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It begins, as many such schemes do, with a tingle in the edges of Stanley’s mind and a ringing voice that says I’m bored, and clearly the logical course of action is to stir up some trouble.
He’s lying on the floor of the dormitory at seven minutes to midnight on the thirtieth of November, vaguely aware of a pain in his neck. There’s snow falling silently outside. His brother and their roommate won’t be back from their late-night madcap dash to the library for hours; Stanley is free to seep into the floor and feel just as apathetic as he does sorry for himself. He does just that for a while-- seep, and wallow in self-pity and nihilism-- as his mind tingles (rather like pins and needles, he thinks distantly, like the parts of your body waking up out of sync); the cramp in his neck intensifies, though, and he frowns. He shifts slightly to relieve it, and that in itself is-- a sign of change.
Pain isn’t anything new, but the will to fix it has been heartily missed. The past week-- weeks?-- had been a blur while they’d happened, a slur of lethargy between the faster high points like he’s become so used to, so the pain is even more significant in that he realises he wants to do something about it.
(It’s been like this for as long as he can remember, really. His life is characterised by those days and weeks in the oxygen-thin atmosphere at the top of the world where he is invincible, and all of his ideas are infallible, and his life is incredible; always offset, however, by gaps-- a numbness and a creeping feeling of pointlessness and a pervasive omnipresent tiredness. There’s days of stability in between the extremes, of course, but they’re almost worse; they let him recognise the futility of both ends, even though he has no choice in it. He expends all his energy in spur-of-the-moment decisions one second and can’t find it within him to get out of bed the next, and he’s always circling just outside comfort, and he’s become very good at making a bad day (or a fast day, or an empty day, or a razor-edge day) seem like an ordinary day.
He’s used to it, really, he is. He’s just a bit weary.)
But in the here and now, his neck hurts and he shakes off the exhaustion like a shed skin.
It is, he muses with a lazy grin, the beginning of the peak of a rollercoaster, and no matter the inevitability of the drop on the other side he is determined to enjoy it while it lasts.
First he sits up with a shake like a dog drying itself, and then he slaps himself around the cheeks a bit until some blood flows through. He feels more awake. He feels more alive . Pity the upswing started at nearly midnight, but happiness will have its sacrifices, right? And in any case, it’s high time he stirred something up in the dull dishwater of Backupsmore. In celebration of the holidays, if nothing else.
The holidays.
Oh , he thinks, with a firelight spark in his eyes, there’s an opportunity if ever I saw one.
Before he knows it he’s standing up and incubating something devious in his head, distractedly looking for something to write it down with. (God, he can feel his skin crawling. He makes a mental note to have a shower, but it’s lost in the tide of post-its in his mind.) There’s no writing utensils within arm’s reach, so he invades his brother’s privacy with great conviction and takes the tin of expensive markers from underneath Stanford’s bed. His hand hovers over the array of colours for a moment. This is a red-and-green sort of plan , he thinks. Festivity and whatnot. (Also, he just really likes this particular shade of red.) He grabs a piece of scrap paper (well, he assumes it’s scrap paper; those equations all look like gibberish to him) and slams it on the desk, ready to draw a shiny new idea from the churning waters of his mind; the first few words he writes are ruined by the shakiness in his hand and he crosses them out, blotting ink through the paper like blood.
No, no, he thinks, not getting morbid here. It’s like cranberry juice, or holly berries. No blood!
“All things ripe for exploitation,” he says out loud, to the vague tune of a Christmas carol he only barely knows. Something about decking people in the balls, right? His mind works along that line for a few seconds-- jumps from one carriage to the next on his train of thought at a dangerous pace-- slams ideas together in a collider like a proper scientist, like his brother-- deck the halls-- mistletoe at Christmas-- play to his strengths, make it something he can excel at--
A scheme comes together as it turns, poetically, midnight on the first of December, and Stanley comes out of a slump into a whirl of activity, and damned if he isn’t going to enjoy this holiday for all it’s worth.
(He finally falls asleep at the desk at 3am, half an hour before his roommates return, with the marker still clutched in a death-grip; Stanford is too tired to do much more than pull a blanket up around his shoulders; Fiddleford lingers for a moment longer with a worried look, but is easily cajoled into bed with a kiss from Stanford.
They all sleep, minds individually dwelling and brooding and working, and none of them feel rested when they wake up.)
...
Fiddleford doesn’t know exactly where his life started going wrong, but it must have, at some point. Why else would he be lying here on the plasticky faux-leather sofa at four in the afternoon, spilling his heart to Stanley in an absurd imitation of therapy? He imagines Stanley, dressed in nonthreatening plaid, tenting his fingers and saying “And how does that make you feel ?” and has to take a moment to clamp his teeth around a laugh. It’s absurd. His life is a sitcom.
(In reality, Stanley is wearing a stained singlet and week-old jeans-- Stanford’s week-old jeans, actually-- and is using a set of expensive-looking markers to colour in a sheet of flexing arms that he drew earlier. Fiddleford doesn’t want to ask.)
“My brother may be a genius, but he knows nothing about the real world. Don’t worry that he doesn’t like you, alright,” Stanley’s saying, tongue between his teeth in concentration when he pauses. His attention is divided: Fiddleford’s emotional dilemmas on one hand, and the painstaking efforts he’s taking to colour inside the lines on the other. “Because he does, I promise. And I don’t need any freaky twin mindreading to know that, either; it’s all over his face. He talks about you when you aren’t around.” He sits up in the chair and fixes Fiddleford with a serious stare. “Don’t tell him I told you this, but he draws you a lot.”
Fiddleford blinks at that. “He… draws me? I didn’t know Stanford was an artist.” Isn’t that the sort of thing you’re supposed to know about your significant other? Shouldn’t he be aware of his boyfriend’s hobbies-- hell, his friend’s hobbies, even, before anything else they might be? He supposes that explains the fancy markers Stanley is currently grinding into the paper.
The worry in his voice isn’t lost on Stanley, who returns to his colouring with a smile. “Don’t stress over it. He doesn’t tell anyone. Only reason I know is ‘cause I grew up with him, and I can guess where he hides his sketchbooks.” He pauses and points covertly at Stanford’s mattress, and then winks very un-covertly. “Point is, there is a lot of pictures of you in there. He captures your likeness pretty well, you know.”
Fiddleford opens his mouth and closes it again. “That’s all well and good, but--” he finally stutters out, surprised at how warm inside he feels with the knowledge that Stanford draws him . “But it’s been a month and we haven’t gone on a single date that wasn’t studying or DD&MD, and that doesn’t count because there’s four other people in our fellowship. Not romantic.”
That gets a laugh out of Stanley. Nice to see you’re taking my trials and tribulations seriously, pal, Fiddleford thinks. “I say again: Ford knows nothing at all about how the real world works,” says Stanley, not nearly as harshly as he could have. “He tries, good on him, and he means well, but sometimes he just doesn’t get things like dates or relationships. He doesn’t think he’s doing anything the wrong way-- and he isn’t, really. He’s just doing it his way.” There’s a subtle hardness in the last sentence: protectiveness, Fiddleford corrects himself. Past experience talking, most likely; even though Stanley’s technically younger, he would have been the barrier between Stanford and the anger that the world threw at him when they were growing up.
The room goes quiet, filled with the sounds of marker on paper and Fiddleford’s fingers subconsciously, anxiously tapping.
“So should I just be blunt about it? Hello, let’s get dinner, not with Stanley, just the two of us, on a date , because we are in a relationship ?” says Fiddleford, putting on an overly enthused voice for the second part. “I’m not good at being direct about my feelings without help. And-- and before you say anything,” he says quickly, sitting up and pointing an accusatory finger at Stanley, who pretends to look innocently shocked, “I do not consent to being locked in a room with him, so don’t even suggest that. I don’t care that it worked, I almost threw up. I’m not doing that again.”
Stanley grins and shrugs in a whatever you say gesture. “Sure, buddy. I promise not to enact a Plan on you without prior discussion, okay?” Still wary, but satisfied, Fiddleford lets himself fall back onto the sofa with a sigh. “But…” Stanley drags out the word teasingly and tilts his head. “Say, for example, if I already had a Plan-- not one that involves you or him personally! An all-campus Plan. In the spirit of the holidays, y’know? If , hypothetically, I already had a Plan that could be... molded to give you and him a little nudge, then would that be alright?”
The concern and care in his voice is real, Fiddleford notices, and that makes him smile. “Well… what part would I play in this?” Fiddleford asks, and doesn’t even bother keeping the curiosity hidden. “And as much as I shudder to think of how you and the holidays might mix, that is a tentative yes, Stanley.” He pauses and bites his lip. “No explosives, though. Nothing illegal.”
You can never be too careful when Stanley has capitals in his plans. Fiddleford knows .
“Simple. It’s December, right? I don’t know about you, but neither Ford or me celebrate much of anything, so you’ll have to take the first step here. But the beauty of commercialised holidays like Christmas is that the traditions are all there, ready made-- I’m just making it a bit more, ah,” Stanley thinks for a moment. “Modern. Appealing to today’s rowdy youth. Suffice to say, there’s mistletoe involved in this particular Plan, and I’ll make sure to leave some untainted, just for you. I’ll set it all up for you-- gimme a location, and there’ll be mistletoe waiting for you. All you have to do is, you know,” he waves his hand noncommittally, “be sappy and romantic. Kiss him under the mistletoe and ask him out. You got the perfect motivation, and as long as you say it simply enough, he’ll get the message.”
A kiss under the mistletoe. Nice and romantic. Traditional, even. Fiddleford doesn’t know if he can do this.
Without waiting for a response, Stanley stands up and reaches over to clap him on the shoulder. “Well! Good talk, Fiddlenerd. I’m off to the library. You’ve got a good half hour before Ford gets back from his lecture, if you. You know. Wanna take a peek at his sketchbook,” he says with a grin, and carefully picks up his own recently-completed work of art, blowing on it to dry the ink.
Stanley exits the room at a run with his paper held tenderly at arm’s length, leaving behind a ruminating Fiddleford, who deliberately avoids looking at Stanford’s mattress as he sits down on the other side of the room with a book. (Really. He doesn’t even glance. Not once.)
When Stanford finally gets back from his lecture, late, he kisses Fiddleford on the cheek and immediately buries himself in homework. Stanley (who returned about five minutes before his brother, trailing the smell of electric smoke and with a sizeable stack of paper) shoots Fiddleford a look, gestures widely towards his brother, and holds his hands up. Fiddleford blinks and lets a sigh out through his nose, and mouths Fine, Stanley. Stanley throws a gleeful thumbs up back at him.
He desperately hopes he isn’t making a mistake.
...
The first inkling that something is going to go wrong comes to Stanford on the second of December when he’s returning a stack of books to the library and the bony-wristed librarian hisses a curse at him, sibilant voice all eldritch noises and glottal stops. The air curdles. Her eyes flood with inky black. He quakes in his boots.
He’d been at a study group that devolved into arguments over which DD&MD extension was objectively the best, and in the course of things someone mentioned the abject terror that was the holiday expansion pack. ( Nobody likes the holiday expansion pack. Not even the die-hard fans that collect each artifact of merchandise they can get their six-fingered hands on. It’s trite drivel that exploits a ridiculous season and capitalises on consumer frenzy to justify a monster called Nyarlatho-ho-ho-tep .) The group had dismissed, after an icy silence, and only on his way back to the library did Stanford realise that the holidays had, in fact, already begun.
Usually he wouldn’t be one for celebrations of any kind-- Hanukkah feels soured from that last empty December when Stanley hadn’t been there and Dad had yelled (and yelled and yelled, and other things besides), and Christmas had never been especially high on his radar, and he personally didn’t hold any particular beliefs close to his heart-- but for the first time in a while he’s surrounded by something approximating a decent family, so he guesses there’s going to be something happening in the near future.
And then the librarian thing happens. (Not exactly the snow-glimmer of winter magic, but who is he to judge?)
It sounds like there’s genuine power in it, and it makes him freeze in his tracks with a hand half-raised (though whether in greeting or protection it’s hard to say); at the sight of his hand, her eyes widen and she bites back the spell mid-sentence. She apologises, retreating back a few steps to the photocopier (which is smoking and humming quite worryingly, he notices). He nods a hurried don’t worry about it and turns, with something aching in the pit of his stomach, towards the dorms. It could be genuine magic that twists his intestines or just the usual apprehension that accompanies this sort of sign, but he’s absolutely set on one thing as he marches to dorm 618 with steely eyes:
If he’s going to die via misdirected librarian death-spell, he’s at least going to find out what Stanley did to deserve it first.
In the halls he edges around at least two groups of people singing Christmas carols horrendously off-key, and absently hopes that Fiddleford won’t insist on including carols in whatever celebration they end up having. Not because Fiddleford can’t sing-- he’s remarkably talented, actually, and makes a banjo sound as sophisticated as a full orchestra with the right acoustics-- no, it’s because Stanley can’t sing, and Stanley will take any opportunity to remind everyone of that fact.
Stanford ruminates on memories of Stanley screeching parodies of BABBA in his ear all the way to the dormitory. Before he knows it, he’s there, and he has to take a moment to remember the reason he’s supposed to be annoyed, outside of his brother’s tone-deafness.
Ah, right. Being cursed by a librarian, possibly being doomed to a premature death, &c. &c.
With motivation in mind, he rests half of his load of books on a knee and scrabbles at the doorknob, immediately knocking out any chance of an intimidating entrance. He decides to settle for a succinct first sentence instead.
“Stanley, I think the librarian tried to curse me today. Was that your fault?” he says as he walks into the dorm, suspicion colouring the question, because he knows full well that it was Stanley’s fault. Things like this are always Stanley’s fault.
His brother looks up briefly from whatever he’s doing at the desk, which seems to involve scissors and a mountain of cut paper, to feign an insulted expression. “Me? Really? Sixer, I am hurt that you would accuse me like that. I mean, when have I ever done anything that warranted cursing?” he says, saccharine-sweet. There is, of course, a laundry list of incidents that Stanford could pull from the top of his head, but now isn’t the time for that. ( Later , he thinks to the metaphorical filing cabinet in his head, bursting at the seams. All in good time. )
Stanford narrows his eyes. “So you’re saying that you haven’t been a nuisance in the library recently? You haven’t… broken the photocopier, for example?” He is painfully aware that in all the fuss he completely forgot to return his books, so he can’t even put his hands on his hips judgmentally. He settles for raising an eyebrow and tilting his head, which has a little less impact than he’d like, but is a lot easier with full arms.
“Ah. Well. About that…” starts Stanley, biting his lip. “I may have overworked the photocopier last night for my special project, but I swear, it always had smoke coming out of it, and at least half the noises it’s making aren’t my fault.” He pauses and frowns. “Wait. The old bat seriously tried to put a curse on me for that ? Like, an actual curse?” Stanford nods mutely in response, still looking awkward with an armful of textbooks. “Huh. I owe someone some money. Anyway, I know we’re twins and all, but I am clearly the handsome one. Take it as a compliment that you got mistaken for me, Sixer.”
“Uh-huh. You were betting on whether or not the librarian’s a witch?” questions Stanford warily, finally moving to deposit his workload on the desk. He’s thwarted by the fact that Stanley has no ability for organisation, and the surface is covered with scrap paper and what looks like hundreds of… cartoon muscled arms? Okay, Stanley. Alright. Fine. Sure. He readjusts the books in his arms with a huff.
“No, I knew she was a witch. Everyone knows that! It was on when she’d reveal herself; I wagered it wouldn’t be until next year at the earliest. Solstice, or something.” He pauses to scratch at his neck, and then returns to cutting out. “Either way, you lost me ten bucks. Thanks a lot for being my twin, jerk.”
“ I lost y-- who was the one that angered her in the first place? It’s not my fault that my embryo split into yours and saddled us both with the same face--” Stanford closes his eyes and takes a deep, calming breath. “What were you doing with the photocopier, anyway? What’s the deal with these… arms? Are those questions related-- and also, should I be worried?” he asks, cautiously, nudging an errant limb back into the mass of paper.
Stanley winks at him roguishly. “Top secret!” Of course. Of course it is. Then he looks .concerned for a moment. “Although, if you’re struck down with some mysterious witch-inflicted disease, you’re exempt from festivities. Don’t want you dying during the jolliest time of the year, nerd.” And at that he makes a hybrid of about four rude gestures towards his brother and sinks back into his fevered arts and crafts.
Stanford heaves a sigh and leaves, rolling his eyes as he goes.
If he hadn’t turned away from the table and headed back to the library right then, leaving his brother alone with the empty room, he might have seen the way Stanley’s expressions were all exaggerated and pulled taut, ready to snap.
But he did, and so he didn’t, so he barely spares a thought for Stanley’s state as he maneuvers around students in the corridors, instead dwelling on whether a half-cast curse has enough strength behind it to kill him before he achieves a PhD.
…
So, when Stanford walks into the common room on the third day of December and sees Stanley putting up a poster bigger than himself on the noticeboard, he thinks, I don’t have time for this.
Then he sees the fresh pile of mistletoe sitting on the desk next to Stanley, and the eager glint in his brother’s eye, and the way students are beginning to mill about in interest, and something inside of him curls up and dies .
Stanford is used to his brother’s uncanny knack for-- let’s say-- shenanigans, for lack of a more flattering term. Even with a dry spell of nearly two years (given that eighteen out of twenty months were occupied by Stanley's absence, and the remainder only contained one major Plan, which ended well for all involved, so it doesn't really count) he never lost the sixth sense honed by being the twin of Stanley– that feeling of Oh no, he’s up to something, and if I don't step in then someone will end up arrested or on fire or in hospital or court.
He takes a rapid and detached inventory of the situation: 1 (one) brother (unruly at the best of times and destructive at the worst, usually falling somewhere between the extremes at aggravating, currently sticking his tongue out in concentration and looking generally mischievous), 1 (one) poster (large, written in acidic-looking bright marker that he can’t read from this distance, held by three thumbtacks in its corners and with a fourth well on its way), a hefty pile of mistletoe (looking oddly off-model, teetering in a pile, giving Stanford a feeling of hopelessness in his gut), and, worst of all, 14 (fourteen, and counting– fifteen, now) assorted interested-looking students (milling about Stanley in a crowd, drawn to the remarkable like dull moths to a flame, a few of them with conspiratory faces, and Stanford wants to die ).
This is the kind of situation that brings civilisations to their knees: Stanley Pines with a Plan and a Crowd.
Really , Stanford thinks, the holiday season has barely started, and on top of that neither of us observe anything, and on top of THAT I’m pretty sure he’s taken at least five years off my lifespan in the two months that he’s been here, so all in all I refuse to deal with whatever he’s stirring up now . So he shoots a dirty look at a freshman who is contemplating both the poster and Stanley with a smile that is far too intrigued, and turns around and walks right back out of the room.
Honestly, Stanford really doesn’t have time for Stanley’s nonsense. He has exams to think about, and then homework over winter break, and the useless holiday frenzy that everyone else seems to work themselves into. In the back of his mind, he’s aware that he also has a boyfriend to worry about. (What exactly does a relationship entail, anyway? They already live together, technically, and they spend enough time with each other. They kiss often enough, and smile at each other and hold hands and sometimes sleep with arms slung around shoulders and across chests, so he’s probably fine on that front.) He’s been doing alright at that for a month already, though, and Fiddleford hasn’t shown any outward signs of displeasure with the situation. But then, when has he ever been any good at reading people?
He spends so much time turning his worries over in his head that he doesn’t notice he’s turned himself back around and is walking back into the common room until his nose is nearly touching the poster. Abruptly, there’s the scent of markers making him woozy (are those his twelve-dollars-apiece artist’s markers Stanley’s commandeered for yet another scheme?), and he feels another wave of anger and impatience wash over him.
Fuck it , he thinks with a scowl, and starts to read. He hasn’t really got much left to lose.
ATTENTION STUDENTS, TEACHERS, AND OTHER MISC. WEIRDOS, proclaims the poster in acid-green that hurts Stanford’s eyes. He has to squint to read it, intensifying his ever-present Stanley-headache further. The next few lines are written in a more tolerable red, thank the stars.
Trying to find a way to survive until winter break? Looking for some fresh holiday cheer? Same old holly-jolly activities not cutting it?
WORRY NO LONGER! YOUR SAVIOR IS HERE!
Oh, lord, thinks Stanford, he’s already resorting to blasphemy.
Stanley Pines is pleased to present the newest holiday tradition sensation: WRESTLETOE!
Underneath the all-caps portmanteau is a crude drawing of a sprig of mistletoe with muscular arms and the word Yeah! emanating from its face in an asymmetrical speech bubble. Stanford stares wonderingly at it for a moment, reluctant to read any further for fear of destroying his already under-duress heart.
The rules of wrestletoe are simple: if you find yourself underneath the wrestletoe-- recognisable by its trademark Beefy Arms-- with someone, be they friend, enemy, lover, stranger, teacher, or casual acquaintance, you are hereby contractually obligated to THROW THE F*CK DOWN (the swear is starred out, rather pointlessly, with some leftover arms) for the sake of the holidays. Fights can be a friendly spat, a release of tension, no holds barred, or to the death*, according to the tastes of the fighters involved.
For safety’s sake, always make sure to define the rules of a wrestletoe fight before it begins. The only limitations are that some sort of fight must take place, but always consult with your fighting partner before throwing a punch!
I’ve taken the liberty of setting up some wrestletoe already, (Stanford feels his knees go weak at the thought that there might literally be no escape) but if you really want to show your holiday spirit, be proactive and take some wrestletoe to hang up yourself! Over a doorway, in a corridor, strategically placed above a certain someone’s designated seat-- it’s up to you!
HAVE FUN AND STAY SAFE! HOPE TO SEE YOU UNDER THE WRESTLETOE!!!
There’s some fine print underneath that last paragraph of block letters that Stanford has to lean forward to read.
Warning: Stanley Pines is not responsible for any bodily harm, property harm, emotional harm, broken friendships, or infatuations that may result from the use of wrestletoe. Fight responsibly, kids!
*Please don’t actually kill anyone. Please. I don’t really want to go to court again.
Stanford sinks to the floor in a heap. He almost cries . He’ll be lucky if he even attends his exams at this rate.
…
“I am not participating in this, Stanley. You know how awful I was at boxing! This is-- this is probably illegal!” Stanford quietly shouts when he finally tracks down his brother. They’re standing in front of the poster and probably making a small scene. “I don’t exactly consider getting beaten to a pulp to be holiday fun, okay?” The thought of it-- and how it would affect his exam results-- makes him tremble in fear.
Stanley does his best to look at least a little bit contrite. For about three seconds.
“It’ll be so fun , though!” he says, a grin wobbling at his mouth; he’s holding a few pieces of wrestletoe and is clearly eager to go and set an ambush for unsuspecting students. “People know not to go at it without saying anything, y’know, so it can just be pulled punches if you want-- but it’ll be so fun anyway!” His voice cracks slightly with glee.
“I don’t care , Stanley!” Stanford says, frantic. “Regular mistletoe is bad enough, but this ?” He gestures violently at the poster and the crowd surrounding it. “I’m avoiding anything that even looks like mistletoe from now on, because I don’t want to run the risk of breaking all of the bones in my fucking body !” The violent gestures turn towards his own body, indicating precisely each bone he wants to remain whole (i.e., all of them, and his internal organs and circulatory system as well).
At that, Stanley frowns, like he’s considering the possibility he might have gone too far-- but it’s gone in a second, replaced with that slightly terrifying grin. “Ah, Sixer, you’ll be changing your tune before too long. Trust me.” To emphasise it, he winks and then walks jauntily from the room, trailing a few hopeful students looking to scope out ideal locations for a fight. A couple of them seem to be vying for Stanley’s attention, begging to be the first to fight Stanley Pines himself , because of course Stanley’s already made a reputation of himself outside of ‘Stanford’s cooler, funner, five-fingered twin’. Ever the responsible one, Stanley’s waving a hand at the prospective fighters and delegating a first-come, first-served policy; a fight breaks out, even without the stimulus of wrestletoe, between two boys for first place. (One of them has a physics class with Stanford, and he never seemed like the type to be suckered by Stanley’s games, so it’s even more disappointing to see him holding his friend in a headlock and shouting “FOR THE GLORY!”)
It’s disgraceful. It’s so-- so utterly Stanley. Stan-ly . (If he wasn’t otherwise occupied, Stanford would tut disapprovingly at himself for such a base pun.)
Stanford curls his lip and turns on his heel, exiting the room with an eye out for mistletoe lurking in the corridors. Luckily, Stanley apparently hasn’t had time to cover every alternate route back to their dorm, so he makes it back only ten minutes late but with no bruises, which is a victory in Stanford’s books
Fiddleford looks up when he enters and starts to say something, but thinks better of it when he sees his boyfriend’s fuming face. “Er,” he says while reconsidering, watching Stanford sit down on a bed with as much anger as one can possibly instil into such an action. (It involves a lot of overdramatic flouncing and sighs and half-inaudible Honestly s and Fucking hell s.) “Bad day?”
“Oh, it’s nothing , Fidds,” Stanford replies, in the tone of voice that means he’s been aching for someone to ask, and it most definitely is not nothing, and he desperately wants to talk about it. “Just my knucklehead of a brother spinning some ridiculous and dangerous scheme and probably trying to get me killed , or at least fail my exams, that’s all. Does he ever-- augh, does he ever think before he does things?” He falls back and covers his face with his hands, letting out a frustrated groan. “He’s-- oh, it’s absolutely ridiculous , people are going to get hurt , and he’s bastardising mistletoe , and he always was the only one who ever came out on top in boxing, so it’s clear he was only thinking about himself when he came up with this one--” Eventually the sheer anger behind his words overcomes his mouth’s ability to keep up, and he resorts to a sound somewhere between a scream and a sigh. He rolls over and buries his face in the pillow theatrically.
Through this entire spiel, Fiddleford sits, bemusedly, and watches with a calm eye. Stanley had told him the details earlier, frantically, and the overlap of physical combat and holiday festivities is, in truth, a bit terrifying. (Under different circumstances, Fiddleford might be just as angry, but given that there’s opportunity to squeeze a date out of this particular plot, he can’t hold too much against Stanley. He tries, at least.) “He… probably isn’t doing this just to spite you, dear,” he says, trying to be as gentle as possible, kneeling next to the bed and placing a feather-light hand on the soft hair at Stanford’s neck. “Stanley, no matter the silly decisions he might make, wouldn’t do anything deliberately to jeopardise having you back in his life.” He curls his fingers just so in Stanford’s hair, tracing circles absently. “Maybe he’s just trying to have some fun. It is the holidays, after all. And since when has our Stanley ever left a tradition un-bastardised?” Fiddleford tries to smile, but it’s pointless anyway because Stanford still hasn’t looked up from his cottony blindfold.
“He always does this,” Stanford mutters, a tad muffled. “He just barrels ahead, not thinking about anyone except himself, and steps out when it comes time to deal with the consequences. I’ve had to clean up his messes all our lives, so-- ha, I don’t know why I thought that might change, or that he might ever actually mature enough to own up to his mistakes--” But he sits up then and stops, and he’s aware he’s dangerously close to that territory that experienced linguists and social psychologists alike refer to as ‘too far, man’. “No. Okay. That was unfair,” he says, taking a deep breath, because now he’s thinking about the biggest mess he had to clean up, college applications strewn over an empty bed that hurt him to look at and the bitter sting of runner-up when he got one lone acceptance letter and the late-night thought of how lonely it would be halfway across the country-- he shuts his eyes and tells himself again that he’s past all of that. It’s forgiven, even if it’s not forgotten, and he won’t hold that against his brother like a burning brand. “But you can’t deny that he-- have you seen his latest Plan?” Stanford asks when his voice stops shaking. “And yes, it is a capital-P Plan, because he’s getting the whole campus in on it, and people are liable to get hurt.”
“Ah,” says Fiddleford, who was, in fact, enlisted to proofread the poster and is, in truth, a terrible liar, “no? Not entirely. Is it related to the-- the arms that he was drawing?”
“The arms! That’s exactly what it’s related to, Fidds!” Stanford says in a huff. “He’s gone and invented something called wrestletoe , because he loves to fight, and to corrupt traditions. It’s like mistletoe, only instead of kissing, you have a fucking brawl , because isn’t that just the most festive thing you’ve ever heard!”
Fiddleford knows it’s a bit silly, but he feels like Stanford might be overreacting a bit. “Um. Is it really all that dire? I got the impression that it was just for fun; releasing pent-up exam stress and whatnot.” At the word exam Stanford’s jaw goes tight, and his fists clench in the bedspread. “ Oh ,” says Fiddleford, realising. “Is this because you’re worrying over exams?”
Face back into the pillow. “Yes. No. Maybe. Yes.”
“Darling, you should have just said so. I’m happy to study with you, if you like? Or, we can…” Just say it, just ask him out , you enormous trembling coward, says a voice in Fiddleford’s head. You’re already dating ! Say “why don’t we get dinner together, a nice first date, to get your mind off it?”, say it or I swear to god you aren’t allowed to have any chocolate cake tonight.
But, see, I can have chocolate cake, Fiddleford tells himself. Making threats at myself won’t work because I know perfectly well that I’m a coward, and that won’t stop me from taking a nice big slice of cake and eating it.
He realises that, in the few seconds he’s spent having this exchange with himself, Stanford has sat up again and is looking at him concernedly. “You alright, Fidds?” he asks, as if he wasn’t the one screaming anxiety into a pillow five minutes ago.
“What? Oh, yes! I’m fine. Um, what was I saying?” stutters Fiddleford. He’s well aware of his own cowardice, thank-you-very-much, and he deserves cake anyway, even if he isn’t going to square his shoulders and ask his boyfriend ( your boyfriend! Who you are, in fact, already going out with! It doesn’t need to be this hard! thinks the frustrated part of his brain, but he tamps it down) out to dinner. “Oh! We can study together, if you like? Or…” He’d asked Stanley to put the regular mistletoe above the room where their DD&MD met, right? Even though dungeon raids were off for exam season, it shouldn’t be too hard to coax Stanford out for a quick one-on-one session. “We could play some DD&MD to take your mind off all this stress?”
Stanford smiles thinly. “I’d love to, but I don’t know which hallways are safe anymore, and I really do have to study. I don’t want to let Backupsmore down,” he says, which is absurd, because the only way he could let down Backupsmore is by announcing his decision to become a professional dropout and defacing the building. Even then, they’d probably let him back in if he asked nicely. “But studying with you would be nice.”
The snow falls outside their window, and there’s some off-key carols in the distance, and it’s the third of December, and all Fiddleford really wants is to go on a proper date before the holidays. Is that really so much to ask?
He sighs. “Statistics first?” (He knows how Stanford works, and right now he’ll be looking for patterns to trace and results to quantify.) True to form, his hand is already halfway to the textbook on the desk when Stanford starts nodding.
If only there was a predictable trend I could follow to a candlelit dinner date right now , he thinks, and then he loses himself in numbers and graphs and the way Stanford goes all dreamy when there’s maths around.
...
On the fourth day of December, Stanford has a counter-plan. (He’s not daring enough to give it a capital, though.)
Since he has lectures to get to and books to borrow from the library, where he is now treated with the utmost respect after the incident of mistaken identity, and he’s been reassured countless times that the worst an unfinished spell will do is make his marrow ache a bit, it’s imperative that he be able to make his way safely through the halls. This involves using a hand-mirror to peek around every corner like he’s hunting a basilisk, or a cockatrice, or Medusa herself, and which makes a few of the other students give him strange looks. Even with the mirror, he doesn’t see them, though. He’s more focused on searching for white berries and cartoon biceps adorning walls and ceilings and doorframes to notice the people around him.
He makes it to all of his lessons, but ends up being between thirty minutes and an hour late to each. When he sits down to the stares of a whole classroom (star student Stanford tardy ! What a sight!), he grumbles and curses and wishes ardently that the holiday season would just finish already. Bah, humbug , he thinks, not entirely ironically.
(Though, if he’d bothered to look at the people around him, he might have seen Stanley teetering on the edge of something dangerous, and moving too quickly, risking whiplash with every snap decision he makes; but he doesn’t, so he doesn’t, so it begins to snowball.)
On the fifth, he decides to forego corridors and hallways altogether, instead opting for an entirely external route to all of his classes. The buildings are mostly brick, which leaves plenty of foot- and finger-holds, luckily, but he’s also completely terrible at anything athletic, so it balances out pretty nicely. He loses a couple of fingernails in the process. When compared to the prospect of running into an ambush of wrestletoe, however, a few bloody fingertips don’t seem so bad.
All things considered, climbing the exterior walls of the university to get to his classes seems very rational.
He swings in through the window of a classroom and smiles serenely at the bewildered faces of its occupants. “This is Statistics, right? Room C-13? It’s a bit hard to tell room numbers from the outside, you see,” he says, landing on the linoleum floor with a thud. The students stare at him. The professor blinks, and squints into the dregs of his coffee. “I hope I’m not too late.” He’s only a minute and a half late which is really quite respectable. When he takes a seat, he ignores the blood on his palms and grips his pen enthusiastically.
The class is focused on exam prep, and Stanford dutifully notes down every bullet point of revision, even when the professor trails off and looks between him and the window for a solid thirty seconds, and then at his coffee again. Students walking in with grins and bruises and bloody knuckles clapped on each other’s shoulders, laughing about what a good time they had punching each other in the face is one thing, but this is slightly outside even that realm of odd. (If asked, the professor would have mumbled something about every student dealing with examination stress differently, but nobody ever asks him, so he keeps the suspicion of spiked coffee in mind for the rest of his life.)
When the lecture is over, Stanford asks a few questions relevant to the coursework, nods respectfully, and clambers out through the window again. A few students stick their heads out after him. He pulls a hand away from the wall to wave airily at them and nearly falls.
The rest of the day, though, knots up at the edges, like it always does when he deviates from routine.
Somewhere on the way to his third lecture of the day, he realises he is stuck. Precariously so. The toe of his shoe is wedged into a crumbling hole in the mortar of the wall; he’s too afraid of falling two storeys to pull too hard. At about the same time as this predicament comes to light, he also notices that he’s starting to draw a crowd.
Mentally, he counts the assembled figures (between thirty and forty so far, increasing by the second) and divides them into a draft pie graph. About a third are there because they think he’s Stanley doing something ridiculous, which is a reasonable assumption to make; another third are there because they know he’s Stanford doing something ridiculous, and rumour travels quickly through a university; the remaining third is probably made up of stoned young adults seeing something weird and laughing wheezily at it, teachers genuinely concerned for his wellbeing, and a few of the school nurses.
It takes nearly ten minutes of frantic shoe-wiggling to get himself free, and the crowd cheers uproariously when he does. (Oh, lord, is that his name or Stanley’s they’re chanting? Which would be better in this situation?) He shuffles, shame-faced, across the wall and pretends not to hear.
He resolves to find a less obtrusive method of avoidance tomorrow as he trips over the windowsill and faceplants directly into the lecturer.
(On the other side of the school, Stanley isn’t climbing walls, but he is treading a tightrope with his life when he hooks lazily around corners and walks directly into fights; he comes home bloody and bruised and glowing with delight, and nobody quite knows what to say.)
On the sixth, Stanford wakes up with bleeding fingers and knuckles so sore he can’t even hold a pen. (Curse you, disloyal flesh and tendons!)
He successfully recruits Fiddleford as his assistant note-taker for the day, and his boyfriend dutifully transcribes both the lecture of the day (which Stanford does not attend, citing ‘mortal terror of wrestletoe’ as reason for his absence; the professor, remarkably, takes it in stride and waves Fiddleford to an empty seat) and Stanford’s stream-of-consciousness method of revision. After an hour solid of frantic scribbling, however, his patience starts to wear thin.
He thinks about the untainted mistletoe waiting for them, and the obstacle-free route they could take to get there, and about how he could somehow persuade Stanford to go with him and ask no questions--
“Did you get that, Fidds?” Stanford’s asking, suddenly, breaking into Fiddleford’s contemplation. He’s still nursing two bruised and stiff six-fingered hands, and is trying to turn the pages of the textbook in his lap by willpower alone.
“Huh? Oh, yeah, yeah. Sure.” He squints at what he’s written so far, hazarding an assumption that he probably got the general gist of what Stanford was talking about. “Listen, do you want to take a break for a bit, dear? Get something to eat?” It’s more successful than most of his other attempts at subtlety.
Stanford scoffs and rolls his eyes. “Psh. I know Stanley’s putting you up to this, Fidds. Trying to stick me under some of his ridiculous-- wrestletoe, honestly, I hate that the name works so well-- I’m not falling for it,” he says, raising an eyebrow.
Fiddleford lets out a deep sigh, as much at his own inaction as Stanford’s deep-set stubbornness, and says, “I’ll grab you a coffee from the cafe, alright?” Stanford looks worried. Fiddleford rolls his eyes. “I’ll be fine. Nobody just goes for it, you know? There’s always a discussion beforehand, setting limits and all that. If I get caught underneath some wrestletoe, I can handle it, Stanford,” he says, and rises to go.
His boyfriend’s bruised and scraped hand darts out to his arm. “Before you go, Fidds…” Stanford says, and Fiddleford has to catch a breath because this sounds so much like a cliche situation where the awkward boyfriend finally gets over his social ineptitude and proposes a real date , but of course it’s too good to be true, because he goes on to say: “Make sure you get a double shot in mine? I need the extra caffeine.”
On the way to the student cafe, Fiddleford meets two other people under the wrestletoe, and is secretly overjoyed when they say “no holds barred”. He knocks them out cold and goes on his merry way.
It really does wonders for stress relief, he finds, but he doesn’t think that telling Stanford that would be very conducive to his efforts.
(Stanley, likewise, feels that physical action is the best way forward, so he keeps on finding new ways to feed the flame behind his teeth; impulses start to pile up like shrapnel in his wake.)
On the seventh, eighth, and ninth, Stanford has no lectures, so he cloisters himself in the dormitory and ignores all of Fiddleford’s pleas to just step outside for a walk, come on , it’s not that bad, honestly Stanford.
“I’m not risking severe bodily harm because of one of Stanley’s contrived schemes, and I have to study for exams anyway,” he retorts to Fiddleford’s latest anxious needling. “Bring me that textbook over there, will you? Thanks, love.”
For his part, Fiddleford tries his best to drag his boyfriend outside. He falls to all but actual physical force, and, due to the fact that he’d rather not risk hurting Stanford (who seems to be a literal piece of string held upright by stress at the moment, judging by his unusually hollow cheeks), that avenue is also discarded. “I’ll make sure you don’t walk under any wrestletoe, I swear,” he says, which isn’t a lie. Fiddleford knows for a fact that the mistletoe above the door of their DD&MD meeting room is arm-free, and that’s where he plans to stage his romantic proposition. “And exams are no excuse for not seeing natural light for seventy-two goddamn hours , Stanford!” There’s layers of frustration in his voice that Stanford could pick apart if he bothered to listen once in a while, and he’s so incredibly fed up with his boyfriend’s nonsense that he wants to walk under some wrestletoe himself and get his own lights knocked out to take his mind off it.
He does get the textbook, though.
(Really, though, Stanley hasn’t forgotten about what is possibly the only pure sprig of mistletoe left in the school, and he loiters around it for more than an hour, thinking about things like love and the feeling of a fist connecting with flesh: whether it’s his fault he’s never known the former and he’s becoming all too familiar with the latter. The idea of loving someone-- romantically, that is, he knows what familial love is and he cherishes it in a special drawer between his ribs-- makes him feel scared, and he doesn’t think that’s the right reaction.
He wonders if being kissed would fix him, but nobody comes to mend the skipped beat of his heart, so he stops thinking about it after that.)
On the tenth, Stanford sets aside two hours of revision-free time to map the inside of Backupsmore, and breaks into the main room of the security system to note down as many instances of wrestletoe as he can.
However, every time he goes to double-check a stretch of hallway, there seems to be more of it. Is it multiplying? he thinks with a cold shudder, and resolves to watch a single camera feed until he can create an accurate projection for where the plant will appear. There’s five empty cups of coffee next to his arm. He hasn’t slept in nearly two days.
In the end, a security guard finds him half-asleep, half-sobbing at the terminal, with at least ninety-seven percent of the screens on the wall showing wrestletoe-infested corridors. He gets off with a warning and a mug of warm milk.
(Nobody knows if Stanley’s slept since the wrestletoe went up, and nobody is game to ask: he takes everything as a challenge or a joke, no in-between, so it’s dangerous to push the issue. People start skirting around his manic grin when it pushes ahead of him through the hallways, and they whisper things about him in the corners, but nobody takes down the wrestletoe.
It’s all so much fun, you see?)
On the eleventh, Stanford still doesn’t sleep. The issues of exams and wrestletoe are so firmly entwined in his mind that to think of one is to dread the other: the fear of walking under wrestletoe and losing blood and being woozy for his exams is just as terrifying as the prospect of failing an exam and leaving the room in a disappointed haze, only to stray directly into the path of danger and get set upon by teenagers with the eagerness of starving carnivores. He sits up in bed with a book and stubbornly bends his still-cramped fingers around a pen, and tries to cram so much knowledge in his head there’ll be no room for fear.
It’s not until Fiddleford forces a mug of steaming cocoa at him that he realises how heavy his eyelids are, and he barely tastes the chocolate before he’s asleep in his boyfriend’s arms, whispering and muttering equations and safe routes in his unsettled slumber.
(Stanley comes back to the dorm with too-bright eyes, but he fits right in with the atmosphere of the whole room, so neither of the other two notice anything too wrong aside from a mottled bruise on his cheek and the way he holds his shoulder, like it’s the start of him splitting apart at the joints. Fiddleford wants to say something but doesn’t, and Stanford doesn’t want to say something but almost does anyway.)
They’re all coming undone at the seams, from different angles, and they all keep it tied tight within their threadbare chests.
…
Finally, it’s an auspicious day-- the twelfth of the twelfth-- and at three minutes past noon, Fiddleford has had enough of dancing around the issue. He wants this over with (but he still wants to do it right , which is why he’s been agonising over the best way to lead Stanford to the mistletoe for days), and he’s almost fed up enough to just drag his boyfriend by the wrist out of the dorm.
“ Please , Stanford. I’ll swear on anything you like-- my heart, the universe, geometry -- I’m not trying to lead you into a wrestletoe ambush! Would you just-- fucking listen to me for once in your life !”
He didn’t mean to shout. He’s just--
(Fiddleford’s worried about exams, too, because he isn’t the university’s prize pupil, and he isn’t overly talented; he’s worried about Stanley, quietly and burningly under the surface, but he doesn’t know how to fix it; mostly he’s worried about Stanford, and that maybe Stanley was wrong: that this distant, anxious front is just Stanford’s way of telling him it was all a mistake, and he doesn’t actually like Fiddleford all that much, thank you.)
He’s just stressed, is all.
Stanford looks up from his notes to see tears in Fiddleford’s eyes. For the first time in a week, he seems to actually look at his boyfriend-- see past the tried and trying patience to the fact that Fiddleford is tired -- but all too suddenly it’s too late, and Fiddleford looks disgusted with himself for shouting, and he’s turning with a choked sob and slamming open the door and--
And then he’s gone and Stanford doesn’t know what to do with himself.
Okay, logically, he knows that he’s supposed to run after him and probably have a heart-tearing fight that ends in tears and reconciliation; mostly, though, he doesn’t know why he hadn’t seen this coming. Looking back, it seems obvious-- he always leans on Fiddleford, recently more than ever, and he winces at the thought that maybe he needs to think about his actions once in a while.
So he gets up (not too quickly, because he hasn’t eaten much in the past thirty-six hours and if he stood up too fast he’d pass out and nobody would get anywhere at all) and quite fearlessly exits the dorm.
He barely spares a glance for the dangerous hallways and ceilings he’s speeding through and under, barely watching for the plant that could legitimately spell doom for him; as it happens, all the wrestletoe between him and his destination (he feels magnetised, dizzyingly drawn to Fiddleford around every corner like a homing beacon) is occupied, and he thanks the constellations above as he dodges around a jocular wrestling match on the floor.
“Fidds!” he finally cries, relieved and mortified all at once, coming to the familiar sight of the room they play DD&MD together in. (The memory of scores of games turned down in favour of studying or wrestletoe avoidance makes his hands twitch together, ashamedly.) The hallway is blissfully empty for midday. He can hear the sounds of a raucous brawl coming from a few hundred feet away, but he’s finding it difficult to care about that at the moment.
When he shouts, Fiddleford looks up at him-- angry and hurt and endlessly patient underneath it all, like a saint who’s been through trials and hell and worse but still has time for blessings by the wayside-- and oh, no, he’s been really crying. His eyes are red. The sight sends a twinge through Stanford’s tender heart. Fiddleford steps forward a bit, but seems reluctant to leave his position in front of the clubroom door, clinging to this shred of familiarity and safety.
“Fidds, I’m so sorry. I-- I had no idea, I’ve been so awful to you,” Stanford is saying, running a hand through his hair as he gingerly treads closer, as if afraid of startling Fiddleford. “You’re so good to me and I don’t even notice when you’re stressed. I don’t--” he laughs, breathily, panicked-- “I don’t even know what’s wrong, aside from my own self-centeredness, and if that’s the whole of it then maybe I’m even worse than I thought.”
Fiddleford-- anoint him, bless him, raise him to the heavens-- has the gall to smile forgivingly .
Then he says: “Stanford, come here,” and opens his arms, and looks so, so tired, and it’s all Stanford can do not to collapse entirely into him until their nuclei combine. They stand there, arms around each other, for a long while, and listen to their breathing wind around itself like the tides. For once, Stanford feels quiet. He feels calm. He feels more alive.
After they’ve stood connected for a year, or a millenia, or (more likely) a minute or two, Fiddleford pulls away and takes a breath. Holds it for a moment, trying to tease out the words from his throat, and lets it go in a sigh.Then he takes another, and another, and he keeps on losing his nerve like that until Stanford steps in and keeps it from becoming a loop.
“Please, Fidds,” he says, “talk to me.” His hands are warm around Fiddleford’s wrists and he takes a chance at smiling, gently and apologetically. (In the background, one of the fights concludes with congratulations being passed around, and at least two more continue, solid-sounding thuds and yells making a strange soundtrack for their little moment.)
One final breath-hold-sigh, and Fiddleford looks up-- seems to gain courage from whatever he sees above him, be it heaven or just the steadfast plaster ceiling-- and says, at last, “I was just so worried.” He chews his lip for a moment, looking frayed, and continues. “About… lots of things, really. Exams. Life. Whether engineering is right for me. Stanley. Mostly, though,” he says, looking laid bare, “I was worried that you didn’t--”
But the rest of his heartfelt sentence is cut off, because Stanford’s gaze finally followed his to the point above their heads where Fiddleford looked to bolster his spirits-- he sees a blur of white berries on green (he needs to clean his glasses, they’re filthy , he notes, detachedly) and suddenly every other thought flees his mind because--
He’s standing under wrestletoe.
With Fiddleford.
Oh, shit .
(Okay, so maybe he doesn’t act entirely rationally. But-- he’s under a lot of stress, and he didn’t see the plant entirely clearly, and he was fairly statistically safe in his assumption-- so, really who could blame him for what he does next?
Well. Most people, probably.)
It all happens very fast, but--
Well--
Without thinking about it outside of the unconscious muscle commands required to move his arm and form words, Stanford makes a fist and shouts, blearily, “LEFT HOOK!” and drives it directly into Fiddleford’s nose.
(In hindsight, it seems a bit hasty.)
Fiddleford cries out in shock and pain and slumps against the wall, and Stanford steps back in shock and pain because punches actually send a fair jar through your hand, and they meet eyes, and their gazes travel up together to the wrestletoe.
Which, Stanford notices, doesn’t seem to have any arms attached to it. Did Stanley forget to put them on this one? Or is it just--
Oh.
Oh, shit . (ad nausaeum!)
“Oh, god, Fiddleford, I thought it was-- but it’s just--” he stutters, hands alternately anxiously at his face and reaching out for Fiddleford, who seems to be crying into his palms. Stanford keeps babbling like that for a moment, spilling apologies all over the linoleum, and wanting to yell at himself for being such an inobservant ass --
But then he notices that Fiddleford is laughing (which must be reasonably painful through a broken nose) and not angry at all, and the tears are half-reflex and half-mirth, rather than all pain and anger and fear.
“Take me to the nurse’s office, you bastard,” Fiddleford says, blood dripping down over his lips, over his smiling, soft lips, and (disgusting as it is, but he’s never been huge on correct safety procedures) Stanford kisses him right there, under the true and real and unarmed mistletoe. He gets blood all over both their collars somehow, as well as on the sleeve of his coat and in his hairline, but he can handle a little bit of bleeding in the name of love. If there’d been a clock nearby, it would have been charmingly neat: twelve minutes past twelve on the twelfth day of the twelfth month. Patterns are a central tenet of romance, after all. Paying no mind to the hypothetically perfect time, however, Stanford continues to breathlessly kiss Fiddleford on his bloody, laughing mouth, and he feels-- well, he feels like the holidays are right here in his arms, the spirit of it wrapped tight in familiar skin and given life and a wonderful looping accent, and he wouldn’t mind at all if they missed out on studying and just stayed here all day instead.
Then Fiddleford winces and says, “Ah, hang on-- I think you really did break my nose, and I’d love to keep kissing you, only I don’t want it to set concave from having your face pressed into mine,” and they laugh all the way to the nurse. They pass three separate pairs of fighters and each pair pauses to wish them a happy holidays before returning to their punching and holding and suplexing.
Stanford doesn’t really remember why he was being such an asshole about it all. It does look like fun, really.
…
After the nurse squints at Fiddleford’s nose, grunts in a routine manner-- likely due to the influx of such injuries in the past, oh, nine days or so-- and sets it back in place with a wrench (honestly, Fiddleford doesn’t scream ; if anything, he shrieks in a very dignified way), they’re left alone with an icepack and a comfortable silence. They both sit in stiff plastic chairs and try to smile around the latent unsaid things in the air, until Stanford apologises for the fiftieth time.
“I really am sorry, Fidds. Not just for breaking your nose-- though believe me, I am -- but I completely ruined our little heart-to-heart moment back there,” he says, finally daring to bring up what happened before the punch. “You were in the middle of a sentence and everything.”
Fiddleford laughs, and then flinches because of how it crinkles his nose. “It’s fine, Stanford. We can still have that moment here; it’s not like the moment was contained in that specific location. It was meant to be romantic, really,” he muses, drawing his brows together. “It’s why I tried to drag you out there so many times this week. It was partly Stanley’s idea, actually, because I was telling him about how I was worried you didn’t like me, so he suggested I--”
“Wait. You thought-- you seriously thought I didn’t like you? I-- look, correct me if I’m wrong, but we are going out, right?” Stanford looks baffled. “And even besides all that, we’re friends. If I suddenly decided I don’t like you for some reason-- which, by the way, will not happen in any conceivable future I can think of-- then I’d like to think I’d talk to you about it, at least.”
The absurdity of it all seems to catch up to them both. “Well,” starts Fiddleford, “you see, I am a deeply nervous person, and, well.” He pauses and looks embarrassed. “It sounds a bit silly, truthfully.”
“Fidds, if you’re worried about it, then it’s worth my time to hear about it.” Stanford looks so intensely serious and caring, like he’s trying to make up for whatever lapse made his boyfriend think he wasn’t loved through and through.
“It’s just… I was worried, because we haven’t really been on a proper date.” He’s right; as soon as the words leave his mouth he’s cursing his overactive nerves for finding fault there. Even Stanford’s gently supportive face falls into a startled frown. “And I thought maybe you just didn’t know how to tell me you didn’t like me, so you just kind of,” he mimes closing a door over his heart, “shut me out instead.” He stops, and lets the words wash over him. “In retrospect, it seems a bit contrived. We kiss, we study together, you’ve only been quiet recently because of exams. What do dates really matter, anyway?”
Stanford seems very confused. He blinks for a few seconds. “But… haven’t we been going on dates this whole time? The-- the library runs, the study sessions, all the times we’d stay up and laugh at the cheesy movies with Stanley… am I just really bad at this whole-- dating thing?” he says, genuinely bemused.
Fiddleford purses his lips for a long moment. “I think we’re both bad at ‘this whole dating thing’,” he says, hooking air quotes with the hand not holding an icepack, “and I think we both have different ideas of what constitutes a date. The way I grew up, dates have always been a solid thing-- dinner, or a movie, or going somewhere alone together for the sole purpose of being alone together . Not school-related stuff, or anything with other people. Which,” he adds with a raised eyebrow, “is why DD&MD doesn’t count.”
Apparently, this is all new information for Stanford. He sits back in his chair with a vaguely impressed expression. “Huh,” is what he says, after a long while. “I never thought of it like that. We can do that, if you like. Have dinner, or see a movie, or whatever.” His smile is lopsided, like always, and that pulls the rug from right under Fiddleford’s feet and he feels like he’s falling all over again.
“But what about exams? I know you’re stressed about them, dear,” Fiddleford says with a creased forehead. “I’m happy to count study dates. Revision can be romantic if we try hard enough, I’m sure.”
They both still feel wound a little tighter than everyone around them, but maybe that’s okay.
“Well,” Stanford says, with a smile that pulls at his edges until some of the anxiety falls right out of him and his shoulders relax and he takes a breath and his fingers find Fiddleford’s. “Revision can wait. We have a date to plan, after all.”
And then Stanley comes bursting in because someone called for him saying there was a family member in here with blood all over, and he takes one look at the two sitting together and laughs out loud. “Did it work, Fiddlenerd? Did you bag yourself a hot date with my brother?” he asks, leering, but in a rather kindly way. When Fiddleford nods wearily (conceding a victory to Stanley and his Plans always takes a toll on his wellbeing), Stanley pumps his fist in the air and then kneels between his brother and his friend and draws them all together in cameraderie.
Stanford contemplates things from underneath his brother’s sweaty arm. It's nearly winter break and he broke his boyfriend’s nose under the mistletoe and he forgot that dating someone usually involves actual dates and he put schoolwork over emotions yet again, but at least people are willing to be patient with him. That has to count for something, right?
(The next evening, they go on a candlelit dinner and ignore the creeping cold and the soreness of Fiddleford’s nose and have a right romantic time of it, and Stanford goes a whole thirty-four minutes without thinking about exams.
In the end, when he gets the results, he passes them all with flying colours; Fiddleford’s colours soar a little lower in the sky, but still admirably streak across the blue in success, and they kiss and whisper about another date, in celebration, maybe?
They both think it might work out, this stuttering thing they have between them, with a little tenderness and care; it might blossom into nebulae and galaxies and never leave their hearts a black hole, and they might be able to get past the anxiety of it all and find some sort of happiness in each other.)
…
And yet--
Things should have been wrapped up neatly with a bow and gift tag, but they aren’t, because it’s hard to fit such sharp-serrated mania into a tasteful box.
Even in the aftermath, when everyone else has laughed and breathed calmly around the schemes he pulled, and it’s all been waved away with admonishments of Oh, you , and That Stanley Pines, what a riot , Stanley still can’t slow the pace of his panicked being.
So eventually it’s two days before winter break (the seventeenth of December, with nothing neat or symmetrical about the date at all), and--
He grins too widely, shows too many teeth, like he’s trying to convince everyone he’s happy , he’s fine , he isn’t dying inside ; he pulls bandages tight over his heart and doesn’t think about how winter break means leaving the dorm. Leaving the only place that’s felt like a proper, comfortable, happy home for more years than he wants to dwell on.
(At least when he’s full of fire and energy he doesn’t have to think. He just does things and leaves the fallout for a future Stanley to deal with, despite how well that’s worked out for him in the past.)
Fiddleford corners him in the dorm after he strings impulsive decisions behind him for an entire day like the tail of a comet.
“Stanley. What’s wrong?” He doesn’t mince words, but they’re not sharp-- he cuts it down to the barest question because he knows something is wrong, and he wants to know how to help.
So Stanley curses his own ungratefulness and says, too quickly, “I have no idea what you’re talking about. Nothing’s wrong! I’m doing great! I’m being a, a-- a pioneer of beloved tradition and having a good time while doing it.” Eye contact at the moment feels like frost, so he avoids it on principle.
His friend heaves a sigh, and there’s stress in it, stress and anxiety and fear of his own, but neither of them talk about that. “I’m not a fool, Stanley. I-- I can tell there’s something bothering you. You’re running all over the place like a headless chicken and when you smile it’s not in your eyes properly and I--” He falters. “I won’t say I know how you feel, but I can sympathise. You don’t have to tell me what it is; I just want to know if-- if there’s anything I can do to help.”
(Really, what did he or his brother do to deserve someone like this in their lives? Stanley loves Fiddleford and hates him in equal measure for the real and pure and aching concern on his face.)
He unsuccessfully tries to laugh it off. “I’m fine , I promise. So what if I’m a little edgy, there’s a lot of tension in the air, what with break coming up, and--” And, and, and-- every ending to that sentence is a bottomless pit. And students stressing over courses I’d never be smart enough to take. And you and my brother dancing around love while there’s something wrong with me for never feeling that way about someone. And the way it feels like I’m about to ruin everyone’s lives again.
And going home.
Fiddleford looks intently at his eyes, and then at the subtle shaking of his shoulders. He steps back slightly. The space between them makes Stanley feel terrible, so he decides to make it even worse by talking about his feelings.
“It’s because I’m-- we’re going to have to leave for break. Go home.”
Fiddleford gives him a small, sad smile. Nods for him to continue.
So he does. All at once and dangerously.
“I-- because-- I’m avoiding thinking about how we’re going to have to go back there, how I’m going to have to go back there. Even when-- when--” his voice breaks like glass, his fists are clenched-- “fuck, we were only kids but he was still terrifying and I never felt safe there, and now he’s kicked me out and if he sees me walk through that door with Stanford all he’ll be able to think is that I’m dragging him down again! I-- I-- I can’t do that, I can’t make Ford go through that-- he deserves--” He breaks off and chokes out a sob, trying to breathe, trying to stay alive even though it feels like the end of the world. It’s all around him-- pushing and pushing and a tall figure standing and pointing and yelling and condemning him, casting him out, his skin numb on the cold pavement-- the bitter ache of words and bruises-- stepping in front of his brother time and time again-- trying to be worth something, worth anything --
Everything is too loud and bright and he can’t think he can’t breathe he’s going to die --
The door bangs open and he sinks to the floor and he can’t speak anymore he’s shaking and crying and he’s so useless --
And then there’s a hand on his shoulder and another at his back, a lightning rod in the eye of the storm pressing into the base of his spine, and another inches from his face and he flinches away and he opens his eyes--
But it’s not his father. It’s not his father. He’s not out in the cold or trembling in the kitchen or standing defiant in front of Stanford. It’s not his father.
Fiddleford pulls his hand back awkwardly from Stanley’s face, eyes raw with concern. He’s kneeling on the carpet next Stanley, craning down, and his mouth is open and halted in the middle of saying Stanley’s name again. On his other side, Stanford sits cross-legged and keeps two points of contact (the hands on his shoulder and back, Stanley thinks dizzily, keeping him in the present) with a practiced caution. He did this when they were younger; protection exchanged for protection of sorts.
(It’s not his father, but it is his family.)
None of them say anything until his chest, heaving, carving out oxygen frantically, finally slows to an ordinary rhythm. His hands stop shaking and come to a rest in his lap. The room is quiet; comfortably so, calmingly so.
(But he feels so useless and he’s always overreacting and he’s so fucking stupid-- )
“Stanley?” There’s his brother talking, gently. “Are you okay?”
He coughs up a laugh. “N-- never better, Sixer.” Then his smile drops, and he takes a shuddering breath that threatens to rattle more tears loose. “Sorry. I-- I’m alright now. Just got a little-- worked up, thinking about,” he says, his eyes sliding away and down fearfully, “having to go home.”
Stanley sniffs, quite pathetically, and rubs at the stubborn tears streaked down his cheeks. Stanford frowns. “That wasn’t just a little worked up , Stanley,” he says, voice prickling with worry. “That was-- I’m not making you go back there. Hell, I don’t want to go back there either, and Dad wasn’t even half as bad to me.” Truthfully, in all the mess of the end of the year, he’d forgotten that he’d have to stay somewhere over winter break as well; if he was alone, he’d go home and act like Dad wasn’t staring at the son-shaped hole at the table, but with Stanley-- he’d never want to subject his brother to that again.
The shaking mess that is Stanley Pines looks up and starts at that, like he’d forgotten what kindness sounded like until his brother said it. “But-- I can’t stay here, the dorms close over break. And I… I don’t want to push their good grace any further and get us both thrown out of college.” He sighs resignedly. “I could afford a cheap hotel for a week, maybe, but after that it’d just be easier to live out of the Diablo--”
“Um.” He’s cut off by Fiddleford, who continues, softly, “I’d be happy to let you both stay with me and my folks for the holidays. They wouldn’t mind none.”
Fiddleford McGucket, possibly an angel wearing human guise.
“Are… are you sure, Fidds?” asks Stanford, all cautious wonder and love. “Only if we won’t be a bother.” Stanley nods with his mouth agape, seemingly shocked that legitimately kind people exist in the world. “And if there’s any problems with-- us , or with Stanley not going to college--”
“Ah, it’s really no big deal. My parents know about-- about Stanford, anyway,” Fiddleford says meaningfully, and Stanford lets out a tense breath he hadn’t realised he was holding, “and we have plenty of spare bedrooms, since all the kids moved out. They’d love to have you for Christmas, or the holidays, or whatever pagan ritual you feel like celebrating.” He smiles and stands up, knees cracking softly, and offers a hand to the two remaining on the floor.
Both Stans look like they’ve never met someone so purely nice , and they each take a hand (Stanford gently and with a light blush, Stanley shakily and with a thought of pulling Fiddleford over for a laugh) and get to their feet, and they can see snow out the window, and Stanley feels like he’s balanced on a precipice but with safety bars, and Stanford isn’t panicking about numbers and letter grades, and Fiddleford finally feels like this family of theirs is going to make it through the winter.
They’ve each got neuroses of their own, and sometimes they clash-- scarily, or painfully-- but love and care and careful drawing of Plans can overcome even that. The winter-- five weeks of break, until mid-January, at an unfamiliar home-- feels like a test, to see if they really can do it.
But, standing together in the dorm holding hands and facing the window, looking at the bright white snow, they already sort of know that they have made it.
Through this winter, and however many more the future is wont to throw at them.