Chapter Text
You don’t notice the switch till it’s done, till they’ve taken your place.
There’s a phantom pain on your neck from that yank on your tie. You suppose it’s why they had theirs undone, to stop that happening. It’s maniacal how they laugh as the elevator doors, your only escape, close in front of your eyes. The glee in their voice and the thinly veiled insanity beneath it is… understandable. It’s a little strange how you find yourself sympathising with them. Those imitations. Doppelgangers who would never truly be you.
>[Or were WE the imitations all along?]
Besides, they’re the reason you’re stuck here. Stuck with him.
Au contraire, you do not hate your coworker. You do, however, hate how he— as annoying, privileged and pompous he is —has to bear this. Has to watch you die, over and over again.
Though he always pretends he doesn’t. Says the same thing about the lights and how pathetic you are. Sometimes you think you believe the act.
And then he offers a tip [Though, really, it’s more like a throwaway remark.] that somehow seems to perfectly apply to the situation. And the doubts begin anew.
Now you seem sure of it. He does not recollect your shared experiences in the elevator, but there’s an inkling of something in his mind that might. Maybe it’s why you get those bits of advice.
It doesn’t matter, though.
You know what you have to do. It’s quite simple, really.
[STEP ONE]
>[YOU FEEL SAWDUST GATHERING IN YOUR THROAT. BUT YOU KNOW WHAT YOU MUST DO.]
>[“Hey. Do you remember?”]
>[A bit of confusion laces the nonchalant scoff he lets out.]
>[“Remember what, newbie? We’ve only known each other a little while, and THAT just happened.”]
>[He points to the elevator, its doors sealed shut.]
>[A SIGN OF YOUR FAILURE A SIGN OF YOUR FAILURE A SIGN OF YOUR FAILURE A SIGN OF YOUR FAILURE]
>[“Do you remember something like this happening before? Of us both being stuck in the elevator?”]
>[“You saying you’ve been here before, newbie?”]
>[“...”]
So it’s settled then.
>["...Newbie?"]
[STEP TWO]
>[“Can you promise me something, COWORKER?”]
>[“Um. I’m not sure what you mean.”]
>[“Have you never heard of a promise?”]
>[There’s a bit of vitriol in your tone. You recognise the way your coworker suppresses a shudder in response. He stammers, trying to respond.]
>[“I have! It’s just… Never mind. What is it, newbie?”]
>[It’s strange how he looks at you, genuine care in his expression. Maybe-]
>[You’re wrong. No one would be as perverted as you.]
>[“Promise me you won’t remember.”]
>[“Just what in the world does that mean-”]
[STEP THREE]
>[You have to make this quick. Give him no time to be disgusted with you. The filth you are.]
>[You move so close to him, so fast that he stumbles backwards a bit. He’s afraid and he thinks you’ll hurt him, but what you’ll really do is probably worse.]
>[“H-hey-!”]
>[This stunned man in front of you seems nothing like the COWORKER you know so well. Admittedly, anyone would be stunned at having a monster this close to them.]
>[You yank on his collar, bringing him closer. You’re already foretelling his lament over the future wrinkles obtained. You feel you should apologise before you impart your selfish desire onto him.]
>[“I-I’m sorry, I really am.”]
>[“Huh?”]
>[Your lips meet, and you can’t help but feel your heart flutter. He tastes of cigarettes and maybe a bit of spearmint. You’d stay like this forever, but there’s a good reason to avoid that.]
>[HE HATES YOU. GET IT OVER WITH.]
[STEP FOUR]
>[Just as quickly, you push yourself away from him. You can’t bear to meet his gaze.]
>[“N-newbie, I-”]
>[YOU CAN ' T BEAR TO MEET HIS EYES . HOW DISAPPOINTED HE MUST BE , HOW DISGUSTED HE MUST BE]
>[YOUR SCISSORS G L E A M IN THE DIM FLUORESCENT LIGHTS . YOU KNOW WHAT YOU MUST DO .]
>[“PLEASE, WHAT ARE YOU D O I N G ?”]
>[You do not hear your coworker. Sawdust and anticipation builds up in your throat.]
>[“I’m so sorry.”]
>[“No, wait! I didn’t-”]
>[E N O U G H W A I T I N G.]
>[You hold out the scissors in front of you, your hands trembling.]
>[Cold metal meets your WARM neck. Once is not ENOUGH. Again. Again. Again.]
>[You think someone’s sobbing, but you suppose that must just be you.]
>[“No, no, NO, PLEASE!”]
Drowning in your own blood, you can barely hear him.
At least he won’t remember.
[ED ??? : LAST WISHES]
---------------------------------------------------------------
And it begins all over again.
---------------------------------------------------------------
It’s tedious, having to go through all this dialogue again.
It’s even worse to have him and you go back to strangers.
You feel this ache within your chest when you think of how you were almost friends, almost something. But there’s really not much you can do but lament, and there’s no time for that. You rinse and repeat all the puzzles you can remember, thankfully, without dying this time.
Before you realise it, you find yourself back on the floor that damned you.
You see them in front of you, and you think you see your COWORKER flinch. Checking up on him, however, yields nothing.
After this, the first time you both were here, he kept quiet.
Having said that, this time, he hums in that irritatingly alluring, all-knowing manner. You brace yourself for a stupid comment about what to expect, but surprisingly, what comes out of his mouth isn’t just self-praise or filler dialogue.
>[“Y’know, the trick to negotiations is to crack the weaker one first.”]
>[???]
>[“When they get desperate enough, then you throw them a bone by acting like you understand them. And you’ll hook ‘em up for sure!”]
>[This is another one of those instances where you believe his naivete is little more than an act. How could such appropriate advice come out of nowhere?]
>[That line is too specific for this situation. It fits too well, right? To talk to the more ragged one — HIS copy — and break him.]
>[But HE hadn’t much time to figure that out already. It’s only been a minute or two for HIM.]
>[Unless...]
>[HOW HOW HOW HOW ? WOULD THIS MEAN HE-]
>[“You s u r e you don’t remember anything?”]
>[YOU LOST FAITH IN HIM A LONG, LONG TIME AGO, BUT, OH GOD PLEASE, LET HIM NOT-]
>[“Remember what?”]
>[“...Nothing.”]
So you decide to follow his lead. Gazing upon this… forgery of HIM, more worn down and lost, you feel a little guilty for what you’re going to do.
Though, when have you ever been absolved of guilt, for what you are?
Throughout your strained conversation, you notice that this version of your COWORKER looks, acts, and cowers just like you.
It was probably why he was the perfect target.
Your copy, on the other hand, had a familiar air of confidence you could only dream about. It was simply out of the question to interrogate it.
It scares you to wonder what could’ve caused such a drastic reversal in roles.
He snaps soon enough AND OH GOD IT’S TERRIBLE. They were stuck, STUCK FOR SO LONG, and the bile in your throat burns as you KNOW. That that’s exactly what you’ll do to them. A G A I N.
>[There’s a strain on his voice. He’s been yearning to tell someone, ANYONE about it other than your replica.]
>[Said replica does not look pleased at all, but the defeat in their eyes speaks for itself.]
But you lie anyway. You offer them an ersatz hope, in the hopes that they would fall for it. And so they did, like that old saying… hook, line, sinker?
It doesn’t quite matter though. Your doppelganger offers you his scissors, hands-a-trembling with anticipation. Your heart stops for a million hours and none at all simultaneously, and beads of perspiration form on your forehead.
You know what you must do.
>[“Sorry.”]
>[“Wha-”]
>[You can’t slam the CLOSE button fast enough. Their resounding screams, shouts, and frenetic BANGING on the door serves as an morbid reminder of your success.]
>[Your COWORKER breaks the silence.]
>[“Wow.”]
>[“Huh?”]
>[“Nothing, just didn’t know you had that in you-”]
>[What? Shouldn’t he be horrified?? You know you are, you’ve just doomed alternate versions of yourselves to an eternity within an elevator, stuck even after glimpsing escape.]
>[“That was cold-blooded.”]
>[“...”]
>[You can only muster empty hums in response to his bizarre… praise for your actions. Admiration tinges his voice. The warmth of his compliment does little to alleviate the sheer brutality of his words.]
>[“You’d make a great employee here, is all I’m saying.”]
>[Would he have ever said that last time? You know that being born with a silver spoon tends to dull one’s morality, but this is just…]
>[He asks you why you’re ‘looking at him like that’. You look away, not eager to show him your mild yet visible blush. He just thinks you’re being bashful.]
>[“What, you think I’m part of this somehow too?”]
>[The sadness permeating his tone does little to alleviate you. He continues.]
>[“Don’t you trust me?”]
>[D O N ‘ T Y O U T R U S T H I M ?]
>(1) [YES]
>(2) [NO]
>[“TWO.”]
>[Him saying that feels like a corkscrew’s been shoved in your heart and T U R N E D. But you keep mum. Because you KNOW it isn’t HIM.]
>[That would make for the perfect explanation for this, wouldn’t it? HE would have NEVER said something like that.]
>[“I mean, what kind of employee would I be if I could be replaced that easily?”]
>[HE’S NOT REAL HE’S NOT REAL HE’S NOT REAL HE’S NOT REAL]
>[HE WAS NEVER HERE TO HELP.]
>[YOU HAVE TO GET THE REAL HIM BACK.]
>[“Right, hahahAA!!-”]
>[You cut ‘him’ off by leaping onto him. It works only because ‘he’ wasn’t expecting it. You feel a little proud for having tackled ‘him’, but you know it only gets more arduous from here.]
>[“NEWBIE, WHAT’RE YOU TRYING TO DO?”]
>[You wish ‘he’ would stop struggling so much. It’s making it much, much more arduous than it has to be. As it is, you’re straddling him, a precarious thing to do; you’ve no doubt ‘he’ could fling you off if ‘he’ tried hard enough.]
>[“... You’re not real.”]
>[“That’s stupid, newbie! Look at me, I’ve retained all my tendencies!”]
>[...?]
>[It’s a strange choice of words, but of course ‘he’d say that. Only a copy would be proud of something like that.]
>[“You’re- You can’t be-”]
>[“BUT I AM! ASK ME ANYTHING!”]
>[It’s just a trick. Your ‘COWORKER’ is significantly stronger, but the wind was knocked out of ‘him’ when you made your move. ]
>[‘He’ tries his best to wrestle away your scissors. You’re just as frantically trying to bury them within ‘him’. This is clearly just a way for ‘him’ to buy ‘himself’ enough time to recover.]
>[You decide to indulge ‘HIM’ a little bit. As a farewell gift of sorts.]
>[“FINE, then. Say something only he’d know.”]
>[You take the opportunity to bring the scissors ever-so-closer to his heart, as 'he' racks 'his' brain.]
>[“Okay, got it! I remember!”]
>[“...?”]
>[“I REMEMBER! About the elevator! About all those times you died, I died! About you coming back! And- and starting over!”]
>[???]
>[You can’t seem to think. Your brain broadcasts static amidst several incoherent thoughts and implications brought on by his(?) words.]
>[Unfortunately for your current goal, it’s just the thing he(?) needs to turn the tables on you.]
>[He(?) takes advantage of the fact that you’ve frozen in your tracks — You didn’t realise — and quickly sits up and slams your back onto the carpeted floors of the elevator. He(?) straddles you, pinning your hands to the ground. It renders you so flustered, so confused, and so, so shocked that you never notice that you’ve lost the scissors in the scuffle.]
>[You force yourself to speak, but it comes out as a bit of a sob.]
>[“You- you remember? Everything?”]
>[“Not everything. Bits and pieces. I do remember the bits where we die a tad better.”]
>[NO NO NO NO NO NO- THAT MEANS-]
>[“That means you remember… the last time we- I died?”]
>[There’s such a pensive silence, such a tension that not even your scissors could make a tear in.]
>[“...Yes.”]
>[You’re now aware that you no longer wield your scissors. Your fists close on themselves, your nails tearing into the flesh of your palms. He speaks again.]
>[“I’m sorry I couldn’t keep the promise. I wanted to tell you that it wasn’t possible… but…”]
>[Your ears ring louder than the memories of church-bells. You are a sinner.]
>[You let out a sob. Struggling to move, you recall that you’re stuck under him. You can only avert your gaze from his countenance, adorned with all the makings of perfection. Tears flow down your cheeks.]
>[HE relaxes HIS grip on you. Neither of you move. You feel the need to say something.]
>[“You- really remember?”]
>[“...Yes, newbie. And… I didn’t hate that.”]
>[“...Hate what?”]
>[You might know the answer to that, but you HAVE to make sure.]
>[“The kiss. I didn’t hate it at all.”]
>[If you weren’t red all over, you certainly are now. You almost don’t catch him continuing.]
>[“But I do have one question for you, intern.”]
>[A change in addressal?]
>[ Well, you suppose saying ‘newbie’ must be exhausting after the first few hundred times.]
>[“...Hm?”]
>[“Why did you DO that to yourself?”]
>[HE sounds so crushed. You briefly recall the cold of the scissors against your neck.]
>[...Oh god, he had to watch that. You have to explain yourself.]
>[“It’s- It's not like THAT-”]
>[“Then?”]
>[HE looks at you expectantly. You notice that HIS eyes are a bit more blue than they are green.]
>[It's cute, and HE'S cute, but you're obviously trying to distract yourself.]
>[You clear your throat, unsuccessfully trying to dislodge the lump in your throat.]
>[“These loops don’t end, don’t restart until I die. Or until I’m ruined, I suppose. Case in point, it’s mostly my death that triggers the restart.”]
>[“So, you figured the only way to get out of the other elevator was to…”]
>[“Yes. I didn’t know if hurting you would work.. And I- I- really didn’t want to try.”]
>[He hums in understanding. You’ve only understood that because you’ve been paying that much attention to what he says, hanging onto his every word.]
>[He shifts around so that He’s just lying on top of you. Your COWORKER is obviously heavier than you are, but it’s not uncomfortable. You run your hands through his hair. It’s something you’ve wanted to do for a while.]
>[“I’ll let it slide for now, dear.”]
>[You chuckle.]
>[“Dear, huh? Guess you must be head-over-shoes for me.”]
>[“Yes, newbie. I like you.”]
>[“If you like me so much, you should be willing to answer one question from my side in return.”]
>[“Shoot.”]
>[“Why did you pretend not to remember?”]
>[He laughs at that.]
>[“Oh, that? That’s easy! Don’t you think that me recalling would’ve spooked you more? You knowing that I was conscious of this would be WAY worse on you.”]
>[There’s no refuting that logic.]
>[“...Yeah. But that must’ve been stressful for you, right? Watching me, well...”]
>[You notice him clinging onto you a bit tighter. You run your hands through his hair again, to remind him that you're here.]
>[He looks at you and smiles. It’s so completely unlike the smirk he flashed you when you both first met. His real smile, you note, is more subdued.]
>[“Well, well. You like me, the newbie. Like that.”]
>[“Does me saying that not count as enough proof, dear?”]
> (1)[It does.]
(2)[It doesn’t.]
(3)[Keep mum.]
>[THREE.]
>[You’re curious as to how he would react to that.]
>[“Oh, I see! You want me to prove it to you, yes?”]
>[“Can you?”]
>[“Sure I can. If you’re willing.”]
>[You smile at him, cocking an eyebrow at him.]
>[“If you insist, dear.”]
You brace yourself. He closes the distance between you two, brushing his lips against yours. His lips are a bit chapped, but you suppose yours aren’t any better. The tenderness with which he kisses you is exhilarating, and it feels like fireworks are going off within you. You sigh into the kiss, inhaling that intoxicating fragrance of cologne and cigarette smoke. On anyone else, it wouldn’t mean a thing. On HIM, it meant the world. It meant that you managed to get close enough for him to talk to you without that lackadaisical front, let alone kiss you.
After what feels like an eternity, and could have probably been, the both of you finally part. He rolls over beside you. The two of you simply lay there. You take his hand in yours, and both stare up at the flickering fluorescent lights. As a departure from your usual demeanour, you let yourself smile earnestly. You both need each other here, and you both WANT each other here. What could be greater than that?
>[Nothing, of course.]
As the lights buzz, no words are exchanged, for there’s a mutual understanding that your bond has gone far beyond needing them.