Chapter Text
NOTES: I have no idea if Stanley is Jewish. Sachar never gets into that. I just did some extrapolating. List archives feel free to take this fic. Others please ask. Thanks!
*
"Stanley?" There's a muffled thump and a noise that's either Stanley telling Hector to come in, Stanley's roommate Devon telling him to go away, or the girl in the room between Stanley's and his own singing too loudly to her original cast recording of My Fair Lady. The dorm is old, and the walls weren't built with a mind to acoustics. "Stanley, it's me." The doorknob gives; the door swings open under his hand. "Stanley, you in here?"
"Hey, Hector."
By the desk. No, under the desk. Stanley's feet poke out, surrounded by red and yellow wires, small circuit boards, nuts and bolts. "Stanley, what are you doing?"
"This stereo is a piece of crap."
Hector crosses the room and plants his hands on the desk, peering over it at the wild-haired boy on the floor. "This stereo is a delicate and expensive piece of equipment. You just have worse luck with electronics than anyone I know." He comes around the desk, shoving Stanley out of the way. "What happened this time?"
Sitting up, Stanley folds his arms over his chest and sulks. "I don't know."
Hector scootches in front of the dismantled system and pokes at the few lonely wires that remain. "I've seen worse."
Stanley sighs and works though a few knots in his hair with his fingers. "I wish Twitch was around," he says mournfully.
Hector looks over, offended. "Twitch? Pff. Show a little faith, Stanley." He reaches into the depths of the stripped stereo and reattaches components. "Besides, Twitch is great at stealing things, but I doubt he knows how to put 'em back together."
"Hmph." Stanley's thumb and index finger pick at a loose piece of rubber detaching itself from the sole of his red Converse high-tops. Clyde Livingston offered them a lifetime's supply of Sweet Feet - or, anyway, a supply to last as long as the shoes are in production - but Stanley refuses to wear them and claims his reasons can't be explained - even to Hector.
"Hey, you got a screwdriver around here someplace?"
Stanley's eyebrows lower in panicked confusion. "What are you doing?"
"Putting your stereo back together."
"Hector." Stanley swats Hector's hands, but Hector is too small, too fast. "Cut it out. You have no idea what you're doing. You'll make it worse."
Hector clamps down on Stanley's wrist. Standing up, it wouldn't make any difference, but on the floor, Stanley's superior height and weight are little advantage. "Stanley, relax," he soothes, making sure Stanley is looking at him. "I can fix that."
*
They were cursed by pigs and fortune tellers. This they know. Stanley's grandfather told them that Elya Yelnats forgot his promise to Madam Zeroni, and the curse she put on him plagued both their families for generations.
But they were saved by peaches and onions, and the significance of this they do not know. No one told them - because no one's left to tell it - about the love that bound the two people to whom those peaches and onions meant the most. They don't know why it matters that Hector picks those particular words to make his offer. Hector just knows that it feels good to help Stanley, and Stanley just knows that it feels good to accept.
Knowing only half of your own story is sometimes worse than knowing no part of it at all.
*
Hector grabs the phone before the second ring. "Hello?"
There's a pause on the other end. Then, "Hector?"
"Yeah?"
"It's Mrs. Yelnats."
Hector looks at the phone in his hand, then around the room. "Whoops. Sorry, Mrs. Y. sometimes I forget I don't live here." He holds the phone out. "Your mom."
Grinning, Stanley leans across the bed - across Hector - and snags the phone. "Hello, Mother!"
"Stanley--"
"I can't help it." That's five years' worth of arguing in two sentences. She hates him calling her 'Mother,' but since Green Lake - since Pendanski - he can't call her 'Mom' anymore. "What's up?"
"Doesn't Hector have a room of his own?"
Stanley stretches long legs along the bed, draping his knees over Hector's lap. Laughing, Hector tries to push them off his Calc. II book, but Stanley isn't budging. With a shrug, Stanley flops down so he's prone on the bed. Hector's tickling his knees. He's ignoring it. Hector lobs his pencil at Stanley's head; Stanley laughs and dodges it. "Sure he does. It's better than mine. Bigger - and with a less scary sink. But his roommate's a total cock-monkey."
"Stanley!" She speaks so sharply that Hector hears the hiss. He leans toward the phone and yells, "He's absolutely right, Mrs. Y. Brandon is a total cock-monkey."
"See?" Stanley says triumphantly.
Mrs. Yelnats sighs one of her famous sighs, the one that has cowed Yelnats men for a quarter century. "I want to talk about Spring Break."
"Great!" Stanley drags his pillow from against the wall and tucks it under his head. Zigzag's letter, which showed up crinkled and badly written five days ago, is tucked in the inner pocket of his spring jacket.
"I know you have a 3:30 class on Friday afternoon," his mother says, "but I think you'd be okay skipping it just this once."
If she ever gets any inkling of how often Stanley and Hector ditch Friday's 3:30 symbolic logic - the only class they have together this semester - she'll have a heart attack - and then give her son one, too, with the yelling. Then she'll call Mrs. Zeroni, who'll do the same thing to her son.
"There's a flight that leaves at 4; it'll get you in at about 6:45. You'll stay the week - Mrs. Danberry who used to live down the hall wants to see you - and you'll go back the next Sunday at noon. Sorry it's so early, but it's the only one that goes on the weekends anymore. What do you think?"
Stanley's stomach ties itself into a cute little bow. "Uh, yeah, that sounds great. Except--"
He's had three breaks so far. Fall semester mid-term, Thanksgiving, and fall semester end-of-term. He and Hector have gone home for every one. This might be the hardest thing he's ever had to say.
"The thing is, X-Ray and Zigzag are getting the old D Cabin gang together for a camping trip. The Girl Scout camp where Green Lake used to be rents out cabins during the off-season. We'll go down, get a couple cabins - it'll be like old times, but without digging and four-minute showers. It's like...spitting on the past. But in a good way."
"Is there a good way to spit on the past, Stanley?"
He recognizes this tactic. She can harp on one little thing he's said all afternoon, if it keeps her from dealing with the main issue of her baby not coming home for break. Sighing, Stanley looks at Hector. Calculus forgotten, he watches Stanley intently, usually clear dark eyes clouded with worry. Stanley shakes his head - 'don't worry about it' - and says, softly, "I really want to go."
"Will Hector be there, too?"
"Sure." Stanley snickers. That pretty obvious.
"Maybe I'll have a talk with Mrs. Zeroni about it." From the tone of her voice, she considers that some kind of threat.
"Sure. Whatever. She seems excited about it - says she might take a couple days off work and hang out with us."
Mrs. Yelnats sighs, realizing she's lost this round. "I'll discuss it with your father."
Stanley's face splits into a wide grin, but he keeps it out of his voice. If she's taking it to his father, the deal's as good as sold. "Thanks, Mother."
"You're welcome." Stanley opens his mouth to fill the pause that follows with stories of last night's JSA meeting, or the women's basketball game Devon dragged him to on Sunday, or-- "Have you met any nice girls lately?"
With a groan, Stanley sits up, knocking the pillow off the bunk and onto the floor. "Mother. I'm eighteen. Can we hold off on the marrying me off bit?"
Hector sniggers. He can recite both halves of this conversation from memory. Stanley grabs for the pillow to throw at him, remembers it's on the floor now, and settles for flinging the pencil. Hector mouths a grinning 'thank you' and goes back to his homework.
"I'm not saying I want you married," his mother says patiently. "But you're eighteen, and you've never really dated. At this point in life, you're supposed to figure these things out, so that when you are ready to get married--"
"I'll know what I want." Stanley doesn't usually finish his mom's half of the dialogue, but he isn't in the mood for it today. "I know the speech, Mother. But I'm - college is a lot harder than I expected. I'm trying to find my footing. Besides, just because I'm a teenaged boy, and I'm supposed to have hormones so out of control I can't sleep at night, doesn't mean I'm going to spend all my time chasing tail."
"Stanley!" Mrs. Yelnats says sharply.
Hector mouths, 'Who says "Chasing tail"?' Stanley flips him off. Into the phone he says, "Hector doesn't date. Yell at him."
"That's different."
Something tightens in Stanley's chest, goes a little red in his vision. "Because he's gay?" he snaps. Hector's eyes narrow, but Stanley will defend his friend to his last breath, as long as Hector needs him (even if Hector won't admit that he does).
"Because he's not my son."
Stanley laughs. "Good one, Mother." He yanks the phone cord and watches the movement ripple along the plastic spiral. "We don't need to date, right now. We're happy the way we are."
"Oh, Stanley." His mother's voice is sad and scared. "I wish you wouldn't talk like that."
*
"How's the paper coming?"
Stanley looks up and blinks fast to clear his blurred vision. Devon stands in front of his table, a thick stack of books on rock formation of the Neolithic Era under his arm. "Oh, hey." Stanley shakes his head and flips his notes over. He's sure he's written something down about - "Another dead end."
American History, 1866-present. Stanley's mid-term paper about Kissin' Kate Barlow keeps hitting unexpected snags. The library has half a shelf of books on her years as the most successful female outlaw in the old West, and two sizeable biographies summarize her life as a school mistress in Green Lake - when the lake was more than a homesick juvenile delinquent's favorite daydream. But on what interests him most - the transition, the time in the middle - the scholars are strangely silent. What makes a sweet-tempered, mild-mannered (that's how the biographers tell it) school teacher become a bank and stagecoach robber? There isn't a clue that Stanley can find. "There's nothing there."
His roommate's thick books thud on the table next to his own. "When's it due?"
"The week after spring break."
Devon stares. "And you call me a nerd."
Stanley drags a hand through tangled curls. "I had to. The books I needed were in storage in the basement. If I wanted them in time - and I'm still not sure I'll have enough to write a ten-page paper about."
"It's all right to say you don't know, you know?" Devon follows his books down, settling into the chair across from Stanley. Devon is compact. He runs cross-country and plays pick-up basketball, so he's in good shape - better than Stanley, who's let himself go some since Green Lake. When Stanley sits, he sprawls, legs splayed under the table, arms akimbo on the tabletop, books and notepads spread over every available surface - including the floor and the other chairs. When Devon sits, he keeps his knees and elbows tucked in and his materials arranged tidily in front of him. Even his dark brown hair is neatly contained, trimmed short and ending just above his ears. It drives Stanley bonkers. "Conclude that there's no conclusion to be made, and the profs eat it up."
Stanley chuckles. "Yeah, right, Dev. I'll definitely say that."
"I mean it." Devon leans forward; his breath smells like ginger. "It's not symbolic logic. If you can't say why something is a logical fallacy, you're in trouble. If you can't say why Kissin' Kim--"
"Kate," Stanley corrects absently.
"Sorry, Kate - became an outlaw - it's not like you've moved the scholarship backwards or anything, right?"
Stanley surveys his forest of notes and books. If it were that easy - but Kissin' Kate is part of Yelnats history. She stole the family fortune and then returned it a hundred-fold - and Stanley's life to boot - in that desert. It's been Stanley's obsession since he and Hector crawled out of that hole covered in yellow-spotted lizards, and he can taste how sweet victory would be if he cracked the mystery.
Devon waits patiently for an answer. "Sure." He eyes his roommate's battered tomes. "What are you working on?"
Devon is here on full academic scholarship, and everybody knows it. But he's a self-effacing genius. He shrugs dismissively. "Rocks."
Stanley snorts. "Right." He contemplates the young man across the table. "You know, Dev--"
Whatever Devon is supposed to know is lost as a small whirlwind of springy dark curls and infectious enthusiasm spins to a stop in front of their table. "Stanley!"
Stanley springs back in his chair. "Jeez, Hector. Normal people walk." Devon smirks.
"Whatever. Sari has two seats for the Cardinals/Astros game. First base line. She wants to know if we want them." His eyes sparkle, even in the library's crappy fluorescent lighting.
"Do we want them?" Stanley stares, barely blinking.
Hector laughs. "That's what I said. But we have to go right now."
Stanley slams an armful of books shut and scoops them up. He stares at them in horror. "Shit! The books! I haven't checked them out yet!"
"Get them tomorrow!" Hector tugs his friend's sleeve. "We have, like, two minutes."
"I need these books tonight, Hector--" He wants to work on the paper after the game. It isn't like he sleeps. When closing your eyes brings a waking nightmare of heat and dust and venomous lizards, you avoid sleep as much as you can.
"Stanley." Devon grabs the edge of Stanley's sleeve. "Go. I'll put your books on my card."
Stanley stares at him. "For real?"
"Buy me a hotdog at the next game, and we'll call it even. Though if I end up with fines on my card because of you, I'm kicking your ass; I don't care how rich you are."
"Stanley!" Hector says impatiently.
Stanley shoves the books at Devon. "You're the greatest. Thank you!"
"We're going, Stanley!" Hector grabs his elbow and hauls him out of the alcove.
Devon raises a hand to where his roommate had been. "Bye."
Pulling the history books toward him, he opens the one Stanley was looking at when he came in. A floppy yellow Post-It flag waves feebly from where it marks Stanley's place. Devon turns to the page, then past it. In the lower left-hand corner of the next page is a grainy black-and-white photograph of 'Miss Katherine Barlow & class, 1887.' A calm young woman, light hair tucked into a prim, efficient bun, smiles into the camera, ignoring the horseplay of the dozen or so five- to fifteen-year-olds careening around her. Devon frowns. "How does someone like you become an outlaw, Miss Katherine?"
His frown deepens as he looks at the background of the picture. On the roof of the schoolhouse perches a solitary figure - a young, dark figure in a planter's hat. Devon checks the caption again. 'Miss Katherine Barlow & class.' No mention of the man on the roof. But the line of the unnamed man's eyes rests squarely on Kissin' Kate. Devon yanks off Stanley's Post-It and moves it to the page with the picture. He grins as he walks towards the check-out desk. "Nothing there at all," he murmurs.
*
What happened to Sam and Kate altered Green Lake. It turned decent citizens into money-grubbing bastards, and money-grubbing bastards into obsessive maniacs. It divided the townspeople. It turned Kate into an outlaw. It turned the lake into a desert.
That tragedy changed everything it touched. And now it's touching Hector and Stanley.
*
As the Jewish Student Alliance meeting breaks up, Ethan drops a broad hand on Stanley's shoulder and leans too hard. "You make me look bad, Yelnats," he jokes.
Ethan is an inch and a half taller than Stanley, which makes looking at him this close a pain in the neck for Stanley. Literally. "What are you talking about?"
"I go on and on about strengthening interfaith relations on campus," he says with a rueful laugh, "and the head of the Muslim student group gives you Astros tickets on the first base line."
Stanley slips from under Ethan's hand. "Don't yell at me. She's a friend of Hector's. I just mooch off his good luck."
"Hey, Stanley, that reminds me--" Batya is a senior behavioral psych major with a barbell in her eyebrow, pink stripes in her hair, and a job offer from the NIH. "Do you know Bruce and Cassius Rashford-Horn?"
Stanley pretends to think it through. "Julius Caesar, right? 'Et tu, Bruce?'"
She's laughing, but she smacks his arm. "They're alumni. Graduated about eight years ago. Great guys; they have this place in the 'burbs - too 'look at us be mainstream' for me - but that's not the point; the point is that every year they do a seder for the kids who don't have family in the area." She looks at him suspiciously. "You don't have family in the area, do you?"
He shakes his head fast. "Nobody."
"Okay." She nods, pleased. "Second night, dress a little formal, but nothing you can't handle, right?"
Stanley grits his teeth. He hates these assumptions people make when they know his family has money. They don't know his family, how they ended up with the money, the shit that came before it - and went with it. Still, he likes Batya, mainly because she doesn't mind telling embarrassing stories about stupid shit she and her girlfriend get caught doing. And he's been worried about what he's going to do for Passover, hundreds of miles from his family with nobody to celebrate with and no chance of going home. "That's gotta be a big Seder," he muses, "all the kids without family."
"Well, not all the kids. Just the ones who are...in the tribe and in the tribe." Batya laughs at a joke Stanley doesn't get, but he smiles, because he's a frosh, and this senior's not only deigned to speak to him but has invited him to a special seder, and he won't blow that because she's a lousy joke-teller. "And listen," she goes on, "since the point of this thing is being comfortable being who we are - right? - significant others are welcome, even if they're not Jewish. And they're not just saying that; they're super-nice to Jade, and she wouldn't know a mezuzah from a mousaka, you know? So you absolutely should bring Hector."
Stanley gives Batya the same look he gave Armpit the day his old bunk-mate said, 'No, really. I want everyone to call me Theo now.' "Look, Batya, I don't know what you've heard, but Hector and I aren't a couple. I'm not gay. Hector is, but I'm not, and we're not. Together."
"Oh, God!" Bayta's hand covers her mouth; she blushes furiously. "I'm sorry, Stanley. I didn't realize. You two are just always - I'm so sorry!"
Stanley smiles. "No big." It's not. She's not the first person to make that mistake. It flatters him. He could do worse than have people think he's Hector's boyfriend.
Nodding frantically and wanting out of this situation as quickly as possible, Batya ducks out of the room. Stanley sighs and gathers his things. Looking up, he sees Ethan studying him. "What?"
"You're not with Hector?"
"I'm really not."
Ethan chuckles. "You've upended my outlook on life, my friend." He shakes his head. "You know you two act like a couple, don't you?"
Laughing, Stanley slings his backpack over his shoulder. "We've been best friends since we were thirteen. We've been through a lot together."
"Whatever, man." Ethan heads toward the stairway. "I've had the same best friend since I was seven, and I'm not half as close with him as you are with Hector. That's all I'm saying."
Stanley schools his face into solemn lines. "Then I feel bad for you and your best friend," he says. Ethan laughs and waves as they part ways in front of the student center.
Stanley does feel sorry for Ethan. Everyone should have a best friend like Hector.
*
Brandon Cray is what's wrong with higher education in America. He has thick fingers and an overdeveloped neck and says things like, 'I guess Professor Entwhistle's okay, for a broad,' and, 'Your roommate's on scholarship, Yelnats? Huh; he doesn't act like a poor kid.' He's a racist, a homophobe, and an anti-Semite, too, but unfortunately he's just smart enough not to say anything in front of Stanley or Hector that they can report him for. The hairs on Stanley's neck stand up whenever he has to be in a room with Brandon, and trying to figure out how such a man gets into college - any college, let alone one with a semi-decent reputation, like this one - makes Stanley's head hurt.
They have the money. Hector and Stanley could've paid their way to rooming together, each having their own room, getting out of the freshman on-campus rule, or renting a house - hell, buying a house - off-campus and paying for the dorm anyway. But they wanted a 'normal' college experience. Matchbox-sized dorm rooms, seldom-cleaned communal bathrooms, and randomly assigned roommates who mixed as well as cantaloupe and Valvoline, as Grandpa Yelnats says. Every day living with Brandon. Hector regrets that resolve, and Stanley's stopped counting how many hours of sleep he's lost, terrified that this is the night Brandon realizes how easily he could break the brown-skinned faggot in the other bed.
Stanley weaves through the dining hall, tray balanced on one arm and held against his chest while he scans the pages of the book in his other arm. Funny, he doesn't remember marking this page, but here's his Post-It flag, cheery as ever. There's a picture of Kissin' Kate in front of the Green Lake School with her last class. Someone's sitting on the roof of the schoolhouse; Stanley can't see for sure, but it looks like Sam the Onion Man. He can't imagine why he would've flagged it. But he's sleeping worse than usual this week; maybe he's been sleepwalking. Sleep-studying.
Not watching where he's going, Stanley slams into a solid bulk around the soft-serve dispenser. "Sorry," he mutters and changes course, not looking up.
"Watch it, faggot," the bulk snarls.
Stanley freezes. He raises his eyes from the book. He tries not to smirk too much. "What was that, Brandon?"
"You heard me." Brandon plants himself and doesn't sense that the melting soft-serve twist running his fist mars his imposing image.
Now the smirk curls Stanley's lip fully. "Yes, I did. Thank you."
Too late, Brandon realizes he's dealt a royal flush that Stanley won't hesitate to play. Stanley's not in perfect shape, but he's kept himself up better since Green Lake than he did before, and he generally tends toward...largeness. Brandon can't flatten him like he would Hector, even if he is just a history nerd. "You're disgusting," Brandon spits, desperate.
Stanley slams his book shut. The sound ricochets around the dining hall. "If I had to choose between being gay and being like Hector or being straight and having to be like you, I'd be gay every time."
"Fuck you." By the time the flung ice cream cone hits the ground, Brandon and Stanley are grappling like bears. Brandon's advantage: four inches in height and twenty pounds of muscle. Stanley's advantage: righteous rage in defense of his closest friend and the five-hundred page textbook he hits Brandon in the head with every time he has a hand free.
"Leave him alone!" Hector appears out of nowhere, leaping on Brandon's back and reaching hands like claws toward Brandon's eyes. Brandon roars and rips the hands away, shakes Hector free and slams him to the ground. Hector staggers to his feet. A wild elbow, winding up for a punch at Stanley's nose, glances the side of Hector's head. He goes down again. Harder.
And stays down.
"Hector!" Stanley has to get to him. Now. But there's a furious bigot charging him. "Fuck this." He catches Brandon on the chin with the nasty right cut Zigzag taught him. Brandon staggers. Stanley shoves him aside and drops to his knees. "Hector? You all right?" Stanley shakes him.
"I feel like shit." Hector tries to sit up, winces, puts shaking fingers to his temple. A bump is growing there; he's going to be in seven hells of pain for the next few days. But nothing's bleeding; nothing looks broken.
Stanley smiles. Behind him, a crowd holds back his snarling, spitting opponent. "I can fix that."
*
Hector and Stanley owe their lives to Sam and Katherine. To be indebted to a love that large is a heavy thing. It demands what it is owed, and it doesn't give a damn who pays.
*
ON TO PART 2-->