Well, Vegas officially sucks.
Stanley knew, because he knew himself way too well, that sooner or later he'd probably change his mind about this, the next time things started looking up for him here.
But right now, laying in the gutter with the newly-acquired certificate of divorce in his pocket, his precious car keys (barely rescued from the greedy claws of his new ex-wife) clenched so tight in his hand they were probably breaking the skin, and a headache performing a drum solo on the inside of his skull, he hated Vegas.
And then, because the world hated Stan Pines, it started to rain.
And not just a soft, wet drizzle either, oh no, that would have been nice and merciful so of course it didn't apply to him. It was a full-out downpour that had him soaked through within seconds.
At least he still had his car, so he had somewhere to go to dry off.
With a groan, Stan finally sat up, and after a long moment where he waited for the tiny drummer living in his head to stop beating the cymbals he began the agonizing process of getting to his feet.
He sighed, brushing his shaggy hair out of his eyes, and began the arduous walk to where his car was.
It probably should have bothered him more than it did that he wasn't even that upset about finding out that Marilyn had just been going after his car this whole time. But somehow, well...you got used to being abandoned and rejected, after a while. It didn't hurt any less when it kept happening, but after a while it stopped being a surprise.
He stopped at an intersection of two equally grimy, dirty alleyways, and frowned in thought. He'd hidden his car down one of them when he first got to Vegas, he knew that. Covered it with a bunch of trash, made it look less appealing to anyone who might come sniffing around-and then stupidly bragged to Marilyn about how great it was, so she'd married him and tried to persuade him to tell where he was hiding it, until he finally caught on to her little scheme and nipped it in the bud. But right now he was still kind of hungover, so he couldn't quite remember the right alley...
Reaching into his pocket, Stan pulled out his last quarter and flipped it. Heads, he'd go for the one on the left. Tails, the one on the right.
In some universes-many of them, in fact-Stan got tails. He went in, found his car right away, changed into dry (albeit grimy) clothes, and curled up in the back and moped himself to sleep before driving off the next day, already planning out another get-rich-quick scheme.
In this one, however, the quarter turned up heads. And Stan caught it quickly, before it could bounce away into the gutter or something, stuffing it back into his pocket, and trudged into the corresponding alley.
***
He realized soon enough that his car wasn't down here.
Grumbling to himself, he was about to go back the way he'd come, when a voice warbled, "Care to learn your fortune, young man?"
Stan jumped what felt like a foot in the air, and whirled around, digging into his pockets for his brass knuckles in preparation to fend off-
A tiny old woman dressed in clothes even more ragged than his, sitting cross-legged on the ground, using half a cardboard box as a makeshift tent (that he could tell wasn't going to last much longer if the rain kept up like this), with a deck of cards being shuffled between her bony hands.
Stan let out a relieved laugh, snorting at himself for being scared so easily, and turned away shaking his head. Just hearing that phrase made a small coal of nostalgia burn in his gut, and he didn't need anymore painful reminders of how much his life sucked today, thank you very much.
"I can tell you your heart's desire." Somehow the old crone managed to make herself heard over the pouring rain.
This time he flat-out rolled his eyes. "That's what they all say, lady."
Her next words, though, stopped him right in his tracks. "You want your brother back."
*-*-*-
Slowly, Stan turned around and gaped at the woman.
She just looked back at him expectantly for a moment, then folded the cards and slid them up her sleeve, standing up and daintily approaching.
There were several questions Stan wanted to ask-how the [CENSORED] did she know that, who had she been talking to, what did she think she was playing at-but all that came out was a kind of strangled, "H-how-who-" before his natural defenses sprang back into place and he snarled, "I don't know what you're talking about!"
The woman just reached out, and before he could react cupped his cheek in one hand.
"You poor things." Her voice was filled with unexpected sorrow. "You're both so lost."
"I'm not-and he's not either, he's doing just fine!" He made it perfectly clear he doesn't need me.
She gave a small sigh, stroking his cheekbone with her thumb. "That is what you keep telling yourselves. You think that it's better to hide behind your anger than admit to your pain. But it doesn't hide how you've both become broken." Finally she released him. "Broken in heart, broken in soul..." She pulled out a card, and with a quick jerk of her hands ripped it right down the middle. "Broken in two."
Stan wondered how she was doing this-he was no stranger to cold readings, but he didn't see how she could possibly have figured out this much from him. Unless she really was a psychic-and, well, he'd seen the Jersey Devil as a kid so maybe he shouldn't rule that out entirely, as improbable as it seemed that he'd run into a genuine psychic here in a dirty alleyway in Vegas...
"You can still fix it, though," the woman went on. "In fact, you must."
Stan scoffed. "Oh, yeah? Why?" What was the point?
She looked straight at him. "Otherwise the world will be destroyed because your brother will choose the wrong allies."
...That was a way more dire prediction than even his mother had ever dared make.
"Mend your bonds before it's too late," she insisted, pressing the two halves of the card into his hand. And then she stepped away, towards the other opening of the alley.
"...Geez, ya think ya could be a little more cryptic?!" Stan yelled after her.
She didn't answer, continuing to shuffle away through the rain.
***
The pieces of card, Stan noticed as he went to the other alleyway and found his car, were the halves of a two of hearts, appropriately enough. He thought about tossing them away, but instead he found himself putting them in the pocket of the dry jeans he changed into. And then staring vacantly at the roof of his car for two hours, thoughts tumbling around and around in his brain helplessly.
On the one hand, fortune tellers and so-called psychics really got off on either telling suckers that all this good stuff was gonna happen to them, or giving vague, easily misinterpreted omens of doom. On the other hand, she hadn't asked him for money in exchange for her prediction like most of those shysters-she'd just given it. And somehow, she'd known. She'd known everything.
Come on, you're not supposed ta be this naïve, he told himself in annoyance, It's gotta be some kinda con you just haven't figured out yet.
And yet...
It would be just like Ford to make some kind of dumb mistake and trust the wrong person because he had nothing between his ears besides science stuff, and no concept of guile whatsoever. And wouldn't it be better to take the risk that this lady was crazy or something if there was a chance that she was right?
With a sigh, Stan dug the quarter back out of his pocket, and put the keys in the ignition. Time to find a pay phone.
By the time he found one that seemed to be in decent condition, it had stopped raining. Stan dialed the number he had by now memorized, and nearly pulled the cord right out of its socket as his finger toyed with it nervously.
It rang twice, before the familiar refrain of "Hello, this is Stanford Pines" came through the receiver.
Stan's thought processes froze. What was he supposed to say? Somehow, 'hey, I'm calling because a fortune teller said you were gonna destroy the world if we don't make up' didn't seem like it would cut it. And of course his throat was locking up and he could already feel his arm preparing to put the phone back on the hook because he couldn't take the pain of being rejected again-
"Hello? Is someone there?" Ford's voice was tinted with curiosity that could turn into annoyance any second.
"Lo siento, hermano," Stan blurted out, and then his impulsive hand finally got its way and slammed the phone back on the hook.
A second later he groaned into that same hand.
You idiot. You finally say something, and-well, yeah, it's an apology that he's been deserving for a long time, but...
This is gonna be harder than I thought.