Chapter Text
The sounds of squabbling shorebirds filtered into the little dockside pub. Two nearly identical old men glanced up as a waitress approached, both hastily adjusting their posture with varying degrees of subtlety.
Drink orders relayed, Stan and Ford turned back to their conversation as she departed, though the eyes of both men continued to follow her for several long moments.
Stanley let out a long, sighing whistle just loud enough for Ford to hear, but the scientist was studying his menu by the time Stan finished it off with a suggestive bounce of his eyebrows.
“Still lookin’ for the treasure, but at least we finally found the babes.”
Ford didn't look up from his menu. “You're more than twice her age, Stanley.”
Stan gestured dismissively, “Pfff, anyone willin’ to hook up with a sailor in port won’t care. They’re only lookin' for a good time. Moses knows I could use one; I can't remember the last time I got laid.”
Ford stirred uncomfortably and raised his eyes, “Do you think the memory gun…”
Stanley waved his hands in the face of Ford's guilty conscience. “Nah, no no, that ain't the memory guns fault. I actually do remember the last time, don't worry.” Stan put his elbows on the table and sighed, leaning his cheek heavily into his hand. “It's just been so long it's kinda embarrassing to think about.”
Ford's lips pursed minutely before he returned his gaze to the menu with a grunt.
Misinterpreting his twin's response, Stan rolled his eyes. “Yeah, yeah. I appreciate ya not rubbin’ it in by regaling me with stories of yer conquests throughout the Multiverse.” He huffed out a dry laugh.
Ford went very still, slitted eyes rising to regard his twin. “I… I’m surprised at you, Stanley. You’d never have said something like that when we were kids.”
Stan paused in the middle of picking up one of the beers their waitress had just set down, his suave grin frozen and paired incongruently with a set of puzzled silver eyebrows. “What?”
Which in turn spawned a mirrored set of brows across the table. Ford cleared his throat and sat up straighter, color rising in his cheeks.
“Ah, right… now that I think about it, of course you wouldn’t… just… never mind.”
Ford turned abruptly to their waitress and made his dinner order with clipped efficiency before beginning to fiddle with his Omniwatch.
Stan gave his own order, eyes never leaving Ford’s face. When the waitress departed, he leaned on his elbows, hunching conspiratorially toward his twin.
“What the heck was all that about?”
“All what?” Ford’s eyes remained glued to the watch’s display as it cycled through information.
“You know exactly what. What’d I say?”
Ford sighed, pulling his sleeve down over his watch and sitting back in his seat. Eyes still fixed on the table, he removed his glasses and dragged a hand down his face. “I assumed you were making fun of me.”
Stan snorted in disbelief. “I still don’t get it, making fun of ya how?”
Ford finally met his eyes, crossing his arms in a classic Ford Defense Position; hands hidden away. He cleared his throat, voice a quiet rumble.
“Regarding my … er, my ‘conquests’. You see, Stanley; the last time I made any amount of effort in that arena, you were there. To pick up the pieces.”
Stan’s expression twisted with a messy combination of doubt, perplexity, and a concerted effort to try and recall the incident Ford was referring to.
Ford eventually took pity on him. “Does the name Cathy Crenshaw ring a bell?”
Stan’s eyebrows shot up and he snapped his fingers. “Blonde girl. Kinda stuck up, kinda nerdy. Wore corduroy bell bottoms?”
When Ford nodded, Stan grinned in triumph briefly before looking puzzled again.
“Sixer, that was like … fourth grade! You gotta have your wires crossed, Genius.”
Ford simply shook his head, eyes closed. The memory of that night was laser-etched into the substrate of his very soul.
Cathy had been the newest addition to their class; smart, pretty, and friendly toward him when so many other people hadn’t been. Ford had been smitten to the point of writing poetry, which he naturally hid from everyone, and Stanley naturally sniffed out immediately.
Stanley, being uniquely perceptive when it came to his brother, had already seen all the signs of Ford’s burgeoning infatuation. With Stan’s encouragement and the madness of desire, Ford dropped a poem into Cathy’s locker.
To Ford’s joy and terror, Cathy blushingly accepted his poem and his offer to walk her home from school.
Unfortunately, being new to the school meant little Cathy was unaware of Stanford’s deformity. She remained unaware until the moment he courageously slid his hand out of the sleeve of his jacket and laced his fingers with hers.
His brother had heard the girl’s piercing shriek from two blocks away.
Stan rubbed his eyes underneath his glasses, hearing the sobs of a young, shattered Stanford Pines in the ear of his memory. He sighed heavily and shook his head.
“Y’see Sixer, if you’re really talkin’ about THAT Cathy, it’d mean you haven’t tried your luck with anybody since we were younger than Mabel and Dipper.”
His scowled deepened when Ford began to nod.
“Which would also mean, Genius, that I’m currently sittin’ across from a sixty year old virgin.”
Ford simply returned Stan’s gaze, expression neutral.
“You’re freakin’ kidding me right now.”
Ford shook his head minutely.
Stan finally parsed Ford’s earlier statement; young Stanley Pines would never have mocked his twin on this matter. Not before the Cathy Crenshaw incident, and absolutely not after.
Stan took a long sip of his beer and studied his brother. Ford’s gaze remained steady and almost painfully bland.
“I wanna ask ‘Why’ but I think I get it; once bitten twice shy and all that. Plus, you always were more jazzed up about nerd stuff than you were about girls.”
Stan took another contemplative sip of beer.
“What I’m really wondrin’ is how you managed to avoid it. I mean, you went to college! I thought half of what people DO in college is screw each other’s brains out!
Plus you look just like me! I got by just fine on looks alone for a long while. There was always some lonely lady or older guy at last call who was ready to make the mistake of bringin’ me home for the night. Seriously Sixer, there’s no way you got through the hormone frenzy that was the Seventies without SOMEBODY sniffin’ around ya.”
Ford had taken a long pull of his own beer at the start of Stan’s rant and was clearly struggling to choke it down. He finally managed it, clearing his throat against his fist.
“Sadly, my college years were devoid of ravening co-eds banging at my door, Hell bent on having their way with me. Or at least as far as I remember. I was deeply entrenched in the business of learning, and I’ll admit I may have been oblivious of all else.”
Stan snickered from behind the cheeseburger that had just arrived. “For a change.”
Ford dug around aimlessly in his salad.
“You gotta understand, Sixer… you came out o’ that Portal lookin’ like an over-educated Angry Angus. If I looked like that, you can bet your ass I’d be pullin’ tail at every space station, or uh, whatever counts as a port in the Multiverse.”
Ford paused briefly to execute a quick search on his omniwatch before breaking out in a small, bemused smile.
“I think that might be the nicest thing you’ve ever said about my appearance.” He looked down at the images on his watch again. “This Angus fellow is quite handsome, in a rugged sort of way.”
Stan rolled his eyes. “Yeah yeah, don’t go gettin’ an even bigger head, ya nerd.”
Stan chewed his burger, deep in thought for a while before his eyes suddenly lit up.
“Wait a minute, wait a minute… Does that mean you and McGucket never…? Hah! I knew it! Mabel owes me twenty bucks!”
Ford groaned, covering his face with his hands. “He was my ROOMMATE, Stanley! Seriously, what are they teaching children nowadays?”
Stan grinned triumphantly. “I told her that all o’ her ‘Mabel Intuition’ couldn't compete with going through puberty with you and having to listen to ya list off all the different amino acids you could smell in Ms. Wainwright’s sweat.”
Ford was blushing furiously now. “Fiddleford has had TWO WIVES! Granted, one of them is a raccoon, but at the very least that counts as much as would a bzzcthlirrin WOODPECKER!”
Stan shielded his face with a hand. “Gah, you always spit so much when you swear in Portal-ese. Anyway, Fiddlesticks is Pan-sexual, according to Mabel.
Dipper tried to convince me that you were somethin’ called Arrow-Ace. When I started explainin’ to him how I know that ain’t the case, he paid me ten bucks to shut up.”
Ford, red from the tips of his ears down at this point, looked hunted, “Dear God, Stanley”
“Don’t worry, I made Mabel leave the room first.”
Ford grabbed Stan’s sleeve, “If their parents end up discovering any…improvised…err… contraptions…in his possession, Stanley, we must deny all knowledge of what might’ve inspired them.” Ford picked up and drained the remainder of his beer.
The waitress returned briefly to bus the table and take the twin’s request for a second round of drinks. Sated and currently in a contemplative frame of mind, both brothers got on with the business of digestion, watching the pink and blue sunset settle further toward the indigo of night.