Chapter Text
The skip button sat at the edge of the room, propped up on a pedestal The Narrator must have crafted himself. The thought was a little morbid, a little funny, and overall depressing. Stanley's head tapped quietly against the smooth, empty space of the wall where the door once lay, and he stared at the button. Then at the plant. Then at the button again.
It was one thing, see, to resolve not to push it. It was another entirely to deny himself even a glimpse at it, like the temptation would bleed back into his veins if he allowed it the chance. For all he knew, it very well might. His day had been a very strange collection of impossible experiences, yellowish glowing liquid taking the space where his blood should be seemed to be the least of it.
Still, he was stubborn. So although he allowed himself slow, longing looks at the button, he made himself break away. Made himself count the light fixtures on the ceiling, examine the innocuous plant like he didn't already know how many leaves it had, or what shade of green was closest, or that there wasn't any food in here, god, he was so hungry. He braced his head against his knees, tucked his arms around himself. Rocked until he felt the wall — empty, smooth, like a door had never been there at all — and tried to fall asleep.
Keyword: tried.
"Aren't you tempted?"
The Narrator's voice was back again, and though Stanley knew that at least a little time had passed he knew it was shorter than whatever that button brought. He shrugged, just to feel like he was able to answer. For all the times that The Narrator liked to talk and describe, he seemed to have selective vision about when and where he actually witnessed whatever it was Stanley was doing.
"How can you not be tempted?"
The Narrator's voice was incredulous, spiteful and steeped in something that sounded a hair too fragile to be his usual exasperated scoff. Stanley wondered at that, about when he'd learned the difference between the usual prattle and the odd strain that had come over them ever since they'd started reading stupid game reviews. Stanley wasn't even sure he understood what those were meant to be, let alone why they had his name plastered all over them like it was some kind of byline.
"You aren't fooling anyone," The Narrator said, "you aren't fooling me. I know what you're doing—you're playing with me, aren't you. Ooh, that's how you get your stupid sick kicks, isn't it? You go on and on, getting my hopes up, and then dash them to the ground like a petulant toddler. Because, what? Because it's funny? Because you want to? It's childish, Stanley, and it isn't going to work. I'm not going to give you the satisfaction of believing that. I'm not going to do it."
And there he goes again. Off having verbal sparring matches with himself in a Stanley-shaped mask, complete with an exaggerated and nasally accent that Stanley was almost eighty-five percent certain he didn't have. It'd been a long time since he'd been able to speak, so much so that he wasn't really sure what his voice sounded like anymore, but it wasn't that.
He hoped.
Regardless, Stanley couldn't really muster any anger beyond a little bit of trite irritation as The Narrator continued to babble, pulling out insults so hypocritically childish that it felt like he was taunting him. Begging him, really, to push that button and spare himself the headache that was beginning to form at the center of his skull. Pleading with him to get it over with already, spare them both the charade and cut to the chase just like everyone else wanted him to. Whoever everyone else was meant to be.
After a little while, he sat up straighter. The Narrator kept babbling with further intensity, but he didn't miss the very slight hitch in his breath before he continued, like he was proving himself right a million times over.
Stanley quietly placed his hands over his ears, and The Narrator stopped talking.
It wouldn't work, obviously. Shouldn't work. So unless he'd also implemented some kind of mute button that was magically activated by Stanley putting his hands over his ears—
"You… really aren't going to press it, are you?"
Stanley would laugh if he was capable of it. As of right now, he rolled his eyes, knowing full well that The Narrator couldn't see it. Maybe that was partially why he did it anyway, because he knew there wouldn't be any point to trying to pettily punish him for it. Not with that button, that thing, hovering over their heads. It was kind of funny, actually. This was the most power Stanley could ever recall ever having in his life, the most agency, and it was while he was stuck in a windowless, doorless wasteland. With a single button to push, a mockery of his old job. He would have thought power felt better than this; than the quietly crushing weight that made his fingertips itch.
You really aren't going to press it, The Narrator had said, his voice oddly soft and staccato. Like he was baffled by himself and Stanley both.
(He'd really have thought that part would've been obvious by now.)
The silence stretched out, because of course it did. No matter how many times he tried, mocked, threw little tantrums, The Narrator never seemed to understand that Stanley simply wasn't going to speak.
"..."
He took his hands off his ears, the motion pointed and about as sarcastic as he could make it. He put his head back down and took in a deep breath, wondered how long it would take for him to try eating the stupid ficus. Fern. Whatever it was. He didn't know what plants they kept in the office, let alone this strange, impossible non-dimension made by a man that was supposedly, but also not entirely, a voice in his head.
Things would be easier, he thought with a hint of quiet bitterness, if he was just a voice. Something without agency or emotion; hell, even if he was just a tormentor who relished in his petty little jabs at Stanley's intelligence and work ethic. Or maybe it wouldn't be. Maybe Stanley was going to end up here no matter what he did, and he really was just prolonging the inevitable.
…
"Stanley?"
He raised a finger to show he heard him. Not the middle one, mind you, but it was a near thing. If The Narrator went off on him again, Stanley promised himself, he would flip him off with both hands as emphatically as he could, sight be damned. For what he was willingly enduring, he earned that much at least.
"..."
He waited. Somehow the silence felt full, like the potential energy of a ball threatening to topple right off the edge of a cliff. Or a flight of very, very tall stairs.
But The Narrator didn't say anything. So Stanley closed his eyes, and tried to go to sleep.
Stanley woke up slowly. He felt sluggish, and there was a crick in his back and at his heels that made him silently frown in pain and stiffness. He rolled his neck and twisted his torso, but it seemed the ache was intent on lingering in his spine. Spiteful, like everything else.
The room hadn't changed, of course. For once in this weird, painfully impossible day, the room had remained exactly the same as it had been before. Plant, wall, Button. Capital B, he thought, the notion uncomfortably close to sounding just like the other voice that took up residence in his head, it seemed worthy of a title for all the trouble it caused.
"Ah. You're awake."
And speak of the devil. Stanley looked up, because there was only so much he could do. There was nothing to see but the same light fixtures.
(Better that than the pedestal)
"I… you have me at a loss here, Stanley. I'm not certain exactly what it is you're trying to prove."
His frown deepened. At this rate, he really was going to develop a stress migraine.
"I mean, truly, Stanley, what do you think it is you're going to achieve by doing this? Do you think there's some kind of hidden ending if you wait long enough? That there's some—some big secret door that'll pop over to that far wall and lead you to the proper office building again? I've checked, Stanley, and there's nothing I can do, much less you. There's no way out of here. You aren't going to win a prize for sitting here in the dark, staring at nothing."
Stanley stared. Kept staring long after The Narrator lapsed back into expectant silence, face utterly impassive.
And then his stomach growled.
"Was that—?"
Stanley didn't respond.
"You're hungry. Of course you are, you've been in here for — let me see here — ah, yes. About twelve hours. Twelve hours, Stanley, do you realize how long that is? That's about as long as the last time you pressed that awful button, do you know that? You've been here for half of a day. I've been here longer of course, and you spent a good deal of it sleeping, but that's hardly the point. Do you not have anything better to do with your time than play—whatever this is? Whatever game you're trying to unlock?"
Stanley flipped him off. With both hands, thank you very much. And from the sudden, borderline scandalized gasp that followed, he took visceral pleasure in knowing that The Narrator actually was watching that time.
"That is extraordinarily rude!"
No more so than you are, he thought, rolling his eyes. Stupid man-child hypocrite.
He shifted. Maybe lying on his left side would give him a better sleeping experience than sitting mostly upright. God only knows how much time he had to try it. He closed his eyes, squeezed them tight. He wasn't tired, but it wasn't like he had anything better to do.
Tap.
He opened his eyes, and found them fixated upon a shiny red apple. The shock of color was enough to make him shoot upright, cast his gaze about for a door. There wasn't one, of course. Just the apple.
The Narrator didn't speak. Not even when Stanley crunched pointedly through the core.
"Have you ever noticed that you haven't needed to go to the bathroom, Stanley?"
He opened one eye. He was facing the wall this time, his back to the pedestal and the button-that-should-not-be-named. It was nice to have a change in scenery, see. He was thinking of moving the plant next, just for the hell of it. But that would come a little later, when he tired of sleeping and watching already long dry paint crack on the walls.
He shrugged. The Narrator continued.
"I mean, we have restrooms, surely. Your boss has a particularly lovely one stashed away in his office. Awful thing to do, really, keep the good bathroom all to yourself. I thought that seemed like the sort of thing bosses would do, with all their money and authority and whatnot, which is why I implemented it. But I can't help but wonder why you get hungry, but have no other… er. You know."
Stanley shrugged. The Narrator continued.
"Is it because this is a game? Is that what it is? Seems terribly convenient. Not that I'm complaining of course, no no. But it is odd, isn't it? Perhaps it could be a matter of you wanting things out of habit instead of need. You haven't asked for water either, which certainly poses all sorts of new questions. The foremost of which, of course, is why."
He didn't particularly recall asking, but he knew better than to try in vain to point that out.
"Do you not feel thirst? Do you not wish, nay, long for the sweet bout of satisfaction that proper hydration brings? There's very little in the world that brings your mood up more than an ice cold glass of water, I'm sure you'd agree. Perhaps you're one of those who don't put ice in their water; that would certainly explain a few things. Awful habit, that. You're full of terrible habits, Stanley."
And then like it was nothing, there was a glass of water on the floor. Between one blink and the next, there was a glass cup, three perfectly square ice cubes, and water. Stanley stared at it for a while, squinting.
"Well? Go on already, drink up. I'm sure you'll come to your senses once you do. Ice water is an entirely new experience, but I promise that you'll find it enlightening."
The condescending attitude was almost, almost enough to tempt him to flip off the air again. He knew it would be seen, after all. But he would save that for another occasion, when The Narrator's intentions weren't so patently transparent that it made his monologue sound more like a thin sheet pulled over his incorporeal head than a true attempt to insult him. Stanley picked up the glass, and drank.
It was, in fact, quite nice.