Work Text:
The Narrator paused his writing as he heard the front door of the apartment open and close hurriedly. He listened further to the sounds of a heavy leather bag being thrown haphazardly into the closet, and a pair of plain, black shoes being tugged off and thrown aside in a hurry.
Ah, Stanley was home, The Narrator thought to himself, straightening out the keyboard and mouse on his desk, before standing up and sorting the stack of papers beside them quickly.
He could hear Stanley rushing about the kitchen. The kettle filled and set to boil, two mugs clanked on the counter top, teabags set into them. A teaspoon dropped, one, two, three times.
The Narrator found it funny that no matter how strapped for time Stanley was, his first task getting home was always a cup of tea. He set the papers in a neat pile onto the desk and went to join Stanley.
Entering the kitchen felt like walking into a restaurant during rush hour, even though it was only one man making two cups of tea. The office worker was dashing around, grabbing milk from the fridge in record time and impatiently stirring the teabags around. The Narrator observed for a moment before clearing his throat, capturing the other man's attention.
“Stanley, why are you attempting the world record for tea making today? Just a passing fancy, is it, or should I get used to the tornado?”
The other man, previously looking a tad startled, smiled with glee at his companion,
‘Oh. My. God. The craziest thing happened at work today.’
“Hmm?” The Narrator made an inquisitive noise. The ‘craziest thing’ could be anything from a robbery of HB pencils to a baby filing the accounts.
‘So you know Synthia and Mark?’
“Yes, you said that Mark had gotten a promotion recently.” The Narrator watched the milk bottle’s cap go flying across the counter.
‘Yeah, that's the guy, well they actually split a couple days ago.’
Stanley paused his story briefly to stir the milk into the tea (and took out the teabags before, he's not an animal),
‘ No one knew why. They'd both been so cagey about it. ’
The Narrator nodded, accepting his mug from Stanley, “Yes I remember you saying. After Tony and Kate's wedding, they had broken up and you were all coming up with outlandish theories.”
Stanley huffed in mild annoyance, ‘They weren't that outlandish’
“You speculated that Synthia was so embarrassed by Mark's dancing that she broke it off on the spot.”
‘Exactly. Perfectly reasonable explanation. But anyway! Today during lunch, Synthia walked into the break room all annoyed and spilled everything!’
Stanley flopped himself down onto the sofa (after placing his mug on the coffee table, of course) next to The Narrator, who was watching with wide eyes over the rim of his mug.
‘ Apparently she had found out that Mark was cheating on her a couple of months ago. With Poppy no less! ’
“ Her childhood best friend?!”
‘ yeah! It was crazy! She was so distraught, she said, that she decided to get him back and cheat on him with Anthony! ’
“His own Brother!” The Narrator exclaimed, his hand in front of his mouth.
‘ Yeah, Ant apparently thought his brother was a right douche so he agreed to the whole thing. And then Synthia thought that Mark was way too stupid to find out on his own, so she outright told him! While drunk! At the wedding! ’
The Narrator had to stifle a bark of laughter at the absurdity, “Well, I do have to say, from what you’ve personally told me about Mark, I don’t think she was very far off.”
Stanley giggled too, then smacked The Narrator’s arm like they were supposed to be polite during their impromptu gossip sesh.
Composing himself, Stanley continued,
‘ Mark obviously blew up at that, and they started rowing right in the middle of the dance floor. According to Synthia, he tried to make out that he was ‘ever so heartbroken’, but that she turned around and said, ‘hang on, where was all this love for me when you were creeping around with poppy’ ! Mark literally went white as a sheet, apparently. ’
Stanley paused to take another gulp of tea, then shuffled around till he was mostly horizontal, legs sprawled across his companions lap and upper half supported halfheartedly by the sofa arm.
‘ She could see his soul actively leaving him, so she ‘threw him a bone’ and broke them off before they caused any more commotion. ’
“I think it might’ve been a little too late for that.” The Narrator rolled his eyes a little, hands brushing up and down the soft cotton of Stanley’s work trousers.
‘ The bride thought the same as well, she marched all the way over there and chucked the punch bowl over them. Made them leave immediately. ’
Stanley mimed the size of the bowl, which had turned out to be pretty massive. Many groomsmen had rumoured that the groom had found the feat of strength quite attractive.
‘ Synthia would not stop going on about her dress, tried to pin the dry cleaning bill on Mark, but he’s taken to avoiding her now. Which is why she was so pissed today. ’
“Well, that is quite the news.” The Narrator exhaled after he was able to fully process the, frankly absurd story laid out before him.
‘ Oh it doesn’t end there, ’ Stanley had the most shit-eating grin on his face, the specific one he got when he knew someone had screwed up royally and he was about to spread the tale like wildfire, ‘ The suit Mark was wearing, that died spectacularly after the punch bath, belonged to his boss. Turns out bossman had leant it to him as part of his well done for the promotion. He was not happy to learn that his very expensive and very one of a kind suit had been doused in a mixture of Vodka and fruit juice. He was even unhappier when he learned how it had gotten ruined, and- ’
Stanley cut himself off as he buried his face in his hands, cheeks red as he stifled snorts of laughter. He went to start again, hunched in on himself as he tried to avoid bursting out laughing. It took a couple tries, but eventually he made it.
‘ He demoted Mark, effective immediately, to resident coffee runner. To the entire company. Synthia put through about 12 separate orders as soon as she found out. ’
The Narrator was certain he was looking fairly silly at this point, as he choked on the mouthful of tea he had just taken. He felt Stanley shift and his hand rub his back gently. Finally composing himself, he turned his shocked expression to Stanley, taking in his cherry red face as he barely covered his smirk with his hand.
“Well,” The Narrator rasped, throat still raw, “I suppose that’s a rivalry you’re going to have to deal with now.”
‘ Oh I am not just dealing with it, I’m making notes. ’ Stanley looked positively giddy at the thought, ‘ As resident ‘guy that’s usually in their general vicinity ’, I’ve been tasked with updating the rest of the building! I feel like a journalist or something. ’
“Your more like the snoopy writer of a gossip rag, but yes; glad you’ve found a new hobby to occupy yourself with, Stanley.”
‘ Yep! I’ve got a whole email system planned out for when the next update comes, ’ Stanley sat back like he had just completed his life’s work and was damn proud about it, ‘ But never worry, you shall be the first to hear it. ’
“Glad to know I’m high up on your update list”
‘ The highest ’
They sat together for a few moments, both coming down from the high that was the gossip of people you only vaguely knew.
“Well,” The Narrator started, downing the last few sips of his tea, “After that I think it’s the perfect time to get tea started. What did you want me to make tonight, Stanley?”
Stanley seemed to think for a moment, before jumping up and snapping his fingers in what had to be the most cartoony a real man had ever been.
‘ A productive day of office gossip gathering deserves something sophisticated. What about Spaghetti Carbonara? ’
“You’d deem it ‘sophisticated’ enough for a topic of this caliber?” The Narrator was well versed in the language of ‘Stanley having a laugh’ by now, shaking his head as he followed the man into the kitchen (which still looked like a minor war zone).
‘ Of course I do, Spaghetti Carbonara is very fancy. Well posh, it’s even got a posh Italian name ’
The narrator couldn’t help but smile at that, watching Stanley pull out different ingredients ready for him as he turned to the sink to wash his hands.
“Okay Stanley, Spaghetti Carbonara it is. I’ll even pull out the good wine for this, and the fine china.”
The teasing was still there, but the atmosphere fell into a comforting warmness that was customary to the later evenings together. After dinner they would clean up the kitchen (somehow it always ended up looking like a small tornado had whipped through that room and that room alone), The Narrator would wash each plate and utensil thoroughly, Stanley would dry them with a tea towel they had gotten on a long weekend to wales together (it had a dragon so it was objectively cool). Then Stanley would make another cup of tea for each of them and they would curl up together on the sofa. Sometimes it was TV (one of the many dramatic series that Stanley would binge watch through), or The Narrator would read to his companion (usually something that was at least 20 years old and kind of existential). Sometimes they just stayed up and talked (those days usually led to a bedtime two hours later than it should’ve been and the alarms being cursed about twice as much as usual in the morning). This part of The Narrator's routine was probably his favourite; only second to when they both finally decided to commit to bedtime and would relax in the other's embrace, the warmth tugging them both into sleep until inevitably, the whole thing would start over again in the morning.