Roses-||Stannarator||

Part Four-Stems

Stanley had the widest grin on his face after getting The Narrator's gift. The flower was absolutely gorgeous. He had always loved roses. They were his favorite flower.

It started when he saw a painting of one in the office on one of his coworker's desks. The flower was absolutely stunning. Every part of it. He was so glad that The Narrator had picked this up. The beautiful rose had just made his day.

He took another sniff of it and his smile only grew. "You know that this is perfect, Narrator? This is the perfect gift!" Stanley had sounded so excited. The Narrator couldn't help but smile at him.

Whenever Stanley got happy over something like this it would make The Narrator's day. Like when he was in the mind control facility and saw his number. The problem is now when he got happy like this he would start coughing, and this time wasn't any different.

The horrible cough started up again. Stanley was too busy admiring the flower to notice. The Narrator had started gasping for air as he grabbed onto his desk. His coughs had only been getting more and more violent.

He could feel the thorns from the rose start to poke his lungs as they tightened. The stems of the roses had started growing with each cough. Soon a flower had come out like the last time.

The Narrator didn't bother even paying attention to it this time and wiped it off of his desk. Stanley had kept going on about the flower. He was talking about how much it meant to him, how much he loved it.

"If only Stanley felt that way about me..." The Narrator thought to himself. He loved seeing Stanley happy like this though. It was one of the only things that brought him true joy.

Stanley smelled the flower once more before finding the perfect place on his desk for it. He had truly adored the rose, it being from The Narrator only made it better. All this time Stanley had been keeping a secret from the other man.

The truth was that Stanley loved him. He loved his laugh, when he could hear a smile through his voice, whenever he would get upset at the funniest thing and would go on a rant about how much he hated it, he loved his monologues no matter how annoying they could get, he loved every part of him. Every single little thing about him is what he loved. He truly loved his narrator.

He never thought that The Narrator would feel the same way about him, how could he? If he didn't want to see him why would he feel the same way? Stanley knew that he'd have to suffer with a one-sided love from the other man, and he was okay with it.

All that he wanted was for The Narrator to be happy. If he only wanted to be friends then Stanley understood that. The rose from him felt like a gesture of love from the other, even though he clearly stated differently.

From The Narrators point of view it had just looked like Stanley was daydreaming while staring off into the plant. He cleared his throat to get the others attention, which caused a slight cough to come out of him.

Stanley's focus quickly shifted back to The Narrator. He waited to be given some sort of instruction from the man. "Would you like to keep looking at the flower or continue on with the story?" The Narrator questioned.

It was unusual for the man to be asking Stanley what he wanted to do. He took the opportunity and voiced what he wanted to do. "Actually.. I would like to stay here for a bit longer! Maybe I could even rest a bit? Do you think I'd be able to take a nap maybe?"

The Narrator smiled widely at his response and was glad he was willing to rest for himself. "Of course you can! I'll wait for you to wake up whenever you're ready to!"

Stanley was grateful for the other man's response and laid back in his chair against the desk. "Could you turn the lights off for me please?" The Narrator shut off the lights for him and let him drift off to sleep.

He didn't want to look into Stanley's dreams and disrupt his sleep. It had been awhile since Stanley had actually gotten any sleep, The Narrator could barley remember the last time he did to be honest. Stanley deserved to rest though. He deserved the whole world and if The Narrator could give it to him he would.

The younger man looked so peaceful while sleeping. He didn't do anything weird in his sleep like sleep walking or talking in it. He was just peaceful. In The Narrator's eyes he looked absolutely adorable like that. Well he always looked adorable, but he did especially like this.

Seeing him like this made The Narrator extremely happy. He had always been happy when seeing the man, but he was just so adorable like this. He looked so happy and that made The Narrator happy in return.

The Narrator felt true happiness watching him. It felt like nothing would be able to change that. Almost nothing would make him feel bad. That's when it started happening again.

The coughs came back and they felt worse than before. Worse than they ever been and every second that ticked away the pain deepened. The pain was excruciating at this point as his lungs got filled up by the stems of the roses.

Leaves started falling out as he coughed. They were almost filling his desk up at this point, but Stanley kept sleeping through it. Finally the flower waiting to come out fell from his mouth. He made a loud gasp, now being able to breathe again.

This time the flower was completely covered with blood to the point where it had turned fully red. The Narrator stared at it in shock. He knew that with every flower that came out his time got shorter.

The blood-stained rose laid in front of him as he stared at it in fear. This flower was even larger than the last. Every time something came out it got worse. His time was running out and there wasn't anything that could stop that. Unless of course Stanley felt the same way, but he knew it would never be true. His fate was inevitable. He was going to die.