Archive of Our Own ^beta

It starts with silence. 

The Narrator opens his eyes. Something's wrong. Something's terribly wrong in the air, in the ground, in him. Stanley is peacefully asleep beside him, wrapped up in that little blanket he loves so much, but that knowledge does nothing to ease the creeping dread climbing on the Narrator's back. There are no errors flashing like firecrackers in his visual field, but the foreboding peace is just too much to ignore. 

The problem's simple. He's tired.

But the Narrator is an android. A mimic of the human condition, just with all the fiddly bits and little useless knobs removed and replaced by infinitely more efficient mechanical parts. He is designed to be better than humans in every imaginable capacity - he doesn't get hungry, doesn't need water, doesn't get tired. 

But he is. He is tired, and that simple bodily need means that something has gone wrong somewhere in the Narrator, and he doesn't know how to fix it. 

He's stopped breathing at some point, and he can feel the slow sting of overheating slinking up his neck. He's sure that if he looks, he can see the low burn of the veins just under his false skin, the brighter glow of the ones along his damaged hand. Or even worse, there is no glow at all, and he's already dead. The thought makes Narrator instinctually grab his hand in a human attempt at comfort, as he squeezes his eyes shut and tries to focus. But he's so tired, and at some point his hands started shaking again (another error? They never shook in the control room) and there's nothing he can do to fight against the wave of fear.

This panic - this fear - isn't helping, the Narrator knows. The more he panics, the more damage his system incurs, and the more energy he is needlessly burning. Better to focus on conserving energy now and relax, but the exhaustion dogging his every movement effortlessly tears apart any thought he manages to put together. The more he thinks about it, the worse it gets. 

The Narrator has no idea how humans have managed to keep it together for this long if they have to manage this fatigue and more just to exist. It's ridiculous. Absurd. The Narrator is better than that. He should be better than that.

Clearly, he's not.

Stanley shifts beside him with a low groan. The Narrator immediately flinches back, fearing that his reaction to this discovery has woken Stanley, but his body refuses to cooperate and he awkwardly tumbles onto his side with a loud thud. The Narrator winces - the fall jostled something inside him, with a Warning: biocomponent C1_985 disconnected flashing in the corner of his vision, and now Stanley's awake instead of getting that sleep that he so desperately needs. 

Stanley blinks at him from his blanket burrito. The other man looks exhausted despite his long rest, with dark bags under his eyes and a thousand-yard stare. However, he's still awake and unfortunately aware enough to see the Narrator's panic at being tired. 

It sounds ridiculous in his head. It is ridiculous. The Narrator knows it's ridiculous, but that doesn't make the sound of his cooling fans any quieter.

"Are you okay?" Stanley's voice is low and hoarse, but there's a thread of kindness in it that makes the Narrator falter. 

(Nobody's ever asked him that before. Broken machine, hollow-hearted enemy, 8,427 dead Stanleys - He's fine. He's okay. Why wouldn't he be?)

The Narrator tries to answer, but what comes out is a yellow-tinted huff of breath and a burst of static instead. Instantly, the Narrator claps his hand over his mouth, eyes going wide. He's never glitched that badly before. 

Stanley's frown sharpens. In a slow shift of movement, like a mountain rolling to life, Stanley untangles himself from the blanket and walks toward the Narrator. This close, the concern in those dark eyes is almost too much to bear. It's only been a few 'weeks' since they met, after all. Stanley has no reason to care for his sanity and safety - if anything, he should care less about the Narrator than he does. There's nothing stopping the Narrator from killing Stanley for the 8,428 time, after all. 

But Stanley lives to confuse and condemn, so instead, he kneels in front of the Narrator and gently pulls his hand away from his mouth. It's the damaged one, with his black chassis and gold wires clearly visible. It will remain damaged for the rest of this timeline, however long that ends up being. For all his humanized perfection, the Narrator wasn't designed to heal from injuries alone. He never should have needed to. 

The fine servos in his joints tremble as Stanley carefully turns his hand over, palm up. His hand is warm and soft under his own, a gentle heat seeping into the Narrator's hand. It's something to focus on, and Narrator does his best to press through the haze of fear and exhaustion into something resembling control, focusing on the feeling of Stanley's fingers  skimming his palm. His breathing is still stuttered and loud, but significantly better than what he'd been doing previously, and he can feel his core cooling as he breathes, 75C, 74C, 68C counting down in his thermal sensors. 

Stanley pokes his hand abruptly, the black casing smooth and warm beneath the touch. "The skin here isn't healed." It's not a question. His eyes are utterly unreadable from where he's staring at Narrator's hand.

Narrator involuntarily coughs twice, and he can feel the knocked-out part slipping back into place, Biocomponent C1_985 reconnected flickering once before fading. 

"It won't heal. I wasn't designed with self-repair in mind." His voice has thankfully returned to normal, if maybe with a slight waver to it. He hopes it'll fix itself in time. He's been hoping a lot, recently.

Stanley's head shoots up, staring at Narrator in undisguised shock. "It won't heal? Ever? So if you get injured now, you'll be injured forever?"

"Unfortunately so. I believe that goes for the rest of this timeline, though that's not the most pressing issue at the moment," Narrator tries for a smile, but even he can tell it's weak and shaky. 

Stanley looks askance and a half-dozen emotions flash over his face, too fast to quantify, settling on something somewhere between anger and guilt. Stanley blinks again, and the emotion is quickly cleared away, replaced with yet more unfamiliar concern.

"Well, if it's not that, then what's the issue, then?"

The Narrator considers his sense of pride for a moment, before sighing and going with the truth. 

"I'm tired."

"Same."

The Narrator stares at Stanley, who stares back, baffled. "What? You just woke me up, of course I'd be tired. I was having a nice dream about ice cream, too."

The Narrator huffs. Trust Stanley to completely misunderstand. "You don't understand. I'm tired, and I'm not supposed to be tired. I'm not some random human subject to your foibles, I am a perfect machine," the Narrator growls. "I do not get tired." 

He slumps back down after the last sentence, suddenly drained. This exhaustion is rapidly becoming more and more annoying by the minute.

Stanley's hand holding the Narrator's tightens, just a little. His eyebrows draw down into a frown, and when he speaks again it's softer, yet somehow more urgent. "Not supposed to be tired?"

"Yes, Stanley, in case you haven't noticed by now I am not human. I shouldn't be able to get tired, and in fact I haven't been tired this whole time except now I am! And I don't know why!" 

"So you're tired, and you don't know what's wrong?"

"What, do you know everything about how your body works? As if all humans are world-class doctors that know every single disease your fragile species can possibly catch. No, I don't know why, alright?" the Narrator huffs, leaning back against the wall. The longer they talk, the more irritable the Narrator feels, and what few emotions he can still identify are starting to smear into a blurry mess of grumpiness. His eyelids are getting heavier and heavier, and he fights back the urge to let them slide shut.

Stanley pouts. "You don't need to be grumpy about it, old fart. Can you not run a diagnostic or something? Even the computers in the office can do that." 

The Narrator pauses. "I… hadn't thought of that." At all. This fatigue must be much worse than he thought if he's making mistakes like this. He drags his hand shakily down his face and mutters "I'm an idiot" to himself before starting the diagnostic and letting his body slump against the wall.

> LOADING System Diagnostic…. THE END IS NEVER THE END IS NEVER THE END IS NEV

>... … … Complete.

> Running Diagnostic… … …

> … 

> …

Stanley leans forward, watching the unmoving Narrator with a hawk-like focus. His internal fans whirr just a little louder, but aside from that the silence reigns over them both. 

>... … … 

> … … … Scan Complete.

> Warning. Battery low, 15% remaining. Battery saver on. CTRL_RM status… disconnected. Temporary shutdown required to recharge. Internal fans at 85% efficiency. Biocomponent C1977e has sustained minor damage. System corruption percentage -

The Narrator closes the diagnostic. His battery is low so his system has automatically turned on battery saver mode, and that's all he needs to know. He's not going to concern himself with the other problems. He's not. 

"My battery is low," the Narrator announces to an audience of one. "I'll need to shut down to recharge it, and I won't be aware or able to move during that time."

Stanley blinks. Blinks again. "Shut down?"

"Shut down, yes. I suppose it would be equivalent to a human sleeping. I can still be reactivated during a recharging shutdown state via minor physical trauma, but it will take me some time to properly reboot." The Narrator carefully leaves out the fact that he's never actually needed to shut down for recharging before, and that he's not sure what he's saying is what will actually happen. Stanley doesn't need to know about that. 

"Well then, why don't you just sleep right now? If you need to recharge, and you can do that on your own while being 'shut down', then you just need a nap!" Stanley smiles brightly despite the shadows in his eyes. 

Well, when Stanley puts it so simply, it's hard for the Narrator not to agree. 

"But who will take watch?"

Stanley snorts. "Me, of course. I'm already awake. Besides, who else?" 

Who else, indeed. The Narrator sighs, recognizing the truth behind Stanley's words and only feeling a bit silly for being so concerned about it. The great Narrator, guardian of time itself, is afraid of sleeping. How ridiculous. 

Stanley leans over and grabs his backpack, sliding it over until it gently bumps the Narrator's leg. The Narrator stares at it. 

"What exactly am I supposed to do with this?"

"Just go to sleep, you old fart. It's a pillow now." 

"Now?" The Narrator raises an eyebrow. He'd thought that Stanley would want to keep moving once they were awake, never mind whatever issues the Narrator was dealing with. The amount of care that Stanley keeps showing the Narrator is confusing, to say the least. 

Stanley nods. "Now. We might as well, considering this is about as safe as you can get here. " 

The other confusing thing is how Stanley keeps making logical sense. The Narrator sighs and lays down on the backpack-turned-pillow, letting himself give in and shut his eyes. 

> BEGIN SHUTDOWN_INITIALIZATION_0x4278… …. …

> Saving data… … … … … Complete.

> Closing peripheral processes… … … Complete.

> Shutting down core systems… … … Complete.

The Narrator feels his awareness slip away and doesn't try to reach for it again. He's too tired to think anymore, instead letting himself drift into the dark. It's surprisingly comfortable. He might even call it safe if he were feeling particularly ridiculous. 

Distantly, he hears Stanley shift into a more comfortable sitting position beside him, and there's an inexplicable flash of warmth in his chest at the sound. 

> Preparing for recharge mode… … … Complete.

> Estimated time to full charge… … … … ̸̜̀4̷̢̀ ̵̦̎h̷̨̛ṟ̷̒ ̸̧̀3̶̲͘2̶̳̓.

> Recharging…

.

.

.

.

.

.

> Charge complete. 

> Rebooting CTRL_ALT_DEL UNITYv2.71828.exe… … … …

The Narrator bolts upright and then blinks for a moment, disoriented by the still initializing subroutines. For a moment, the world is overwhelming, until his eyes automatically adjust to the dim room and his mind catches up to the data still streaming in. >Haptic sensors initialized, and he can feel the slight scratchiness of the clothes he is wearing, the air against his skin. >Audio processors initialized, and there's a click before the sounds start filtering in - Stanley's soft breathing, the whoosh of the wind outside, the creaking walls of the room. The sudden data is almost overwhelming, but the Narrator bears down fiercely on his unruly mind and manages to organize everything into some semblance of order.

Beside him, Stanley jumps in surprise, blinking owlishly at the still-initializing Narrator. "You ok?"

> SHRIMP_FACTSv1.0.exe initialized. The Narrator blinks, the golden HUD in his field of view fluttering out like twinkling stars. > Battery fully charged. Restart complete whispers the command window one last time before it automatically closes, leaving his field of vision clean and pristine. 

"Narrator?" 

"Yes. My battery is now fully charged, which should be enough for the next few weeks." 

Stanley relaxes, smiling at the Narrator. "That's good, then. Sleep well?" His eyes glint with the air of an inside joke.

The Narrator lets himself smile back, just a little. 

"Yes, I did."

Later that day, they're walking again when the Narrator sees another error flash in his vision. 

Warning: Biocomponent 2218f is lagging. 

And sure enough, when the Narrator shifts his arm slightly, he can feel a little stuttering spark in his forearm, inputs lagging as he turns the black-gold hand over. Stanley doesn't notice from where he's walking in front, and the Narrator frowns and decides to deal with it later. 

Later comes sooner than expected, and they stop in another small room after Stanley declares that he's too tired to keep going. He promptly begins setting up a cooking pot and gathering firewood, while the Narrator opens up the panels on his arm to try to fix things. 

Of course, Stanley can't leave well enough alone, and soon enough he's leaning curiously over, watching the Narrator work. 

Curious, and a bit concerned, because the Narrator's just peeled his arm open like a banana. 

"What are you doing?"

The Narrator glances at Stanley and then winces when he accidentally pulls a bit too hard on a delicate bit of wiring. 

"Seriously, what on earth are you doing?" Stanley's voice lilts with both annoyance and slight worry. 

The Narrator huffs. Stanley's not going to leave him alone, clearly, so he answers, "There's something weird with my forearm, and I'm trying to fix it. Don't bother me." With any luck, that will be enough to get Stanley to buzz off. 

Unfortunately, one of Stanley's most annoying traits is his stubbornness, so instead of leaving well alone, he sits down next to the Narrator, peering at his internal wires and machinery. The Narrator scowls at Stanley, snapping, "I'm trying to focus here, Stanley. This isn't exactly easy work."

"You know I can see a rock stuck in there."

The Narrator blinks. 

"There's a what?"

Stanley takes the Narrator's forearm and starts tugging at wires, and the Narrator hisses sharply. "Stanley, what do you think you're doing - " 

"There's no way you can reach it from your angle. Do you want me to help or not?" Stanley shoots back, looking increasingly annoyed, and now that he's pressing down on the offending pebble the Narrator can feel how it's pinching two important nerves, choking the inputs and slowing down his movements. Unfortunately, he also recognizes that Stanley's right - he wouldn't be able to reach it with his other hand at that angle. If anything, he'd probably make it worse.

"Fine." 

Stanley hums agreeably, seeming a little less displeased as he starts carefully wiggling the rock out of the Narrator's arm. 

However, the Narrator is still rather annoyed at needing Stanley's help, again, and makes his opinion well known. 

"Stanley, just because I agreed doesn't mean I think this is necessary. It's a minor issue that I could fix on my own given time." He'd think of something to get it out - he could certainly find more tools than just his fingers, after all.

Stanley huffs, eyebrows creasing sharply from where he's tapping on the Narrator's open arm panel. The Narrator ignores him, leaning his chin on his hand and crossing his legs as he begrudgingly lets Stanley work. 

"Seriously, Stanley, this is ridiculous."

Stanley taps his arm once, brows furrowing as he carefully wiggles out the rock between two fingers. It's a decidedly unpleasant sensation, and the Narrator lets the irritation feed into his voice as he continues to vent his frustrations. 

"Honestly, your grubby little hands in my arm are really quite gross, similar to the rest of you frankly. I don't even want to know how much dirt is getting into my arm while you're trying to get it out. You probably didn't even - " the Narrator yelps as Stanley suddenly grabs a wire and pulls, glaring at him with vicious frustration. A few errors flash behind his eyes and a sharp pain ricochets up his arm. It's blindingly hot and stinging, and the Narrator chokes out a wheeze, limbs spasming as he jerks into himself and falls onto the floor. 

"Narrator? You good?" Stanley's face floats over the Narrator, looking somewhat apologetic.  

Biocomponent 2218f is at 95% functionality, the Narrator's display reports. 

The Narrator sighs. "Thankfully, it's fixed now. But don't even think about doing that again, Stanley. You can't - "

Stanley chirps, "Great! Sorry about the pulling," and wanders off back to the cooking pot.

The Narrator stares at the ceiling and lets himself daydream about throwing Stanley out the window. 

Stanley holds up the little box, grinning brightly. It's an electronic repair kit - a bit small, but no less functional despite that.

"Narrator! I found a first aid kit for you!" 

The Narrator looks over from the freezer he's scavenging through and snorts. "That's an electronics repair kit, not a first aid kit. The latter is only for humans, and I doubt putting Vaseline on my insides will fix anything."

"Still, though! I can fix you if you have problems now. Properly, you know?" 

The Narrator turns fully, annoyed at the thought of potentially needing more repairs, especially from Stanley of all people. "You really think you could try to fix me with that?" 

Stanley smiles sheepishly. "I did work with computers once. I know how to solder a motherboard at least?"

Fair point, but the Narrator isn't sure how comfortable he is with Stanley's grimy little hands inside him. Once was quite enough.

The Narrator huffs. "Well, with any luck, we won't need to use it anytime soon. The last time you tried to fix me, you almost broke my arm, you know."

Stanley pouts. "I said I was sorry! I didn't think it'd hurt you that much." 

The Narrator stares at Stanley, aghast. This is the guy he's going to be trusting with his health in the future?

"Those are quite literally my nerves? Of course it'd hurt when you pull on them!" Granted, he was complaining about Stanley in the first place, so in retrospect it's probably a bit his fault as well, but the Narrator refuses to start any sort of serious self-reflection now, and certainly not in this half-broken shed of random garbage. One of the walls is missing entirely; it's overall a terrible place to contemplate anything aside from how to leave as fast as possible.

Stanley pouts but nevertheless tucks away the electronics kit in their backpack, and the Narrator tries not to worry about it. He simply stows it in the back of his head alongside a growing pile of errors and warnings and carefully does not look back. It'll be fine, he tells himself. They won't need to use that kit.

They need to use the kit. 

The Narrator doesn't think much of it at first. He's gotten more and more used to the occasional flashes of pain from his body, error appearing for a moment before just as quickly disappearing. His left forearm still hurts from time to time, a nerve pulled just a bit too tightly, and he quietly adds it to the symphony of accumulating damage and tries not to worry about it. 

He expects this one to be more of the same. A brief flicker - biocomponent 8456w has crashed - at the corner of his vision before fading as the Narrator continues walking behind Stanley. 

And then pain slams into his chest, and the Narrator staggers, crumpling to his knees. 

"Narrator? Narrator!" Stanley is by his side in an instant, hands fluttering over the heap of limbs that is the Narrator. A dozen errors immediately cascade down Narrator's vision, service hex_search8 has crashed, dependent provider service lft.vpn122 not found, service host rk_2368 connection lost, [WARNING: SYSTEM DESTABILIZING] - 

It hurts. The Narrator tries to push himself up from where he's slumped on the floor, but only manages to twitch his hand slightly before another cascade of errors blinds him behind flashing lights. He can hear his internal fans running, trying to cope with the strain as lines of code scroll in the back of his head.

"Shit fuck - Narrator, can I carry you? We can't stay here if you can't move." 

The Narrator barely manages to focus his eyes on Stanley kneeling in front of him, hands frozen in reaching out. He's fairly certain Stanley's not usually this hard to see, but it's difficult to think over the sensation of his body shutting down bit by bit. Belatedly, he nods, before slumping further against the floor as more vital processes crash. 

Time skips. The Narrator is vaguely aware of Stanley scooping him up in a bridal carry and running towards the nearest safe structure, but the part of him that wants to complain about being carried is rapidly drowned out by the dozens of errors piling up. He can feel his body sweating, panting weakly in a futile attempt to cool his core down. His fans are at maximum speed now, but that's not enough to keep up with whatever's gone wrong inside him. 

[WARNING: Core corruption at 9%.] That's new. That's very new, and the Narrator feels another spike of fear shoot through him as he closes the window. But he has much more pressing concerns at the moment, so he shelves the warning for later and instead focuses on searching through his body, hunting for the original error that caused this new failure. He also furiously fixes errors and restarts processes along the way as he dives deep into his golden code, struggling to staunch the metaphorical bleeding even as he simultaneously pulls out the knife that caused it. 

Thankfully, the Narrator manages to isolate the problem, and tells Stanley so as soon as he puts the Narrator back down against the wall, digging through the backpack for the repair kit. 

"I believe biocomponent-t-t 8456w has disconnected in some way, and that's what's - causing the errors," the Narrator pants, leaning against the wall. 

Stanley whips around with the electronics kit in his hands. His eyes are wide and scared but determined, and Narrator has to admit he feels a little (a lot) better knowing Stanley is intending to help. The Narrator isn't exactly in any shape to fix himself at the moment, having barely managed to stabilize his code. His body is a house of cards with half the cards missing at the moment, and the Narrator knows it's a miracle he even managed to save that much. 

The Narrator abruptly becomes aware of some buzzing in some corner of his mind, a little progress bar ticking up bit by bit, tracking the percentage of his core corruption. Or, in a different way of phrasing, tracking the percentage of his system that has decayed due to the errors from earlier, the corruption creeping long tendrils through his subroutines the way a cancerous tumor creeps through a human body, tearing through and destroying his software as it goes. Slow, devastating, absolutely unstoppable without treatment. 

And there is no treatment. The control room - the only place with repair capabilities strong enough to fix this - is long gone, broken and left behind. 

The Narrator realizes in an instant, sickening awareness hissing up his spine at the newfound understanding. 

This progress bar isn't a completing process. It's a timer. 

On his life.

The Narrator swallows down the cold realization and wrenches his attention back to the present, just in time to catch Stanley's next words.

"Okay, so how do I fix it? In English, please." 

"There should be a panel on my chest, and inside is my core. One of the major connections between my core and my body has disconnected, and you need to solder that back together." The Narrator's voice wavers, electronic and choppy, but he ignores it. Hopefully the core corruption will resolve itself once his core has been properly repaired. 

"Got it." Stanley kneels in front of the Narrator with the soldering iron, and the Narrator slumps back against the wall as Stanley pulls up his shirt and taps his chest panel. "This one?" 

The Narrator winces as the light tap reverberates through his torso. "Yes, it should be a disconnected yellow wire." 

Stanley nods and cracks the panel open. To his credit, he barely even falters at the reveal of the Narrator's insides, the golden wires and delicate threads almost spilling out as they intersect with metal braces and internal supports. Instead, he immediately spots the disconnection and sets to work soldering it back together. 

A few minutes pass. 

"You shouldn't worry that much," the Narrator hisses, watching Stanley carefully work. Stanley is visibly nervous in a way the Narrator hasn't quite seen before, sweat beading at his hairline as he solders the delicate connections back together. If the Narrator were feeling particularly sentimental, he might even say that Stanley looks terrified, despite the steadiness of his hands as he works. All signs point to him being concerned about the Narrator's life, which doesn't make any sense whatsoever, especially when considering the fact that the world will inevitably reset. 

"Shut up," mutters Stanley, refusing to look at the Narrator. 

"It'll be better than this when we go back." The progress bar hangs faintly in the back of his mind, dismissed but not forgotten. As if the chronic pain and errors weren't enough already. 

"Stop talking." 

The wires connect. The Narrator gasps, an unnecessary inhale as the pain dissipates in an instant, Stanley slamming his chest panels shut with a sharp click. His golden HUD flashes and fades from his vision, leaving a faint afterimage in black, but before the Narrator can fully reorient to the repair, Stanley grabs him by the collar and drags him forward, snarling. 

"You're not going to die. We are not going back!"

There's a pause as they stare at each other, Stanley's furious brown meeting Narrator's dazed gold. Then Stanley's shoulders slump and he lets go, and Narrator drops back down to the floor. Stanley turns and starts putting away the electronics kit, eyes storming with anger, fear, and a dozen other emotions Narrator can't parse quickly enough. 

The Narrator frowns as he clears out the last of the error cascades in his vision. He hadn't expected Stanley to be that emotional about the idea that the Narrator will inevitably die at this rate, or that the world will eventually reset. As broken as it was now, the parts of the clock were still around in those gearlings. And if he collected enough of those gears…. 

"Well? Is it fixed now?" Stanley's voice is sharp and brusque, cutting straight through the Narrator's thoughts. 

The Narrator blinks. 

> Biocomponent 8456w is now operational…. Please contact c̶̴̶̱̤͓̃͊͛͝͡r̵̵̴̶̛͈͈̩̓̆͊҉̸̖͝ò̶̷̸̷̢͈͖̠̤̍͆̆͘͝w̸̷̷̷̵̞̪̳̐̀̀͞͠s̵̥̏͏̵̷̵̷̸̨̧̛͙̰͛̊̇̕͜͜͠͡͞x̸̬̄͏̸̷̴̰̦̀̚3̵̴̷̨̫͍̗͛̐̕͝ for further troubleshooting. 

"Yes, it's fixed. Thank you." Never let it be said that the Narrator is not ungrateful, since that glitch would have forced him to shut down eventually without another person to repair it. Not that he's going to admit it to Stanley. The man doesn't need a bigger ego. 

Stanley turns away.

The next day moves slow and quiet. Neither of them speak of the day before, instead focusing on packing up their meager belongings and walking on through the ruins. After several hours, Stanley calls a halt, and the Narrator finds another glitched building to rest in for the night. It's a familiar and easy routine, despite the weighted silence they've been walking through the whole day, words unspoken hanging between them like a guillotine's blade. 

It's quiet in the darkened room save for the crackling of the campfire. The Narrator settles on a low slab, watching Stanley prod at the small flames. Another error pops up in his vision, and he absently waves it off into the steadily growing pile. Thankfully, nothing seems to happen aside from a dull pulsing starting up in his abdomen, so the Narrator allows himself to relax, ever so slightly. [WARNING: Core corruption at 11%.], his system flashes next, and he waves it off as well.

Meanwhile, Stanley abruptly turns to the Narrator and asks, "Can you grow a beard?" 

The Narrator blinks. "What." 

Stanley smirks, settling his chin on top of his crossed hands. 

"I've just been thinking - you're a weird glitchy android thing, right? So you're designed to integrate with people, yadda yadda big deal. But you're weird. Your eyes glow, you produce magic lightning sometimes, and you don't sleep for weeks before freaking out when you do, don't tell me that's not weird."

The Narrator is electing to ignore that last part. He opens his mouth in an attempt to question why exactly Stanley is bringing this up now, but the other man barrels on.

"So," he leans forward, eyes intent and focused, "do you grow a beard?" 

The Narrator has a bad feeling about this. Stanley's eyes catch the light and gleam fire-red with some unreadable but ruthless purpose, and the bad feeling intensifies twofold. 

But because Stanley's poor impulse control is infectious, he still opens his mouth and says "Unfortunately, none of my hair grows, so what you see is what you get." WYSIWYG applies to him too, despite his advanced systems. It's a poor joke, even in the Narrator's head, but he still finds himself amused by it. 

…He's telling jokes now. Intentionally. Stanley is a terrible, terrible influence.

Stanley frowns. "So your only hair is on your head, then? And it doesn't grow back?"

"Yes? I'm not sure where you're going with this, Stanley." 

Stanley suddenly grins, vicious and deadly as a thrown knife. And gleaming beneath his jacket is a pair of silver hair-cutting shears, the twin blades catching the light as he slowly pulls them out.

" So what happens if I cut it off?"

…Shit.

Stanley lunges, cackling loud and delighted, and the Narrator decides that now is a good time to make a strategic retreat. And if he's smiling just a little as Stanley chases him around the room, that knowledge is for him and him alone. 

"Narrator?"

> Error. CTRL_ALT_DEL UNITYv2.71828.exe has crashed. 

> Collecting crash data… … …. Complete. 

> Restarting… … …

.

The soft thump of a body hitting the floor.

"NARRATOR!"

.

>Warning: Trauma detected. Emergency restart prioritized.

>Initializing BIOS… … … Complete. 

>Initializing core systems… … … Complete.

>Warning: Trauma detected. Initializing CTRL_ALT_DEL UNITYv2.71828.exe… … … 

The Narrator jerks awake in an instant, core thrumming in his chest as he blinks at Stanley. For a moment, red error messages crowd his vision, before cancelling themselves like a swarm of birds lifting off. 

Stanley, who is standing above him, eyes wide and panting slightly. He's disheveled - a moment of processing, and Narrator remembers - they were in a clothing store, scavenging supplies, Stanley had been on the other side of the building when Narrator had - [WARNING: CORE CORRUPTION AT 22%: SYSTEM UNSTABLE] - crashed. He must have come running over when he heard the sound. His hand is outstretched, and the Narrator's cheek stings slightly. 

"Narrator, you gotta tell me what's wrong, and don't give me that shit about going back." Stanley kneels beside the Narrator with ice-sharp eyes, compressed fear into pure, ruthless determination. "I know something's wrong, you just collapsed. Again." 

For one breathtaking moment, the Narrator knows exactly what he should do. He should wave off Stanley's concern, claim that he tripped and fell but he's fine, really. Stanley might try to press the issue, but the Narrator hopes that he wouldn't force it with the tentative friendship they have. He could avoid admitting the truth he's been carrying ever since that progress bar appeared, buried but still distinctly present beneath the now enormous pile of error logs in the back of his mind. 

His chest twinges with phantom pain. Stanley looks at him with familiar concern in those brown eyes.

It's almost embarrassing how quickly the Narrator gives in. 

"You're right, Stanley. I am dying."

Stanley freezes. "I… what?"

"Do I have to spell it out for you?" The Narrator's a little offended. He bares his heart, literally and figuratively, to Stanley, and he doesn't even understand what it means? 

Stanley shakes his head vigorously, but his eyes shine wetly in the light. The Narrator hopes Stanley isn't going to cry. That one nightmare was bad enough, and he's still disoriented and weak from the full-system crash earlier. 

"So…you're saying that these glitches are going to keep getting worse?" Stanley's voice wavers just a little on the last word, and he wipes at his eyes with a shaky hand.

The Narrator nods. He's still not completely sure why Stanley is so upset about this, considering the impermanence of death here and the incredibly short list of reasons Stanley has to care about his wellbeing, but he's not so rude as to criticize Stanley while the man is this close to tears. 

"Yes. I believe that the control room and the resets helped keep my body stable, and without those supports it is now rapidly degrading." He doesn't include his suspicion that he was intentionally designed that way. The only place that had any sort of self-repair equipment was the control room, after all, and everything else they'd scavenged along the way. 

"So if there's no more resets, that means…." 

The Narrator smiles, soft and embarrassed. Perhaps even a little apologetic, if one squinted hard enough. "I'm going to permanently shut down, or the equivalent of human death, yes. Probably within about two or three months from now, if this rate of deterioration continues." 

Stanley inhales, sharp and pained. He looks down for a moment, staring at his hands, before clenching them into fists and looking back up at the Narrator. 

"How are you so calm about this?" he grates out. He's tearing up in earnest now, sniffling a little as he glares at the Narrator. Despite the anger, there's an edge of grief in those eyes, mourning someone right in front of him. Odd.

The Narrator shrugs. "The world will reset inevitably, and then I'll be right as rain again. It'll be fine." He's not looking forward to having to experience his systems' slow decay and failure in real time, but he's not too uncomfortable with being shut down for a bit until the world resets.

It'll be like sleeping, he tells himself, and carefully ignores the sensation of yet another piece of his mind breaking as the corruption progress bar inches upwards. 

Stanley flinches, eyes hardening to brittle flint. "Don't say that. You don't know that yet."

The Narrator sighs. "Stanley, you know it's true."

"No, it's not! The clock's broken, this whole place is broken, so you don't know that it'll reset!"

"It will! It must, just because you broke it doesn't mean it won't be fixed eventually!" the Narrator snaps back. His jacket pocket feels oddly heavy, the gear burning where it lays heavy against his hip.

"But you can't just threaten to put me back there!" Stanley's crying properly now, his eyes furious and desperate despite the tears rolling down his face. He curls down into himself, choking out, "You can't just assume that it'll reset. You can't. You can't." 

The Narrator falters. Stanley's nightmare comes back to the front of his mind, his panic and fear at being killed over and over resonating with that phantom pain deep in his chest. The progress bar ticks up another notch. 

[WARNING: Core corruption at 23%.]

"Alright, fine. We'll find another way," the Narrator acquiesces. 

Stanley shudders, before suddenly slumping down to the floor beside the Narrator. He sniffles, hiccuping softly, before grabbing Narrator's sweater and leaning forward, forehead pressing against the Narrator's chest in a jerky, broken motion. The Narrator startles at the contact, and there's a small voice that's annoyed about the tears and whatever else Stanley's getting on his sweater, but a much larger part of him remembers a conversation in the dead of night, a promise of "I am willing to hug you if you need it."

Stanley needs it now. He carefully puts his arm around Stanley's shoulders and pulls him close, and Stanley lets out a small wrecked keen before letting himself collapse against the Narrator.

"Please don't go. I can't lose you too," Stanley whispers into the fabric.

There's nothing the Narrator can say to that. 

They round another corner, and there is the exit door, buried halfway into the ground. Stanley lights up like a Christmas tree the second he sees it, grinning at the Narrator with a broad, hopeful smile. 

The Narrator smiles back because Stanley's joy, like his impulsivity, is infectious, but there's something in his mind that whispers this isn't going to end well, something that sounds like long runs spent with his fingers dancing over buttons and switches, the control room whispering directions in the back of his head as Stanley dies again and again and again at his hands. For better or worse, this door is the end of something. 

The Narrator just isn't sure if it's the end of this chapter, or them. 

Stanley, blissfully unaware of all of the above, trips, and the Narrator lunges to catch him. A second later, he lets go again despite the brief temptation to hold on, and Stanley runs to the exit door and starts tugging on the handles. 

There's a sharp prickling up his spine, his back sensors tingling at some movement behind him. 

The Narrator turns around.

A gearling drags itself into the open air, form glitching between human and cuboid as it initializes. Then another, and another, and another, until five golden lights blink at Stanley, still trying to open the exit door and blissfully, painfully unaware. 

The Narrator realizes in an instant. It's a trap. The exit door is the bait, and they've just taken it hook, line, and sinker.

"STANLEY!"

The Narrator lunges at the same instant the gearling fires. 

[WARNING: Trauma detected. Biocomponent 2118f has been disconnected.]

[WARNING: Trauma detected. Biocomponent 2118u is at 68% functionality. Please contact c̷̷̸̳̟͒̕҉̸̷̴̴̸̸̨̱͎͕̓̒̅̂͝r̶̵̷̵̷̷̶̷̵̵̸̮̭̳͚̮͑͋̿͘̚o̸̸̴̵̸̷̴̡̜̹͍̭̿̊̏̚͜͢͠w̵̴̴̶̷̵̵̶̷̸̧̢̧̛͈̜̟͍͑͊͊̚͠s̷̷̴̷̶̶̷̴̴̨̧͎̹̳̥͗̎͐͑̉͢x̸̸̸̴̶̴̷̷̴̷̴̵̡͚̩̜̳͈̺͙̞̂̀͗̈͛̃́̔̕͞3̸̵̶̵̸̷̷̶̸̵̸̴̨̢̛̫̙͖̼͎̞̋̒͗̿̌̕͟ for repairs.]

He slams into the wall, breath whooshing out of him as Stanley's weight slams into his chest. Pain explodes down the stump of his left arm, yellow ichor bleeding out of the gaping holes in his circuitry. But now is not the time to freeze, so the Narrator packs away the pain for later and opens his eyes, looking down at Stanley.

Stanley, who is staring blankly at the blood pouring out of his chest. 

Shit. 

The Narrator knows a fatal amount of blood when he sees it, and realizes almost instantly that Stanley is going to die. Not that he's much better - he can feel his systems struggling to compensate for the sudden damage, fans kicking up as several dozen processes fail to complete simultaneously. Despite this, he still drags Stanley out of the way when he hears the whine of a gearling powering up and just manages to dodge in time, laying Stanley's limp body against a low-slung wall. 

"Stanley! You need to stay awake!", the Narrator shouts. Stanley is horribly still, barely breathing beneath his hands - well, hand. The other one is several feet away in a puddle of ichor. Meanwhile, all the mental activity is stirring up the previously dormant corruption, and he can feel the damage accumulating as it writhes, slowing down his processors even further as they fight to keep up. 

[WARNING: Core corruption at 47%.]

Narrator desperately presses down on the wound with his hand, feeling the blood pool between his fingers and run out. That gets a reaction out of Stanley, and the man's whole body spasms as he gasps in pain, trembling hand grabbing at Narrator's sleeve. His eyes are unfocused and delirious, wet tearing sobs racking his chest as he begs, choking on his own blood.

" I don't want to die, I don't want to die, I don't want to die - " 

"You're not going to die, it's okay, you're okay." The Narrator's core thrums furiously, struggling to keep up with both the corruption and the sudden tearing in Narrator's chest, grief and panic mixing into a horrible storm of emotion. The words are a lie, he knows, but he says them anyway because they're better than nothing at all.

A small, childish part of him begs alongside Stanley. Please, let him be okay, he's not going to die, please. 

Please means nothing in this world. Stanley begged the Narrator a thousand times to let him escape, and it didn't change a thing. The pipes still found their mark. 

Stanley shudders, and his hand falls away from Narrator's sleeve. 

The Narrator stares at Stanley's corpse, and for a moment the sky opens beneath his feet and he is falling, falling into empty air alone with the knowledge that his friend is dead in front of him, and he can feel the blood drying warm and tacky on his hand and the utter silence in the air, no longer interrupted by Stanley's soft footsteps and breaths and life because there is no Stanley anymore - 

A shot slams into the wall behind him. 

He turns, slowly. Five little lights blink back across the ruins. 

Inhale. Exhale. The progress bar in the corner of his mind ticks upward, unstoppable like molten fury.

Narrator charges at the gearlings.

And the fact is: the Narrator knows this is a fool's errand. He knew it from the moment they saw the exit door.

But there's another, louder part of him that sings of a warm hand over his, arms carrying him safely, repair kits and fixed errors and the kindness in those brown eyes, and now rages, grief and decay roaring in equal measure. 

[WARNING: Core corruption at 65%], his system flashes, but Narrator's a bit too busy getting his leg shot off to care. He lands harshly on the floor, feeling the impact shudder through his body as his lost limbs scream in pain, a familiar symphony.

Golden light shines as a gearling looms above him, poised to shoot. Narrator snarls, a guttural electronic garble, and his vision flashes red with a dozen warnings but he lunges anyways, kicking the gearling in the face and knocking it to the ground. He slams his hand into its face, shattering the monitor with vicious ease, and he can feel the gear in his grasp through the white-hot haze of blank fury and the warm slide of Stanley's blood on his hand. 

[WARNING: Core corruption at 78%.] 

"FUCK YOU!" the Narrator shouts, and lets that blistering power go.

The world explodes. 

[WARNING: Core overheating. Chance of thermal shutdown is high. Please cool down core systems.]

Golden lightning shoots out from the smoke, whirring with the sound of a thousand screaming birds. Each bolt homes onto the four other clock gears, tearing the gearlings apart like a child ripping up scraps of paper and effortlessly plucking their gears out. 

The Narrator burns. He can feel every overheated wire in the ruins of his body, his yellow ichor evaporating the moment it drips into the open air. There's an agonizing pressure behind his eyes, and he stares blankly into nothing as his visual sensors begin to melt from the heat. Stanley's blood evaporates with the rest of his human skin, decay crawling up his arm and through his mind as the Narrator jerks upright, wavering and off-balance from the random surges that skitter across his circuitry, errors trailing each pulse in a wave of buzzing red. 

With the last of his vision, Narrator looks at Stanley. Stanley, lying still and limp against the far wall where he died, bright red blood pooling beneath his corpse. The sight would have choked the Narrator if the decay hadn't already. 

[͢WA͜R̨N̷ING̛:͠ ̛C̴o͠re̸ c͞orŕup̧tion̛ a̕t͠ ̷91%.]

He stares at the gear floating in his hand - the one from his first meeting with Stanley in this ruined world. He's carried it with him all this time and never said a word, knowing Stanley would likely kill him for it.

Well, Stanley's dead. And so will the Narrator, if he doesn't act now. The encroaching static eats away at the edges of the gear, shrouding his vision in a deepening yellow haze. Even the flashing warnings in his vision are blurred, the hated progress bar fuzzing and glitching as his system decays in earnest. Still increasing, though. Not that it will matter soon.

The command console chirps, one last time. 

[̶GEA̵RS̵ 5/5 ̸A̴CQ̷U̴I̶R̵ED. RE̵PAIR̵ ̶̸̴̶̴̷̷̶̼̻̔͜͠T̵̵̷̶̸̸̵̜̰̈́̈I̸̵̶̸̷̴̴̊̕̚͜͏̷̵̴̵̶̶̶̸̵̴̶̷̸̴̩͇̦͚͐͑ͅM̷̴̷̵̸̴̴̸̴̷̷̴̴̸̶̸̸̵̸̴̶̶̷̸̶̷̷̢̛͇̘͖̯̩͍̆̓́͋̔̀̄͘̕͝Ẻ̴̵̸̴̵̵̶̷͖̜͆̿͏̷̵̶̵̶̵̸̷̶̴̸̵̶̨̯̀͛̎̓̿͠҉̴̸̶̶̶̴͇̩̾?̶]̵ ̴[̶Y̵ES̷]̶ ̵[N̴O]̴ ̸

I'm sorry, Stanley. But I can't lose you too. 

≯ ̵[̷Y̶E̷S̶]̸

> open sv_cheats /admin

Running World.console.CLOCK_OUTv.2.0.cmd.exe … …

Complete.

<C0:\USERS\CTRL_ALT_DEL UNITYv.2.718>:

config time 03:00:00 reset /all

LOADING… THE END IS NEVER THE END IS NEVER THE END IS NEVER

Three o'clock.

The Narrator blinks awake, feeling as though he'd just opened a book only to find it empty, a momentary stutter between then and now. For a moment, there is silence, as he stares at the familiar desk and rows of switches and yellow monitors, pristine and fresh. The clock sits heavy in his hand. 

Then he remembers, scenes flashing behind his eyes with impersonal, clinical precision. The memories of the previous timeline settle into his file storage, effortlessly and silently integrating into his petabytes of previous data. 

[Core corruption at 0%.]

The Narrator inhales. Exhales. He has plenty of time to examine this new batch of memories, since he usually wakes up about ten minutes before Stanley does. He still speeds up his time perception, though, calmly turning up his processing rate and allowing the control room to link to his core, taking on the brunt of the work. The monitors hum a little brighter, but otherwise the room remains unchanged. There's no real reason to, the runs aren't long, but it is safer. 

There's something oddly relieved in him at the idea of being safely back in the control room, being able to link and self-repair and be whole again. The Narrator frowns and decides to ignore it. 

The memories begin normally - Stanley trying to escape like he has the last 8,427 runs, the Narrator stopping him through any means necessary, but then - 

Stanley crashing through the monitors, punching him in the face, the clock shattered at his feet - the Narrator glances warily at the wall of monitors in front of him, as if Stanley were there right now to break them irreparably. That was new. That was very, very new, and very, very bad. 

Inhale. Exhale. The clock is whole and safe in his hand. Stanley isn't even awake yet to do anything. He is safe. The timeline is safe. 

So why is he so scared?

1,215 files, report his databanks. 10 terabytes' worth of data, days weeks months worth of time stored in those files. It's absurd. Ridiculous. 

There is a small part of him that does not want to open those files. He does anyways.

Stanley yelling, teeth bared, gear shining bright in his black-gold hand, power he never knew about coursing through his veins, battery low power saver on error biocomponent 2218f lagging pain first aid kits error service stopped error connection error - 

The Narrator pauses and opens up the error reports, and discovers hundreds - thousands - of logged errors, neatly saved and packaged. 

The Narrator's unease grows as he looks through them. Some of these are important, too - the control room hums unpleasantly at the back of his mind when he sees  <Biocomponent 8456w has crashed> at the top of one of the pages. He prods it curiously.

[ Notice : Biocomponent 8456w is an important connection between the core and the left side of the body. If stopped at any point, the core systems will gradually destabilize and permanently shut down over a period of time.] 

The information from the control room, rather than answering anything, only manages to beget more questions in the Narrator. How did he survive that? Why did it fail in the first place? What on earth happened in the last run? The clock broke, yes, but that doesn't explain the errors in his own body.

The control room is silent. 

There's a strange phantom pain growing in the Narrator's chest, and he rubs at it absentmindedly, frowning. He re-opens the folder of saved memories and scrubs forward, following the trail of breadcrumbs into the dark. 

Stanley carrying him, pain exploding in his chest errors like blood splatters in his vision, progress bar ticking up delicately soldering panting -

"You're not going to die. We are NOT going back!" and the Narrator inhales, pressing down harder on his chest because he can recognize that phantom pain, now, that deep ache from a broken heart. Literal, not metaphorical. 

He moves on, quick and desperate, now, to see the rest.

-silver scissors, laughing, haircut taunting dodging smiling sparks of joy in his chest -

- crashing blue screen androids can blue screen, stanley slapping him trauma detected bios initializing piece of his mind dropping away - 

- You were right, Stanley, and he's panting, crying, I can't lose you too, progress bar warning warning error we'll find another way, knowing he can't there is no other way he's going to die they're both going to -

- the exit door flashing, Stanley limp and still against the wall, please let him be okay please - but pleading is useless in this world - red blood on his hand, gearling looming over him, power surging burning pressure behind his eyes - [WARNING: Core corruption at 91%.] - 

and the memories end. 

The Narrator inhales, exhales, the echoes of the previous iteration's memories resonating through him and stirring up phantom aches - a dull pressure in his abdomen, growing pain in his chest, a pressure behind his eyes. There's a ghost of a headache too, lingering memories of the indescribable sensation of feeling parts of his mind break bit by bit as that progress bar ticked upwards. 

He should go find Stanley. There's a part of him that screams need to find Stanley need to find him, and he can't help but listen. Their dynamic - their relationship - changed immensely last run, and Stanley does not have the luxury of emotional distance. The Narrator can still feel the echoes of those feelings ringing in his systems even after being freshly reset, and he can't imagine what it's like for Stanley, who lives each run like they're part of the same life.

And there he goes, caring about Stanley again. How ridiculous. 

The Narrator still leaves the control room, though he can feel his connection to it humming in the back of his mind. The clock remains in his hand as well, along with his usual dark yellow suit jacket and glasses. It's child's play to find Stanley's office - although he's never been there personally, the control room offers directions to him whenever his thoughts so much as whisper about it, and he's watched Stanley run through it a thousand times before. 

He arrives just as he knows Stanley's woken up, and pauses in front of the closed door. 

This was a foolish idea. Stanley is no doubt going to try to escape again, regardless of the Narrator's presence, and what he should do is go straight back to the control room, where he is at no risk of being damaged, and wait for Stanley to start running again instead of trying to see Stanley in person just because the Narrator watched him die - 

A stifled sob.

Ah. Stanley's crying. 

The Narrator opens the door.