Chapter Text
Private Stan Marsh was walking down the street. His duty hours had just ended, although they did start at four tomorrow.
Staring at the bright neon signs, hearing the cars honk and a siren go off faintly somewhere, breathing in the cool night air, he let his mind wander. He let his feet take him to the local park, which was almost empty save for the occasional late-night dog walker and one or two smokers.
He sat down at a bench and absentmindedly swung his leg over a patch of clover. He stopped and plucked one. Clover. His mind itched. What was it?
He took another one and tried to knot them together. The stems broke. Ah.
He leaned back and looked up at the sky. He felt better here than he had when he had been in school. Although he wasn’t sure if the army was “where he was meant to be”, it certainly was a start. He’d been able to focus on something for a while, improve himself more, and feel like a decent member of society. Plus he still was able to keep in touch with his mother, and he finally was reconnecting with his sister after so many years.
He wondered what Wendy was doing now. As he rolled the clover stem between his index finger and thumb, watching the bloom twirl in his hand, he thought absentmindedly of what she must be doing right this very moment. That was the thing about being in a long-distance relationship – he was always wondering what she was up to. He could text her, sure, but it just didn’t feel the same without that assurance that he used to have when he knew he would see her at school the next day. She texted him whenever she could but oftentimes, especially with their time differences, she was on Do Not Disturb.
Still he loved the way her pretty brown eyes would light up with joy when they’d FaceTime on an agreed date. She would eagerly show him around, as if that could somehow let him crawl through the screen and be there with her in her dorm. He was pretty sure he’d memorized the format of her room at this point.
The park was almost empty. He took out his phone.
***
Wendy Testaburger sat at her desk, rubbing her eyes. She needed to get these Excel sheets in by tonight for that stupid project. Closing her eyes, she could see the sheet burned into her retinas. Stupid “AVERAGE”s and “MEDIAN”s and “Select All”s and whatnot. She stretched and then stood up to walk around the dorm for a quick break. Her roommate had gone out to grab some dinner with some friends and was going to come back with some leftovers for Wendy.
As she sipped some tea from the tiny dorm fridge, she flopped back down at her desk. Ughhhhhh. Couldn’t this stupid Excel sheet do itself? She banged her head on the wooden surface. High school was nothing compared to this hell.
No, that wasn’t really fair. Of course, she enjoyed learning all these new things. And they were things she actually cared about!
Still… it was just so much work, sometimes.
Wendy peeked at her phone, which she’d dutifully thrown onto her duvet. She turned it off of Do Not Disturb.
Hey I thought of you, Stan had texted her. He sent a picture of a failed clover crown, snapped in several spots.
Wendy smiled. I remember that birthday, she typed back. His eighteenth. They’d made such pretty clover flower crowns together and laughed in the grass. How that felt like an era ago!
uni treating you ok wendy?
She nodded, despite knowing full well that he wasn’t there with her. Can I call you? just for a bit? Just audio is fine
Sure.
She picked up on the first ring.
“Hey, Wendy!”
“Stan!” her heart swelled with joy at hearing his voice. They hadn’t been able to call for a few weeks because of her grueling classwork, and hearing him say her name was something she’d missed so much.
“Shouldn’t you be studying?” he gently teased.
“I know…” she pouted. “Can’t a girl take five? Just for a bit?”
“Hmm, if she deserves it,” he said, still teasing her. “If she worked hard all night and wants to take just a quick break talking to her ‘amazing boyfriend’, I guess she can.”
“Can she?” she asked skeptically, playing along. It felt so silly to talk like this, but it felt nice to be able to even be silly with him.
“Especially if it’s Wendy Testaburger,” he said, his voice softening into a genuine tone. She felt him smile on the other side. “She’s a hard worker and deserves some rest.”
“Thanks.”
“But she can do it. She can pull through anything, any tough week, no matter how tough it gets. Right?”
“Ughhhhh.”
“Wendy…” he said sternly.
“Yes, Private Stan,” said Wendy, sticking her tongue out.
He groaned. “Don’t call me that.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Shut up.”
Wendy cackled. She loved talking to him so much.
“What’s going on over there?” he asked.
“Oh… just the usual, you know?” she ranted to him about everything. All that drama that didn’t really matter, about people he neither knew nor probably cared about, but she knew he liked hearing her talk, and she liked having him on the line. He laughed, he questioned, he listened.
“Thanks for sending me back another letter, by the way,” said Wendy, referring to the monthly letters they each other. One of her favorite “traditions” they shared.
He laughed. “Of course. I know you like those silly things. Even though we can text.”
She giggled. “They mean so much to me, though. And I can keep them! I can’t do that with normal texts!”
“That’s true.”
She sighed.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“I just miss you,” she said sadly. She fiddled with the tiny charms round the chain on her neck. The crystal heart and the little sun from her bracelet that had broken not too long ago.
“I miss you too,” said Stan.
There was a pause.
“I… should probably get back to work,” said Wendy with a sigh. “It was nice talking to you.”
“Yeah,” he said with a smile. He held his phone firmly with his hand, leaning his face against it and pressing his cheek against the cool glass. “It was nice talking to you, too. Are we still on for next Thursday?”
“Nine o’clock my time?”
“Yep.”
“I’ll ‘see’ you then,” said Wendy jokingly.
“Call me whenever you need a friend to talk to, okay? Even before Thursday?”
She smiled. “Thanks, Stan.”
“Of course.”
He hesitated. She hesitated.
“I’ll be the one to hang up first,” said Wendy. They always waited for each other to hang up because they never wanted to be the first one. It was just easier for one of them to say outright that they would do it.
“Okay. Bye.”
“Bye.” Her finger froze over the hangup button. She couldn’t do it.
Well… maybe she could if she said first…
“…I love you, Stan.”
“I love you too, Wendy.”
“Bye-bye.”
“Bye-bye.” He laughed softly.
Her finger made contact with the screen and the phone call ended. Wendy crawled over to her duvet and hugged her pillow, letting out a deep sigh of content.