Chapter Text
“What the fuck was that?” Stanley barks, tensing and shoving a hand into his pocket.
“Nothin’ good, I promise you that!” Fiddleford says, throwing the bag over his shoulder. He rests his hand between the wires of the blaster built into his prosthetic.
“It’s coming down the main street,” Stanford hisses, slamming the door to the main room shut. Fiddleford flinches at the sound, gripping his arm tightly.
“I don’ think it’ll break in,” Fiddleford reassures, willing himself to believe his own words. “Nothin’s ever been that interested in me.”
Another thud, less powerful but closer now.
Stanley moves towards the door out of the break room, but doesn’t open it. They all seem to hold their breath, staring at the door, listening for any change.
Thud.
Thud.
Thud.
Whatever it is, it’s huge, and it’s drawing closer.
Thud.
It’s right outside now.
It’s not moving.
“You sure it’s not interested in you?” Stanley hisses.
“How would it’ve found us anyhow? We haven’t been out since last evenin’!”
“Oh Sixer, Mackerel, other flesh bag of little importance!” a loud voice calls through the door. “Come out, come out wherever you are!”
“Shit,” they all say as one.
“Just kidding!” Bill continues. “I know exactly where you are! 8-Ball?”
The glass storefront shatters. They can hear it clearly through the closed door.
Stanley grabs Stanford’s hand, turns tail, and runs for the exit. Fiddleford kicks the pile of fabric that was once Stanley’s bed towards the door in the misguided hope that the door will catch on it, and then follows the twins into the alleyway.
“Yeah, keep running! That really keeps things interesting!” Bill cackles.
“Where’re we going?” Stanley shouts over his shoulder, making no move to let Fiddleford take the lead.
“Wherever the triangle that wants to kill us ain’t!” Fiddleford pauses, a hare-brained scheme scratching at the back of his mind. “Unless…!”
“Unless?” Stanley and Stanford prompt him together.
“We go in the same place Bill came out!”
“Into his own realm!?”
“Are you insane?” Stanley shouts.
“Maybe!” Fiddleford cackles, a bit hysterically. “That place was tearin’ itself apart at the seams! Getting through another rift before Bill follows us might be our best chance of gettin’ away from him!”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea!” Stanford pants, still stumbling to keep up with Stanley’s pace, his grip on his wrist unfaltering.
“Y’got any better ideas, Poindexter?” Stanley asks, more hopeful than combative.
“Just— just let me think!” Stanford says, shaking his head.
The thudding noises of pursuit— and it couldn’t just be Bill, could it?— only get louder. Suddenly, Fiddleford realizes they’re in front of them. Just a few meters ahead of them, the alleyway opens up into a wider street.
They’re trying to cut them off.
Fiddleford lunges for Stanley’s free hand, catching his wrist. He jerks at the sudden change of momentum, and Fiddleford carries it through to yank the twins behind him. Just as Stanley struggles to regain his balance and opens his mouth to complain, a massive beast slides into view at the mouth of the alleyway they were just heading towards.
Of all things, it looks like something between a giant loaf of moldy bread and a gorilla with a party hat, because Fiddleford’s life is a fucking joke. Bill is perched on its back, alongside some yellow-green beast with large ears and protruding tusks.
“Hey, look who it is!” Bill crows, eye curving upwards into a mouthless smile. He’s smaller now than he was in that space between worlds, but Fiddleford’s heart still stutters anxiously in this chest at the sight of him.
He can hear Stanley’s boots against the pavement. He’s already turned to run.
Good, Fiddleford tells himself, pushing down the jolt of hurt at being so quickly left behind.
Fiddleford grits his teeth, lifting his prosthetic and steadying it with his other arm. He levels the port of the blaster on one of the beast’s massive legs, and flicks the trigger. The components in his forearm begin to buzz, and Fiddleford can feel the metal heating up against his palm.
“Wow, look at that! They really don’t care about you at all, do they?” Bill jeers, jumping off the bread-shaped beast and summoning a cane into his hand seemingly for the sole purpose of leaning on it smugly. The buzz of Fiddleford’s prosthetic reaches an irritating crescendo, rattling against what remains of his humerus. “Now what’s that peashooter supposed to do, Specs? You know you can’t kill me in any way that matters!”
It certainly won’t matter if Fiddleford can’t even get the damn thing to fire.
He doesn’t need to kill him. He just needs to slow them down. If he disables the beast they ran in on, they’d just get off and chase them on foot, robbing them of the little security provided by the alleyway.
Fiddleford clicks his tongue. In the last moment before it fires, he adjusts his aim for Bill’s eye.
Bill shrieks, stumbling back and lifting his hands to flutter helplessly around the gaping hole through his eye.
“You…” Bill starts weakly, and then louder, voice piercing and distorted, “you…!”
Fiddleford turns and runs. Stanley and Stanford are out of sight, but Fiddleford can hear them in an alleyway up ahead.
“Stanley, wait—“ Ford pants, “shit… how are you this good at running?”
“I’ve been running for my life on and off since 17, Poindexter, and I’m definitely not stopping now!”
“But— Fiddleford—“
“Right here!” Fiddleford calls, stumbling into the alleyway.
The turn goes a bit wide as the prosthetic throws off his balance, and he catches himself against the wall with the metal claws with a terrible screech. Despite his words, Stanley does slow down almost to a stop as he turns to face him, eyes wide.
“C’mon, I know the way back,” Fiddleford says, as confidently as he can manage. He does know the way back to the rift, but the question is whether or not it’s a good idea to return to it.
“Are we really doing this?” Stanford wheezes.
“I don’t think we have another choice!” Stanley admits. “Lead the way, Fidds.”
Fiddleford nods determinedly, and takes off back towards the main alleyway. There's a path along the roofs that he can access through the fire escapes of one of the taller buildings, but going up the stairs could cost them valuable time that they can’t afford to spend, not when Bill could effortlessly float up after them. He has no idea how long a missing eye will keep Bill out of commission, but he’s not hopeful.
He weaves through the alleyways with an ease that only comes from practice, even as his legs ache and his lungs burn and his side works itself into a stitch. Old blood stains here, a scrap of his coat there, the rotting body of a beast he managed to kill slumped against a wall; Fiddleford knows he’s on the right track. He can hear the offset footsteps of Stanley and Stanford in pursuit, but they’re not the only ones. It sounds like Bill’s goblin-like henchman ditched their mount anyway, but the lack of taunting seems to suggest that Bill himself hasn’t caught up.
Splitting up could be bad news. If Bill caught wind of their plan, he could cut them off, or even return to his own dimension to catch them there. All Fiddleford could do was trust that his attack had slowed him down enough for them to make it there first.
Almost there, Fiddleford mentally insisted to himself despite the protests of his exhausted body. Almost there, he repeats until it’s true.
He swerves out of the alleyway and onto the main road. A glance down the street reveals the bread beast in hot pursuit, but they’re closer to the portal than they are to it.
“Take my hand! Don’ wanna risk getting lost!” Fiddleford calls out, skidding to a halt beside the rift. The red glow makes Fiddleford’s stomach twist, but that might also just be overexertion.
“Is that a risk?” Stanford frets, grabbing Fiddleford’s hand.
“I ain’t exactly an expert, but I reckon we’d rather be safe than sorry!”
“Yes, you’re right, of course,” Stanford agrees, tightening his grip on Fiddleford’s hand. In turn, Stanley tightens his own grip on Stanford’s wrist, even as he glares at the beasts closing in on them, his other fingers threaded through a set of brass knuckles.
“No time like the present, let’s get outta here!” Stanley says, shouldering Stanford.
Fiddleford nods, takes a deep breath, and tugs all three of them through the rift.