#wwtd au

[thezombieprostitute]

Ok. So I love the garbage man AU. Teach was such a wonderful character to meet and she so deserved her happy ending🥰. And as someone who’s had very similar situations to her with Ransom I totally applaude her for standing her ground. Next time someone pulls off shit like that I’ll remember WWTD ( What would teach do ).

The hummingbird story is also a real favourite. Museum/Art gallery dates are the absolute best so getting them with Steve. My poor heart 😍

And now the Nick one is so sweet. The way he is kind to her ( and I fully second him going to her sister’s door, knock and very impolitely beat the shit out of them. Like falling in love with your sister’s ex is one thing, hiding it from her and even get married behind her back is a whole new thing). As someone who has a major weak spot for Clark Kent ( let’s be real, it’s Henry Cavill, but I digress) I thought it was interesting for him to show up. Also making him part of the other side is interesting and I already started to imagine how Nick gets to save her later on.

But I also have another “problem”.

While being out on a walk with my floof my mind kinda went bonkers and now I a sitting here writing/editing a piece from the other side. Where someone who’s working for the man of steel and has a weak spot for him, forced to watch how he flirts with someone else. But now I wondered if that’s even ok/acceptable. My first instinct was that with credit and links to the original work it would be ok, but now as I sit here thinking that publishing would be a shitty move and intrusice ( is that the right word in the context?). But on the other hand I think it would be dishonest to rework it and not give credit that the idea was spawned from reading this.

So I thought I should ask what your take is. It is your work after all and I would totally get it if you’d prefer for other people not infringe that way. Then I’ll finish the story and cherish it just for myself because I can tell you that much. I am glad I got to read your work, not just because it spawned this lovely idea I’ll get to indulge in but also because I found someone who tells the kinds of stories I am really enjoying with readers I’m rooting for.

Sorry that this got so long. I hope you are having a nice day/evening/night and may the muses smile upon you

Holy wah, this is...I...um...thank you. I never expected my stories to inspire more stories. I'm very much okay with you posting your own stories, so long as you link to the original story.

[disneyprincessunattainabelle]

Is WWTD (what would Tesla do) a fanfic??? Or just a vague au??? Where do I read it??? It looks super interesting help???

[fordanoia]

Interesting. Scampfires have the ability to see spirits.

___

@whatwouldteslado had an instance where Ford nearly died in an explosion. I’d like to imagine that if he were to come back as a ghost that he wouldn’t be entirely alone.

[zaxal]

it’s a very important question. perhaps ford should’ve asked it back.

[baejax-the-great]

Face to Face by @juliafied. Thanatos x Zagreus (Hades game, M). While swiping through a dating app, Thanatos finds Zagreus, his old friend who he lost touch with years ago. I have seen a sneak peak of the second chapter and it is delicious. These two bring out the pettiest, thirstiest sides of each other.

High-Flying Birds by @johaeryslavellan. Patroclus x Achilles (TSOA, E). This fic is so lush with imagery you can touch and smell and taste. It is so lovingly written. It will break your heart.

When Death Incarnate got banished to France by Marro. Thanatos x Zagreus (Hades game, G). Thanatos is banished from the Underworld, and now lives in modern day France with a kitten, half-heartedly learning how mortals live. A complete delight. Watered my crops, cured my migraine.

WWTD (What Would Thanatos Do) by @ineffable-kelpie. Thanatos x Zagreus (Hades game, G). Thanatos and Zagreus are very drunk and very sweet.

regreso el amor by artifice. Achilles x Patroclus (90s AU, M). Achilles and Patroclus are musicians. They are best friends. They are roommates. It's not enough, and it hurts. I honestly love being punched in the gut like this.

[anistarrose]

Ghost of a Memory (GF WWTD AU)

(Very short, spur of the moment fic in the AU of @whatwouldteslado where Ford didn’t survive the explosion, and Stan and Fidds defeated Bill by erasing Stan’s mind. Obvious warnings for major character (un)death and general suffering.)

The ghost starts as just a feeling, just a chill running down his spine or a dream he can’t remember. Just a sudden loneliness, a sudden urge to crawl into one of the most hidden corners of the house and cry for no reason at all. He doesn’t realize it’s a ghost yet — he thinks (hopes?) it’s all just in his mind, his incredibly broken and amnesiac mind.

He remembers some things, like Fiddleford’s last name — McGucket, and the nickname of the little walking campfire that he sees wandering around sometimes — Scampy or Scampers, and the town he’s in — Gravity Falls. But all other memories stay confined to either vague feelings, or nightmares that are instantly forgotten upon awakening, and Fiddleford seems reluctant to help him remember anything beyond the most basic details of who he is (who he once was?)

He’s not sure if he wants to remember.

***

The ghost turns into a shadow. It follows him every day, and at times it seems almost normal, almost like it’s just a part of him, but every once in a while, he notices it fail to mimic his movements. For some odd reason, it likes to hold its hands behind its back.

When he does get a look at its hands, he wonders if the whole memory loss thing also made him forget how to count to five, because every time he tries to count the shadow’s fingers, he spots one too many.

***

The ghost grows into a reflection. He’ll look in the mirror and see stubble where he knows he shaved that morning, a trench coat where he wears a hoodie, black-rimmed glasses where his face is bare. It’ll open its mouth to speak sometimes, but no sound will come out.

Sometimes he’ll even try to speak back to it, but the same thing will happen.

***

He doesn’t mention the ghost to Fiddleford.

[prettyboiiharringrove]

Harringrove AU // Steve && Billy watch Queer Eye

i try and make one headcanon and then this shit happens 

I HAVE NO SELF CONTROL

So for the sake of this it’s a modern au because I want like early twenties billy and steve

Okay but we need to talk about like queer eye is a seriously emotional show, and when it comes to being a queer person watching the show like it fucking hits you hard no matter the circumstances

So imagine being billy. Constantly thrown around, beat, spit on by his own fucking father just because he happened to be attracted to men. 

Growing up and not being allowed to show your feelings, so being a robot with the idea of fucking respect hammered into your head and then only knowing how to get your emotions out through fucking explosive outbursts

And then fast forward to meeting steve and them reconciling and getting the fuck out of Hawkins

And they’re in their own little crappy apartment in cali but billy and steve fucking love it, it’s tiny and they’ve got weird neighbors and you’ve got to call the maintenance guy like six times before he even answers but it’s theirs and no one is going to take it away from them

And billy is happy with steve, happy to hold his hand and call him his boyfriend, but the whole like pride thing is hard for him because what does he have to be proud of? Like sure he’s gay and maybe that’s not horrible but neil fucking Hargrove is still sitting in the back of his head so like he’s trying but he’s not all ‘rainbow happy’ (billy’s words) like steve is

It’s like three years before he can even get billy to go to anything gay pride related but billy does and he loves it because for the first time he feels completely safe in a room. He’d only ever felt that with steve

But billy still lives in his head most days, “it’s fine that we’re gay but can we not show it off”

Most of the time anything queer related that comes up he watches to humor steve because he figures it means something to steve, so they go through the fucking gay section on Netflix, and he lets him put a fucking rainbow bumper sticker on the car but some days billy still doesn’t know how to face being a big old homo and the only reason he’s okay with it is because he could never see anything wrong with loving steve. One look at steve and he’s at peace, because it’s legit impossible not to fall in love with steve Harrington, fucking asshole

So he plops down in the couch, his hair wrapped up in a towel, another towel on his waist, and he ignores steve groaning when he sits on the couch and gets it all wet, ignores steve bitching over billy stealing his nachos and says “what’re we watching?”

And steve says queer eye and billy just rolls his eyes and grumbles. And steve pauses it and is just like “the fuck is your problem?” and billy is like “I get it stevie, like we’re here we’re fucking queer, can we fucking move on?” and in the past steve would have started a fight because billy is being an asshole but over the years he’s learned that billy is just being a shit because it’s one of those fucking days, so instead steve scoots closer to him, shoves more nacho’s in his boyfriend’s mouth and says “just give it a chance asshole”

And let me tell you what starts out as billy making comments about how hot they are progresses into “fuck off harrington, you couldn’t be tan if you tried, you’re a total bobby. Jesus fucking Christ, accept it, this is like golden girls all over again!” “fuck off I’m blanche and you know it!” “you are rose, you fucking dumbass”

and then billy is constantly crying and steve only points it out three times, he knows because his shoulder is bruised in three different places, before he learns to just shut the fuck up and play the next episode

“baby why are you crying?” “I’m not, fuck off Harrington” “you just watched karamo propose, didn’t you?” “…no?”

speaking of karamo, they start buying so many bomber jackets, like they start to outnumber the amount of denim billy has in the closet it’s become that much of a thing

“steve if you put another facemask on me I swear to god I’m not fucking you for a year” “you know that music video they did?” “how the fuck is that relevant?” “well you haven’t seen it right? I figured we could watch it” “okay and?” “Antoni wears a crop top in it. I’ll be getting dick in like twenty minutes” “just give me the fucking face mask”

“I just got called ‘the avocado guy’s boyfriend’ trying to buy lube. You need to stop” “name one antoni inspired snack I have made that you didn’t like and I’ll stop” “I hate you” “That’s what I thought”

Steve rearranges the furniture constantly. They’ve had new curtains at least three times in the last month. “We can’t afford all this shit you keep getting, pick a design and stick to it” “calm down I know a guy” “jesus Christ Harrington, people say that about their drug dealer, not some guy who gives you fake plants and crystal paperweights” “You said I’m bobby, so let me be bobby”

“you said you wanted more shampoo right? what kind?...no steve they don’t have that kind...yes i fucking know, no sulfates...stop bringing jvn into this i knew no sulfates before that...yes i did...pretty boy we got tied for best hair in our high school yearbook, i’m surprised you didn’t know the no sulfates rule...no, you’re full of shit...oh fuck you and you’re fancy hair, wash it with dish soap for all i care...i am not apologizing!!...fuck you steve...yeah i love you too...OH MY GOD YES, NO SULFATES GOODBYE STEVE”

okay take us to season two coming out alright, and they promised each other they wouldn’t watch it without the other but billy is an impatient child and he was totally gonna play the “you watched the first couple episodes without me, we’ll just rewatch them calm down babe” card, flutter his fucking eyelashes

but then steve comes home to billy with his knees pulled to his chest crying, with the show paused on lil antoni’s face (my angel watching my angel) and he’s going to make a comment about billy being a little shit but then he realizes this is big

like this is billy is shaking and crying so hard he can’t breathe big so he sits down next to him, freaking manhandles billy into his lap and just tries to calm him down and when billy starts breathing normal steve is like “baby what happened, talk to me?”

billy has been having a bad week, max called him bitching about some crappy thing neil said not realizing how much it would fuck with billy’s head, that was Tuesday, it’s Friday, and steve knows that he still doesn’t feel better. He knew that billy crying was somehow connected to that too but he wasn’t sure what he’d missed.

“it’s stupid” is all billy says before hiding his face in steve’s chest again and honestly steve’s wasn’t surprised because billy gets like that and it sucks but he deals with it. 

He rewinds the show just a little, hoping that maybe that could help put some pieces together because what else is he supposed to do when he’s got a lap full of distressed billy Hargrove and Netflix as his only clue?

[Antoni] she thought her faith told her to judge somebody who’s gay. But she chose to see past that, and she saw the individual. She saw the person that her son is and she changed her mind. She says that it was a religious experience, but she made that choice. Not all parents do that.

Steve froze. fuck. his poor baby

She saw the person that her son is and she changed her mind.

Not all parents do that.

Their parents didn’t do that. Neil Hargrove didn’t do that. He let his hate determine his relationship with his son rather than let his son affect how he looked at the world. 

Neil didn’t love Billy and seeing a mother that put away her prejudice to love her son could be comforting, or it could make the sting of things like Neil hurt even more.

“aw baby” “told you, it’s stupid” “honey it’s not stupid, that’s not stupid at all”

Billy and Steve stay curled up like that for awhile, until billy stops shaking and the tears stop spilling and he’s exhausted. “come on, let’s get you to bed, we can watch this later” “no, wanna finish it.” “you sure?” “yeah, she’s nice, wanna see her happily ever after or whatever” “alright but new rule” “oh, and what’s that king steve?” “you’re not allowed to watch it without me anymore” “thought that was already a rule” “it is, but you’re a fucking brat so I’m just letting you know I mean it”

billy loves steve for making things playful instead of dragging out what had happened. they both knew billy was hurting, they knew why, and they also knew billy was not in a place to talk about it so steve held him, billy cried some more, they watched one more episode, and then they went to sleep in their bed in their room in their apartment where neil hargrove could never hurt billy again

Steve doesn’t point out that billy has gotten a lot better about expressing his feelings after watching queer eye. Casually mentions that the show means a lot to different people, a subtle hint that it’s okay to care that much without calling billy out for it

Also imagine the boys meeting the fab 5

billy thinks he’d be so cool with the guys but if he ever met the fab five he would cry so fucking hard and cling to steve shyly and billy is in a crop top and combat boots and he doesn’t realize that he’s clinging to steve until he feels steve squeeze his hip and “you look so hot today” “don’t worry, I used the waterproof mascara on you” all the reassurance and praise

he thanks them like a lot and blushes and it’s so precious billy is not a tough boii he is a shy boii

steve is a confident protective proud boyfriend he will show off his boyfriend and casually chat while giving billy time to calm down

omg but billy feeling more confident because of the boys so like he lets steve play around with makeup on him and do fancy stuff with his hair and like I said he wears crop tops omg matching crop tops crop top boyfriends

“you better French tuck that shirt or put on a different one” “steve when I said I liked it when you got bossy this is not what I meant” “WWTD” “I know I know, what would tan do? Speaking of, change your fucking shoes”

[stumbling-to-sea]

She feels like she can set the world on fire. (She wants to see it all burn, burn down to ashes and reborn – does she?) Her mouth smirks and opens, but it isn’t her who speaks. “Is that all you got?“

Late-WwtD-Lana commission and one of the commissions I got from my friend vvasabipeas over the past year. this one’s easily one of my faves.

By now it’s an open secret that possession is something that’ll happen to Lana eventually. I’m too impatient to wait for it to get there in writing time :’’)

[anistarrose]

Now I Can Rest (Gravity Falls WhatWouldTeslaDo) (Ch. 1?)

Summary:  After waking up from a nightmare, Stan takes a bit longer than he should have to fit the pieces together. WWTD AU.

Word Count: ~900

Warnings: Mentions of nightmares, mentions of blood

(Another fic based off of the Paranoid Ford blog @whatwouldteslado by @fordanoia, this one an AU of the AU. I’m not promising updates, but... well, let’s just say that I’m weak for happy endings, and this fic in its current state is most definitely... not. It’s not an inherently good or bad end, it’s just... a different end.)

The familiar, firm grip of a six-fingered hand on his shoulder jolted Stan out of a nightmare, dragging him back to reality, to the dimly lit kitchen he’d dozed off in. He knew the dampness on his hands was sweat, not blood, and that the real Ford was… was not unharmed, but alive — he knew that the dream of finding his brother’s maimed, lifeless form locked up in that room was just that, a dream, but he was still shaking —

don’t let ford know about it — he’s got enough on his plate right now —

“Stanley, I need your help right now.” Ford’s voice was hushed, but tense with what could only be anticipation. “We — we need to do this before Bill realizes what I’ve planned.”

“What?” avoid eye contact — don’t freak him out even more than he already is — why am i so warm why am i still shaking “Do what, Ford? What did you —”

Stan noticed the object Ford had just picked up from the table with his good hand, its design unmistakeable. “No. Don’t you fucking dare. Don’t you fucking think for a second that I’m gonna erase your mind.”

He dove for the memory gun but stumbled, nearly tripping on the flat kitchen floor.

“Stanley, are — are you okay? What happened to you?”

“I’d be a hell of a lot better if you dropped that gun,” Stan growled.

Ford gasped, and held it close to his chest, arm trembling as he shook his head rapidly. “No, Stanley, it’s — it’s okay! I modified it.”

“You what?”

Ford lowered his voice. “I altered the frequency of the radiation pulse it emits. Now, we can blast Bill out of my mind without damaging my memories at all! So I need your help this instant, before Bill realizes that we have this advantage now!”

“R-really?” Stan asked, through suddenly chattering teeth. “It’s… it’s t-that easy?”

“Yes, exactly that easy!” Ford told him hurriedly, pressing the memory gun into Stan’s hands. Sure enough, the entry screen had seemingly been messed with so it no longer displayed anything, and the input dial had been taped in place. “I’m going to go outside to summon Bill and let him into my mind. You wait in here, where he can’t see you, until you see me collapse, then come out and fire. You don’t have to input anything — I’ve, uh, already set it up so that it’s set to erase Bill Cipher, and Bill Cipher alone. Have you got all that?”

Stan managed a nod, and Ford rushed outside, first chanting something that was probably Latin and then yelling that he wanted to make a deal to let Stan and Fiddleford go safe. The exact words didn’t register for Stan — they really should have; Stan really should have been ecstatic to have a chance to destroy that lying triangular bastard, but instead he felt nothing but a sinking feeling, no doubt thanks to that nightmare.

(It had to be because of the nightmare, didn’t it? Not about Ford’s own behavior, his own jitteriness and look of desperation…)

Outside, Ford collapsed to his knees, his good arm hanging down limp so that his curled fingers grazed the top of the snowdrift. Stan stumbled outside, raised the gun to shoot —

What do you know about how memory guns actually work, Stan? About whether it’s actually possible to —

His finger squeezed the trigger a millisecond before the line of thought could complete itself, could work its way to his muscles, could stop him from making the worst mistake in a life full of nothing but horrible mistakes. The sinking feeling consumed him, as if he was falling through that bottomless pit that the gray-faced askers kept bringing up, and he found himself letting the memory gun fall to the ground, and then falling to his knees himself, wrapping his arms around his brother —

“Ford?! Ford, can you hear me?! Sixer?! Please, say something, Ford, tell me you’re still there — tell me I didn’t — I didn’t erase you —”

For either a minute or an eternity, the only noises in the world were Stan’s sobs, muffled by the drifts of snow surrounding them, but finally, finally the man with six fingers on each hand and one broken arm spoke — and it made Stan long for the time just seconds ago, when he’d still held onto a faint glimmer of hope, when he’d still been able to deny what he’d known deep down from the beginning: that his brother had lied about altering the memory gun.

“Who’s Ford?”

***

whatwouldteslado post (9:33 P.M.)

I have something I’d like to look into for a while, so I may be away from the device. Stanley and Fiddleford are getting Much Needed Rest. Updates will likely follow later tonight.

whatwouldteslado post (9:45 P.M.)

Fyns Fxeqphp M'e laltf.

whatwouldteslado post (10:31 P.M.)

wwhich one of yo ucowardly manipulative FUCKERS did it

whatwouldteslado post (10:31 P.M.)

WHO fucking gave e him the idea

whatwouldteslado post (10:34 P.M.)

you really don’g get whhat you jus tdid to my brother do you

***

At 10:35 P.M., the device was smashed against the floor of the shack.

[anistarrose]

untitled silly WWTD fic

Another @whatwouldteslado inspired fic, this one much less serious and featuring Ford yeeting a gnome. Roughly 700 words, no warnings.

(Set in an AU assuming WWTD has a good end (at the very minimum, Stan and Ford talk out all their issues and Bill is no longer a threat) and also is a parallel timeline where the words “yeet,” “lit,” and “big mood” have entered popular usage by the year 2012 — maybe Fiddleford got a good ending, and single-handedly set the entire Internet forward a few years.)

“Grunkle Ford, there’s something in our kitchen!” Mabel yelled. “It’s like a cute weird little man!”

Ford immediately dropped the magnet gun he was showing his nephew and dashed in, Dipper hot on his heels. Stan grunted an acknowledgement of the situation, but didn’t look up from the deck of cards he was shuffling (and undoubtedly also stacking).

Sure enough, there was a small gnome gnawing on the hard candy Mabel had left on the counter last night. Mabel didn’t actually seem to mind that her candy was getting destroyed — she was too fascinated with the creature itself.

“Can we keep him, Grunkle Ford?” she pleaded.

“Yeah!” Dipper agreed. “Let’s capture him, for science!”

“Absolutely not,” Ford told them. The kids’ reactions were understandable on account of having not seen any live anomalies before, but another week or so in Gravity Falls and they’d grow just as tired of the gnomes as everyone else. “Gnomes are a pest no better than rats or ants. I should have reminded you to wrap up your sweets to avoid attracting them in here.”

He pulled on a glove, picked the gnome up with that hand, and set to work opening the kitchen window with the other, ignoring the protests of both the gnome and his niblings.

“But — but it’s a supernatural creature!” Dipper said. “What if we never see another —”

“This town is home to a thousand other anomalies,” Ford replied. “And I’d love to show them all to you, after we get rid of this one.”

“He’s magical, though! You’re really just going to toss him out the window?” Mabel asked.

“Yes,” Ford told her. “I am.” He hurled the gnome with as much force as he could. “Yeet!”

For a moment, he was met with stunned silence.

Then Dipper finally asked: “Grunkle Ford, why did you say yeet?”

“Well, it’s a word for when you want to throw something, isn’t it? I would have drop-kicked it, but I’m not as young as I used to be —”

“It’s fake slang some strangers convinced him to start using back in the eighties,” Stan yelled from the other room. “If he says that again, or lit, or large mood, just ignore him.”

“But… but those all are real slang,” Mabel said. “Except maybe large mood — I think that’s supposed to be big mood, but if Ford wants to say large I think he should be able to.”

“What,” Stan muttered. It wasn’t a question, just a flat expression of shock.

“None of those were around in the eighties, though!” Dipper said. “They’re all modern Internet things! Not stuff people your age ever say — no offense.”

“Wait, really?” A faint memory resurfaced in Ford’s mind, of a number of grey faces insisting that the year was 2018.

“We would never lie about yeet,” Mabel assured him, and Dipper nodded in agreement.

“Stan, can I talk to you alone for a moment?” Ford asked, and Stan shrugged.

“I guess?”

“Alright, we’ll be right back, kids.”

Once they were out of earshot of the younger twins, Ford continued:

“A number of the people following our blog claimed to have been from the twenty-first century. Do you think there might be any truth to that?”

“Dunno why you’re askin’ me, you’re the one with the PhD in time travel.”

“I have a PhD in physics. There’s no such thing as a PhD in time travel — at least, not yet, which means that in the future I could retroactively… you know what, I’m not going down that rabbit hole right now. The point is, you always offered a valuable alternative perspective when trying to get the truth out of those anons, which is why I’m asking your opinion.”

“So you’re complimenting me? Well, in that case, I guess it’s possible that…” Stan paused, no doubt noticing Ford nearly jump as he had a realization.

“Okay, Ford, I know that look. What brilliant dumbass idea did you just get?”

“I think,” Ford mused, “that come 2018, I’m going to see if I can send any messages to a certain blog.”

[anistarrose]

The End (Of The Lonely Road) Approaches [Gravity Falls - WhatWouldTeslaDo]

Word Count: ~950

Summary:  The drive from New Mexico to Oregon is long and snowy, and Stan can’t help but be distracted by his own thoughts about how much his twin has changed.

Warnings: Minor (but frightening) car accident, fairly strong swearing

Based off the Paranoid Ford ask blog @whatwouldteslado​, and while I can’t recommend it strongly enough, you can read this without having read that blog. All you need to know is that it's a canon divergence AU where Ford:

1. dismantles the portal

2. calls Stan to ask him to come, and warns him to watch out for people with yellow eyes.

(Also on AO3, as a gift for @fordanoia!)

It didn’t take long for the mild New Mexico winter to vanish and snow to coat the roads, forcing Stan to slow down. Which was probably what he deserved for deciding to drive through freaking Colorado instead of Arizona, but the route had looked just a little shorter that way, and he didn’t want to try and take any shortcuts on local roads and risk getting lost.

And, well, excuse him for not thinking too clearly when his twin brother was four states away and rambling about people with glowing yellow eyes that were out to get both of them.

Stan still didn’t know what to think of that phone call. How the hell were you supposed to respond to your estranged twin calling you, all paranoid and incoherent, and begging you drive hundreds of miles to meet them?

Stan just knew that if he’d said no, or just pretended it hadn’t happened, he’d never be able to stop worrying. If he left Ford to fend for himself, he’d live in fear of the phone ringing again, this time with a message that his brother had gone missing — or worse.

Probably worse. What had Ford said, that he’d “already been in town for too long?” That Stan couldn’t trust anyone? Was Ford even interacting with any living, normal people who might notice he was missing and report it?

So really, Stan thought grimly, if they were going to call me about something happening to him, it would be because they found a body.

And that was when it sunk in — how little Stan really knew his twin, how little he could wrap his mind around the idea of the brother he knew getting murdered in some crazy hick town in Oregon.

Gone was the boy who was only paranoid about elaborate, distant government cover-ups of UFO crashes, conspiracies that would never make him, or any normal person, worry for their own safety. Gone was the nerdy kid who looked at mystery and secrets and creepy glowing eyes as an adventure, as something to study. Gone was the boy who was fascinated with the weird — replaced by the unstable man who feared it.

Though still there, for sure, was the genius whose head was always in the clouds, thinking about things most people couldn’t even begin to understand while missing so many warning signs, so many dangers. It was the brother who had always kept him safe that had left.

Without really meaning to, Stan pushed his foot down on the accelerator, desperate to cut down on the length of his trip by even a few minutes — just as he rounded a curve.

The car began to skid, the brake coming down but failing to accomplish anything besides making a horrible noise that sent Stan into a state of shock.

“Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck —”

Stan had skidded plenty of times before, usually while fleeing from people who were thankfully several hundred feet behind him and skidding even worse than he was, and he’d never gone off the road — at least, not so far off that he couldn’t drive right back on and make his escape, dented doors and misaligned wheels be damned.

But those times had been different, because he’d concentrating as hard as he could on the drive, not lost in thought. He’d been expecting the skid those times, knowing it was a risk he was taking for going as fast as he was, not daydreaming about how in a way he’d abandoned the person that he’d always blamed for abandoning him.

This time, Stan hadn’t been prepared for the car to start swerving through the dark, and he jerked the wheel and slammed the brakes on instinct, too panicked to think about what would have the best chance at getting him out of the skid. He barely even processed that he was driving with only one functional headlight, meaning he could easily fly off the edge of a cliff, and not even realize until he was already falling to his death —

Somehow, some combination of instinct and dumb luck eventually guided the car to a stop, and for a moment, Stan just put it in park and sat still, heart pounding.

He didn’t think he’d hit anything, and if he had hit something without noticing it, it probably hadn’t been big enough to cause any damage. But he easily could have died — there could have been another car on the road, he could have gone off a cliff, he could have had a fucking heart attack — and then what would have happened to Ford?

He’d probably just think I betrayed him again, Stan realized, and while he didn’t want to believe it — wanted to believe Ford would worry for him instead — he knew it was probably true.

He got out and checked the car over. It took a lot longer than it should have, even though he wasn’t very thorough, because he’d never bothered to buy a flashlight to keep in his car and had to resort to using his lighter to see instead. At least the warm orange flame kept his fingers from going numb.

Once he was satisfied, which was probably after about three minutes but felt like about thirty, he got back into the car, and cautiously pulled off the shoulder and onto the road. Everything seemed to be working fine, no misaligned wheels or broken brakes.

“Don’t worry, Stanford,” he whispered. “I’m coming.”

***

The title is mostly about Stan preparing to reunite with Ford, but also partly about how WWTD may be ending very soon, and oh man, I am not prepared. I'm hoping Stan will be able to do something to help, because damn, does Ford need help...

Anyways, feedback is appreciated as always!