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"Chief Pines, is it an alright time for me to do some talkin' with you?"
Stan looked to the side and down to see the oldster from the junkyard fixing him in his gaze. Something about old man McGucket had always put him off. Like he was the latest machine he decided to tinker with.
That or because he'd read all about him.
He figured Fiddleford would've been too gone from the whole insanity thing – and too avoidant from the apparent split – to ever be a threat to his cover as Ford, but he had seemed especially lucid lately. Maybe today's the day.
"Eh, may as well, it's the end of the world."
Fiddleford looked skittishly around the room. There were a few gnomes in the other corner, but otherwise they were alone. He cleared his throat.
"Well, I s'pose I ought to open with the fact that I know you ain't Stanford Pines."
Right to the chase, eh?
"Who else would I be?" Stan asked coolly. He's had a life of rehearsing fake names. This was no different, except in every single way that it was. He didn't know what the consequences of this could be anymore, not now. Not in this mess they'd all found themselves in.
Fiddleford adjusted his goggles and took his hat off, looking up at Stan with an expression he had not expected – sorrow. He'd anticipated anger, accusation, maybe fear, but not the glint of concern and trepidation in his eyes, magnified by the lenses.
Fiddleford gave a small sigh. "I don't rightly know. But I know who you've been as a person in my memories, and I know damn well that's nothing like my old pal Ford."
Well. That sounded pretty solid. Stan tensed and inhaled slowly through his nose.
"...Is there any point in me arguing this?" His hands went to his pockets, loosely setting his fingers in his brass knuckles. He didn't want to rough up McGucket, but he still hadn't ruled out the possibility of getting jumped.
Fiddleford had about the opposite reaction, seeming to wilt before his eyes. "Not a one. So. Who might you be, then?"
Suddenly Stan wished he hadn't already smoked through all his hidden cigars. "Depends on when you're asking."
"I'm askin' now."
Stan looked Fiddleford in the eyes hard. Assuming the real big if situation of surviving this apocalypse happened, he did not need loose lips to give him new people haunting him. Or old ones hunting him.
"You swear on your hillbilly life you won't go and yap about this to the rest of the town?"
Fiddleford hesitated. "I... I guess I can do that. Unless you're looking to save your hide because you did something to Ford. That, I fear, couldn't be forgiven." Didn't Stan know it. "We were very close, before..." His face took on a faraway look as he trailed off, eyes unfocused and drifting slightly.
Stan could understand the feeling. Hell knows he had his own share of 'before's with Ford, and he'd read all about Fiddleford's falling out. He let go of his knuckles and crossed his arms in front of himself, leaning against the wall and looking up at the ceiling.
Fuck it, we're in hell. Why not.
"Right now, I'm legally dead. Have been for thirty years. The same amount of time Ford was stuck on the other side of his stinkin' portal after I shoved him too hard when we were too close." He paid very close attention to the joining and nails in the ceiling in a meager attempt to not hear Ford crying for help all those years ago.
It didn't help.
"I'm his much more disappointing brother. The name's Stanley. He's my twin. About... yeesh, a couple of weeks? We'll say that. A couple weeks before this all started up, I had finished my decades of work putting that portal back together and zapped him back here."
"So that's when... and... Ford's back?" Something thickened McGucket's voice. Stan didn't figure he wanted to know what. Not right now. Especially if it was tears. He closed his eyes.
"Well, he was. By now he's either already saving us all or has his dumbass genius self trapped in that tortilla chip's party prison. Probably all my fault again, I seem to be his favorite bad luck charm." Stan spoke matter-of-factly, giving a nonchalant hand wave and almost annoyed glance to Fiddleford about it all. It was a simple truth in their lives: wherever Ford went, Stan crashed after, destroying anything good in his wake.
Fiddleford considered this, fingers of one hand tangling in his beard while the other hand clumsily put his hat back on.
"I don' feel like you're lying, but now I'm more confused than a pig on promenade." (Stan did not miss Waddles even slightly in the moment.) "Ford never... ah... Ford never mentioned having a twin brother."
Oh.
"Oh."
Stan wasn't sure what his face did upon hearing that, but it must have done something to make Fiddleford of all people look at him with that much pity.
"I meant it when I said I was the disappointing twin. Ford and I didn't talk for the first decade of our adult lives. He was off doing smart people things, I was off getting warrants in most of the states for either scams or drugs. It..." It really shouldn't surprise me. "It really doesn't surprise me I never came up."
This topic needed to be dropped. Fast.
"You guys met in college, right? I read a bit about you while trying to figure how to get him back."
Fiddleford nodded. "That's right. He needed someone to be his lab buddy. Guess I was his first choice." He paused and seemed to think for a moment. "Why were you here to push him in the portal, anyway?"
Stan concealed a flinch with a shrug. "He called for me. I came. Wanted me to hide his journal, go out and keep his research safe. You know, he was so paranoid when I got there he almost shot me. I think Bill scared him, or that he'd come to his senses somehow."
Fiddleford winced. "I never trusted that triangle. Not after peerin' in myself. There's no shortage o' things Ford could've feared."
The two stood in silence for a moment, mulling over memories.
"If this ends well somehow," Fiddleford eventually spoke, "do you think Ford would want to talk to me? I know the whole memory gun thing isn't an option anymore, and he knows Bill is the most sinister son-of-a-gun in the multiverse. It'd be nice to find middle ground and... reconnect."
Stan shrugged again. "Don't know. You'll have to ask him yourself. Right now, let's just not die."
The two watched as the gnomes tumbled down from their latest stacking attempt and immediately began trying to rebuild.
"For both of our sakes, I hope Ford likes second chances. And thirds."
McGucket nodded. "Me too."
Outside, the red sky continued to glow.