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✦ Victory Road IC Inbox ✦
If you wanted to contact Dr. Stanford Pines via the PokeGear, here is the place to do it! Voice, video and text are all fine. ✦ Art by![[plurk.com profile]](https://plurk.com/favicon.ico)
love_struck
If you wanted to contact Dr. Stanford Pines via the PokeGear, here is the place to do it! Voice, video and text are all fine. ✦ Art by
T E X T
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AL TUNG R UZXTBWWTDD JURXHZRF
[He is still Ford, unfortunately.]
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Fiddleford doesn't check his gear for several hours, choosing instead to leave it under a pile of springs and greasecloth and purloined cafeteria trays where it can't hurt him.]
✓ Read 4:42 AM
[ ✓ Decoded 4:43 AM
✓ Left unresponded-to 4:45 AM and all the rest of that day.
But, that night:]
KYKNMRZDAVAAYFVPWFBRW
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[He tries to think of a good way to sum it up. He can't imagine losing something that fundamental. What if he forgot why he was so interested in anomalies?
Not that it would be easy when the reasons are attached to his wrists. But the idea makes him deeply uncomfortable all the same.]
BGN WNSHVG LH HRQD GHGILR
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Memories flicker to life. It's small at first, not much more than a spark, but then they catch, and he remembers. A scene, suspended in time, comes back to him: a campfire, a forest, a clear night under stars, before the gun, before the what-they-made. He'd told Stanford that then, hadn't he? They'd talked about the future, and he'd told Stanford that he wanted his inventions to improve people's lives, and that maybe one day he'd be able to afford a nice place for himself and his family. And Stanford -- Stanford had wanted to publish something, something enormous. It was going to catapult him into fame, put his name in the history books, make experts question the very way reality was understood...
He'd wanted to be there for it. For when Stanford Pines changed the world.
...with all the force of a kick to the gut, Fiddleford realizes that he misses him. He's no stranger to missing people, of course: he's missed his family for thirty years. But Fiddleford has had time to get used to missing his family; he's learned how to brush it off, how to look away, how to turn off those parts of his mind so it doesn't hurt so much. Missing his friend, though, is new, fresh in a way the loneliness he hadn't forgotten wasn't. It isn't just Stanford, either: the way Fiddleford remembers feeling, when he shared hopes and dreams with a trusted friend in a world that seemed so full of possibility, aches just as much.
There's an emptiness he hadn't realized was there until he tripped over it. It's like taking a step and finding empty air; like tearing down wallpaper and finding a six-foot hole. Before, Fiddleford had wanted to go to Stanford for answers about what he can't remember. Now, he just wants to talk.
Fiddleford stares down at the PokeGear in his hands, silent, mouth shut, looking at that last message. He really should stop here. If Team Rocket finds out he's been sending messages in code, he's going to have a hard time convincing them he's harmless. He should delete them, wipe the PokeGear, maybe even drop it into the smelting furnace by accident.]
VBD V JJVU ETKR FBPWZBNT YVRW VBD
[Just one more, then he'll put it away.]
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Ford has taken a lot of punches to the gut in his lifetime, and a lot of punches to the rest of his body as well, but nothing winds him quite like seeing that. There have been three words playing on repeat in the back of his mind for the past thirty years and he almost writes them now, but what good would I'm sorry Fiddleford do? The only comfort he can take here is that he knows that Fiddleford has forgiven him -- will forgive him? -- but it feels small and hollow next to the niggling feeling that he shouldn't be forgiven. One doesn't carry guilt for thirty years and then drop it in a single hug and an afternoon of banjo music.
At least he knows the answer to this question definitively and he doesn't have to feel bad giving it.]
QXS
[That's something. That's something he can do, helping for a given value of helping. This isn't like what happened with Stanley where they caught it fast and had ample material to work with. He has no film reels, no scrapbooks -- he doesn't even have his journal and all the pages lovingly dedicated to talking about his best friend. All he has is guilt and the distinct desire to undo the harm he caused without any of the practical knowledge he'd need to do so. He doesn't even know everything that Fiddleford is missing, how deep it goes: if Fiddleford told him it extended even into the good times the had together he'd be... not surprised, really, but certainly alarmed.
He almost considers leaving it at the but it feels like not enough, so he tacks on a new bit a minute or so later:]
A PAAY HF KWEP LTI
[It's just that he doesn't know how, beyond letting Fiddleford come to him first. If he writes an essay about Fiddleford McGucket -- and he could -- it might make it worse by bringing too much back too fast. This isn't something you can do like ripping off a bandaid. Even Stan needed to be eased through it.]
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Okay. He can put the Gear away. He got his answer. But just as he's about to shut the device down, Ford's next message comes in, and Fiddleford feels panic flood his brain.]
FH
NBY GRIW
MHRDFV ZSMCUNBX PW
[He's not sure how much of the apprehension is old reminders not to trust Stanford Pines. He really isn't.
But Team Rocket is reason enough to put this to a stop. It's not safe.]
LAELWS NDLVHVSU PRM MOB
YVVBJX WNYQYLFZ UF FZC