hoarse and thick with tears, but at least he's not crying anymore.
"I'm sorry. I know you don't like being touched, but-"
"Shh. It's ok." Some instinct guides Narrator to rub a small circle on Stanley's back. Stanley sniffles and leans into it a little. "You were having a nightmare, it's natural for humans to seek comfort afterwards."
"I know, but still…" This man and his self-blaming complex, honestly.
"Hush. It's fine. You're only human." Narrator laughs a trifle bitterly at his reminder. Stanley may be human, but Narrator certainly never has been. But even still, Narrator's not cruel. He would never deny Stanley something as simple as a hug.
"I'm, well, not quite happy, but I am willing to hug you if you need it, like earlier."
"O-oh." Stanley inhales, then pulls back a little and looks up at Narrator. His eyes are wide and red-rimmed, but the hope - surprise - joy brimming in them is almost too bright to look at.
"You… mean that?"
Narrator smiles just a little bit. It's a little ragged and unpracticed around the edges, but it's hard not to empathize with Stanley's joy when he's wearing his heart on his sleeve like that. "I don't say something I don't mean."
Stanley looks down again, but it's not nearly enough to hide that small, delighted smile.
"Oh. Okay then. Thanks."
"You're welcome."