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There was a man stumbling in the snow outside.
Stan had first heard a sound, a large mass falling, and had run to the pulled blinds. Peeking through, the guy was face down in the frost, until he gradually pulled himself back up. Stan had only been in his brother's cabin for a week or two, but he'd certainly seen no one else approach like this.
He was skinny; geek-skinny, with a long nose and greasy, messy hair. Wearing a winter coat, he was clutching a bottle by its neck.
Immediately Stan flew into protection mode, rushing around the main room and shoving loose pieces of paper and files into crevices and searching desperately for some kind of weapon.
And he found one; a metal baseball bat, the handle wound in a rubber material that felt right in his hands.
He perched behind the door waiting for the—
Tap, Tap, Tap.
‘Stanford…’ the voice rapped, cracked and defeated. ‘Stanford, I wanna talk.’
The knocking kept coming and Stan found himself pinned in place. Open the door and let some weirdo in, or just beat the crap out of him?
What Would Ford Do?
Sighing, he leaned the bat against a wall.
Opening the door let a freezing draft in and he didn't even have time to react before the man was upon him, grabbing him and pushing him back.
He was gonna start wailing on the guy before he realised what was happening; a hug.
He was covered in snow and felt cold to the touch, but Stan still relished it for some reason. Maybe cabin fever or whatever. It was nice being with someone.
The man was letting out low “Oh Ford”s and “I'm sorry"s while Stan shut the door.
‘Hey,’ He spoke up, ‘can you, uh, loosen up a bit?’
The man immediately pulled back, letting Stan actually take in him fully. Yep. A nerd. Complete with glasses and the works. His chin was unshaven and there was a dreary look in his eyes, almost unfocused.
It occurred to him that this guy might have known Ford, and that was enough to usher him to the couch.
‘Coffee?’ Stan asked, but hurried to the kitchen before he could get a response. The floorboards creaked from his weight.
There was a man in the living room.
He was still, fiddling with his fingers and looking around wildly. If Stan didn't know any better, he'd think he was drugged up; and he didn't know any better, so he moved about assuming the guy was high off his mind.
Although, looking at the bottle he'd been clutching as he approached the cabin, the same bottle that now stood erect on the low table beside the couch, drunk seemed a lot more plausible.
Stan ignored the bottle and two mugs of coffee were placed on the table, leaving staining circles around them. He would usually add liquor to his own but remaining clear of mind seemed quite crucial in the moment.
The guy was the first to speak up. ‘I know I should have phoned you before comin’, but I just-’ his hands shook. ‘I just needed to see you in person, you know?’
‘Yeah,’ Stan bluffed.
‘I need to say sorry, I think I was too harsh back when and I don't want you to hate me. I don't know why, but I feel like you're the only one I know who gets it, you know? Not just the town but—but what lifes like. It's different for us, you know?’
Speechless, Stan took a sip from his mug.
The man continued: ‘I need someone to talk to and I don't want to forget you. I've been doin’ a lot of forgettin’ recently, and it's not all good. Forgetin’ real stuff, you know? Took me ‘bout an hour to ‘member Tates name, and I still can't quite get my wifes. Funny, ain't it? You can look at a picture on your desk for so long, but when the memories slip it's like the real world means nothing.’
The man went for the mug, shaking hand bringing it to his mouth to drink. ‘Ha! Almost forgot your muse too. Be lucky for that. Still see his mug everywhere so it could be a bit till that bastard leaves me be.’
He spilt a bit of the piping hot drink onto his shirt collar but seemingly didn't realise, instead taking time to hyperventilate.
‘I don't wanna forget, Ford, I just— I can't— I–I need to get that thing out of my head.’
Stan stared, almost wall-eyed. This clearly drunk man had barged into the cabin, plopped himself down and was now spilling his own guts unprompted. When was this gonna stop?
Again, his mind shifted.
What Would Ford Do?
He sighed, and moved over to join him, letting his weight shift the couch. The man's harsh breathing faltered.
‘Oh—Stanford,’ the man fell into his left shoulder, wrapping his arms around the now cringing Stanley. ‘I made a mistake I shouldn't have—God,’
He started weeping and Stan was now patting the man's back.
‘I–I felt it when you switched on that darn portal—felt it shakin’ the ground like a real trembler.’
This guy knew about the portal? It seemed Stanley's intuition had proved correct; he did know what stuff his brother had been up to. But who was he though? What role did he play?
‘Still,’ he continued, ‘I wanted so badly to come back but I couldn't bring myself to…’
‘It's…’ Stanley spoke up, trying to imitate his brother's voice as best he could; a skill perfected through years of teasing. ‘It'll be okay.’
His shoulder felt almost wet with tears. The sobbing subseased and was followed by sniffling. ‘I want you back.’
This was it; the baseball bat to strike his gut and leave him reeling.
A few weeks ago he would have pushed him away and yelled at him till the guy had screwed off somewhere else, but he had a responsibility now; he had to be Stanford Pines, and Stanford Pines would never throw away someone in need. Never.
He put his right hand over the mans and, for a moment, his ragged breathing faltered. He looked Stan in the eyes and his mouth trembled.
And then he moved to kiss him.
Now, Stanley had suspected his brother was queer for a long time. Even when they were teenagers Ford had never expressed any real desire for the opposite sex, not like Stan at least. When he moved to college Stan assumed he'd be swarmed by the ladies and would be opened up to a whole world he'd been previously closed off from; but he never saw Ford in his scholastic years, not after their fight, and now it seemed he'd continued on his achillean route. So he wasn't exactly surprised when this man, who assumed he was Ford, leaned in to kiss him.
Stan himself had had many an affair on the road, a few of which consisted of men he'd shared a passing fancy for, so he truly didn't believe that what he did next was out of some hidden, internal, bigoted malice. But he never could know. Not really. The world works in mysterious ways, and sometimes those ways are cruel.
What Would Ford Do?
This time, he didn't listen.
So it shocked him too when he withdrew from the man's embrace, pushing him away and sending him sprawling off the couch.
His head missed the corner of the coffee table by a few inches, but the slam when he hit the ground was loud enough to tell him it still hurt. The man gasped and crawled backwards away from him, but Stan still sat paralysed on the couch. He was scared. It was like his body had acted of its own volition.
The man on the floor stuttered, ‘I–I–I–’ and began to rise, still stepping away. His eyes were wide now, vast and communicating the acute terror he felt, a terror that was too felt by Stan.
Before he had time to explain himself or even stand up, the man shot off, running for the front door and throwing it open before running into the quiet, snowy woods outside.
Stan ran to the door, his ankle knocking into the table and making the bottle shift and topple to the floor, shattering into a hundred green-coloured pieces. He peered out into the still darkness and had just enough time to see the man, who had been crying into his shoulder only a few seconds ago, ran off sobbing into the woods. The winds carried only the last few yells of “I'm sorry” before his presence vanished completely.
He stood in the open doorway, clothed only in his tank top and jeans, bare feet freezing as the cold night air encroached into the entrance. He wanted to hit himself, gut himself for pushing away the only human who had given him comfort in the past lonely days, but instead he stood.
A few minutes later he would close the door, locking it with all of the small mechanisms his brother had installed to keep people away. He would go over to the fridge in the kitchen, and fetch a can of beer whose brand he remembered his own father drinking. He would sit down on the couch, and stare off into space as his mother often did, when pretending to think of other people's futures.