Chapter Text
The December frost had bitten at the skin of Stan’s fingertips, nothing more than the pockets of his jacket and a lit cigarette to keep them from trembling. His window was cracked gently, allowing the smoke to escape without risking the scent trapping on the beige leather interior of the car. The old parking lot of a destroyed mall has offered him a place to stay, albeit not very warm. He hated the cold, more than it was just cold. He'd missed playing in the snow, with gloved hands, and a runny nose. In the South, it was more cold and sad than cold and snowy.
He wondered if it was snowing back home.
He wanted to talk to his ma.
His skin tingled with a slight warmth as he envisioned his mother, a red lip with a cocky grin plastered on. The smell of perfume and cigarettes (the same ones he was smoking now, almost 10 years later) when she'd kiss his cheek.
I wish I could call you. Talk to you. Hear your voice. I know you'd tell me off for how poorly I've eaten or how I'm colder than a witch's tit.
He chuckled to himself, dragging the last short puff from the cigarette to put it out of its misery.
He went over the series of numbers in his head; he may not have been good at doing math, not all the time, but he had a knack for basic counting and an even better ability to remember long patterns of numbers. His old landline’s number rang through his head, bouncing off of self-doubt spikes and painful reminiscence.
It was already the 14th (15th?) of December, less than a week until Hanukkah. His stomach growled at the thought of warm latkes. He wondered if Ma still made them, always humming around the kitchen and threatening Stanley with a spoon when he tried to eat them before they had even cooled down.
He rolled to his side, watching the sky from inside the car. He thought he'd call in the morning, and check in. For now, he would try to make the bad idea sound desirable to his anxious mind as he drifted into a basic, exhausted sleep.
Exhausted may have been an understatement, as he awoke nearly five hours later. The air had warmed, albeit only by a few degrees, and the sun glared through the passenger side windows; it reflected off of the rearview mirror, blazing a stream of light into Stan’s already scorched eyes. He scrunched his face, feeling the faint scab over a knick on his nose begins to tug gently at the reforming skin below it.
He sat up, keys in hand a second before the engine gently rose from her slumber. She hummed gently before growling, stale air pelting Stan's face as the heater tried its best to cut the cold chill.
I know I passed a phone on the way over here.
His eyes flitted to the glovebox, a small cloth bag full of coins on the inside. Whether it was the exhaustion, the nostalgic thoughts of the night before, or just another Stan Pines bad decision, he grabbed the bag and shoved it in the passenger seat. The car rolled out of the empty lot, back the way he had come the evening before.
Ah-ha. He glared at a phonebooth, a few miles down the road from the abandoned parking lot, right where he had seen it the day prior. He neared it carefully, anxiety beginning to pool in the back of his mind again.
Just a quick call home. Just to talk to Ma, tell her you're alright, just to make sure she's okay too. To make sure—
His fingers punched in the numbers before he could process which ones they were, he'd fished change out and bit his lip as the string of digits was input. He only realized when he raised the phone, hearing not his Ma, but a man on the other side.
“Fiddleford here! How can I help ya?”
The strange, albeit friendly sound, of another person had made him stiffen slightly. How could he have typed the number so incorrectly that he ended up calling someone in the Midwest?
“Wrong number,” he grumbled, but he didn't hang up. He knew he didn't get the numbers wrong.
“Stanferd?” there was a spark of curiosity in the man's voice and a bolt of electricity that shot through Stan.
“–’re you callin’? ya only left about half an hour ago, I reckon. It ain't too bad out there, you okay?” he continued over the phone.
“Fiddle…Ford?” His mind was reeling, his eyes dropping with an achy tiredness. He cleared his throat, hoping to figure this out before he ran out of quarters. This man knew Stanford, hell, he'd seen Stanford less than an hour ago it seems.
Fiddleford hummed from the other side of the receiver, “Y’ello? I'm here.” He let out a small laugh, something lighter than Stan had heard in months.
“Do you, um, know where Ford went?” Why was he doing this? What good did it do him? His hands came up to his face, nervously picking on the scabs that had formed from various injuries and acne breakouts.
The man, Fiddleford, seemed to hesitate before answering. He'd seemed confused but continued anyway.
“Down to the quarry by the falls, he'd said. Somethin’ about some kind of crystalline structure that formed by the base of the waterfall that he wanted to get his hands on. But, you should know that, shouldn't you?” His tone felt almost as if it were mocking Stan, no no, almost as if it were warning him. Something is wrong and I need him to tell me what.
He placed another quarter in, shaking the bag gently. 7 left. And he still wanted to check on his Ma.
“Listen pal, I’m not sure you understand what's going on. I'm not Stanford, alright? Just Stan.” He huffs gently when letting his last words tumble out. They held no malice, no anger or annoyance: just guilt and longing. He longed to be more than just Stan.
“So,” Stan continued, hoping to get more out of this than he would end up paying for, “You tellin’ me Ford's out of the house?” A small laugh from the other side, barely an exhale and almost more like a sigh, came through again.
“Yes, ‘Ford’ is out of the house.” His words seemed to carry air quotes around them, his brow furrowing. What the fuck was this guy talking about?
“Listen, I, uh, gotta go, but. Give Ford a message for me, would'ya?” He played with the phone cord. Six quarters left.
“Alright,” Fiddleford says, and Stan can only assume that he nodded after how delayed the reply was. He didn't sound convinced, but, damn it if he wasn't a man of his word.
“Tell ‘im to make you some of Ma’s latkes and to save some for me.” His voice was a bit distant now, all of the bittersweet feelings flooding back. What would he have said if Ford had answered himself? Would he even say anything? Why would this time be any different from the other attempts to reach out?
“Actually, scratch that. Nevermind. Ugh.” He wanted to slam the phone back on the wall, biting his tongue at the idea of this stranger telling his brother that he missed him. The silence that hung in the air brought his thoughts in a closer grip around his windpipe.
“Where… Where are ya, Stan?” Fiddleford’s voice pulled him from his thoughts, his reply short and more certain than anything else.
“New Mexico. Right outside a’ Las Cruces.” He had seen a road sign a handful of days ago, signaling his nearing Texas (where he knew he wasn't welcome, thanks to a previous scam). “But, honest, don't worry about it.” He hoped the fake smile would be received through the phone, but slipped out a grave whisper of how he's “not even sure Ford would give a shit or wanna hear from me.”
Fiddleford shuttered a bit, the realization that Stan was being honest with him had made its way under his skin. He didn't want this man, who seemed so desperate for Ford yet so undesired, to be on his own so far away. He would get to go home for the holidays, but he knew Stanford would never entertain the idea. Maybe this is a good chance to bring someone who knows Ford and can convince him not to push himself. They were a month away from testing the portal, not even a real test, but a simulation. He didn’t want to leave Ford alone, but the promise of his son brought him warmth. Maybe Stan needed some warmth too. His eyes grew somber at the thought, but continued;
“How long d’ya think it’d take ya to get up North to Oregon?” He all but whispers, hushed over the phone with a small glint of hope in his voice.
“Three days… Two, I guess?” The question had caught him off guard, his anxious thoughts pounding in his head as he daydreamed about seeing his brother again.
“I’ll meet’cha right outside town, there’s a diner that has some mighty fine hashbrowns and eggs.” He spouted off some directions, mentioning a long gravel road past various signs. Gopher Road? What, is it between “raccoon lane” and “woodpecker drive”? He did his best to commit the directions to memory, using his finger to draw an invisible path through the frigid air.
“Yeah, yeah, sounds good. Mhm. Sure, bye.” Stan cleared his throat gruffly, trying to ignore how the man’s voice rang through his ears. He had four quarters left after the conversation (could you even call it that when so much of it was Fiddleford talking to himself while Stan listened half-heartedly?). He still wanted to call his mom, but, the frost that bit at his ears from inside the booth spread too quickly. Maybe he’d call her when he was in Oregon, although he knew it’d be far colder in the North.