1965

New Jersey

The moment Stan saw the car, he fell in love.

He couldn't help it: it was a beautiful deep red,* and the sound of its engine was a deep, throaty purr that made his heartbeat pick up speed just hearing it, and seeing it being driven down the road...it was the kind of freedom that up until this point he had only imagined existed in his fantasies about sailing the ocean in search of buried treasure.

Also, the irony of its being an El Diablo model was too funny for him not to want it.

The only problem was that it already had an owner.

A big, square-jawed man, with a yellow checked overcoat and thick mustache who reminded him uncomfortably of Filbrick, and who was currently sitting in the driver's seat outside of a bank, while some other guys pulled masks over their faces and hurried up the stairs, wielding large burlap bags and pistols.

Even from all the way across the street, Stan could sense what kind of man he was. He wasn't someone who really cared about that car; he wasn't taking good care of it. Not the way Stan would.

...And yeah, maybe it was bad that his goons were robbing the bank and junk, though as far as Stan was concerned those things spent way too much time hoarding other people's money so maybe it'd be good for the suckers to get taken down a peg by these jerks; all he cared about right now was getting that car.

*Stan didn't consider himself to be the sort of person who had a favorite color, but if he had it would be a toss-up between that shade of red and octarine (a color that can only be seen by angels, demons, cats, wizards and people who've crammed too many illegal substances into their system).

It took a moment of quick thinking, but since that was one of Stan's specialties, it wasn't too much trouble for him. He waved his hands, and a hundred-dollar bill appeared in midair; briefly he wondered if that was too high of a value to be believable, but he didn't have much time, the guys would probably be out any second, so he waved his hand again, and sent the money dancing on a breeze across the street, until it landed with a gentle smack against the car's windshield.

The guy at the wheel immediately brightened up, and rolled down the window to grab it. Just before his fingers could close around the edge, another breeze blew it tantalizingly out of reach. The guy let out a small, frustrated grunt, and leaned further out of the window, trying harder to grab it.

Come on...come on…

Stan shoved his hands into his jeans pockets and began nonchalantly crossing the street; as he did, he willed the bill to just move a little bit further…

It slid down towards the hood of the car, and stuck against the hood ornament, flapping piteously. With a growl of frustration, the man opened the door and lunged after it, following the one principle Stan had taken most to heart in his dealings with humans: they always wanted things that were just out of their reach.

The breeze lifted the bill away from the car, but just before it could get lost forever in the air the man managed to snatch it. As he did, two things happened at once: the sound of shots being fired rang out in the bank, and the car suddenly pulled away from the curb, with Stan sitting in the driver's seat and grinning like a maniac.**

"So long, sucker!" he yelled gleefully out the window, before speeding away in his newfound treasure.

He saw the man try chasing after him, and there was a brief pwing as he fired a shot that left a bullet hole in the rear windshield, but all it took was another small miracle to get that fixed up, and in a manner of seconds Stan was way out of reach, and as he sped down the road he could hear the wailing of police sirens heading towards the bank. Stan grinned victoriously, and put his foot down on the gas pedal to see how fast this baby could go.

**Stan hadn't had a lot of practice actually driving cars, but he was using his angelic intuition to help him get the gist of it. He managed to only hit one or two mailboxes on his way out of town, and stayed off the sidewalk for the most part.

Of course, as soon as he was outside the city limits and parked in a safe place Stan changed the license plates; just to make things easy he decided to go with STNLYMBL. Then, for good measure he used another miracle to clean her up and give her a fresh coat of paint, and get rid of the dents and scratches that those careless clods had let her get under their care. As he finished, he turned on the radio, and began searching for a good station.

And in the news today we were alarmed to...Bill Faul of the Chicago Cubs...she's got a ticket to ri-ide...STANLEY WHAT IS THE MEANING OF THIS?!

Stan groaned, and leaned his head against the steering wheel for a moment. "Whaddya want, short stack?" he asked the shrill voice of Gideon.

YOU STOLE THAT-THAT HUMAN HORSELESS CARRIAGE! the little jerk squealed; Stan could practically picture him bouncing up and down with glee. OH, YOU ARE GONNA GET IT, STANLEY! JUST WAIT TILL I TELL FILBRICK, YOU'LL BE OFF EARTH SO FAST YOU WON'T KNOW-

"First of all, it's a car. We don't call 'em 'horseless carriages,' dum-dum." Stan rolled his eyes to heaven-literally. "Second of all, the folks I stole it from were tryna rob a bank, so I probably just stopped 'em from gettin' away with it." He barely stopped himself from adding, 'The fact that I got a new car now is just an added bonus.'

He heard Gideon utter a frustrated squeak; he was probably stomping his little foot in frustration that he hadn't been able to catch Stan doing anything directly outside the Lord's work, like he'd been trying to do ever since the day Stan had 'misplaced' the flaming sword back in the Garden.
He couldn't help rubbing it in a little more. "You seriously needa get a hobby. Something healthy, like knitting-I hear that's really popular with some people-"

I AM NOT A THREAT TA BE TAKEN LIGHTLY, STANLEY! Gideon squawked. SOMEDAY I'M GONNA CATCH YA BREAKIN' THE RULES, AND THEN YOU'RE GONNA BE BEGGIN' FOR MERCY FROM LITTLE OL' ME! BUT YOU'RE NOT GONNA GET ANY, YOU'RE JUST-

"If I know I wouldn't get any mercy from ya, I'm definitely not gonna waste my time beggin' for it." And Stan reached over to the dial and flipped the channel, before starting up the car again.

1979

Florida

Stan had hoped that at some point he'd run into Ford again, so he could show off his new sweet ride. Unfortunately he hadn't seen hide nor hair of his brother since World War II, and couldn't bring himself to actively look for him. He'd been pretty shaken up by everything people on the other side of the Pond were going through during that time, and clearly needed space to recover from it. Besides...he wasn't sure Ford would want to see him; he always thought it was such a terrible thing for them to hang out except in moments of extreme crisis. Clearly being apart didn't tear him in half the way it did Stan, so he had no right to intrude on his presence.

The car wasn't a real substitute for Ford, obviously...but somehow having it made things a little more bearable. You could argue that flying or transporting himself to different places was a faster, more effective moment of travel, but he liked the feeling of freedom as he cruised down the highway, and the way it had a radio so he could listen to music or baseball games or whatever. Really, the way humans had come up with something like this in the first place, and over time modified the design to suit their desires, was pretty impressive; they could be so narrow-mindedly stupid sometimes, and then out of the blue they'd turn around and create something amazing like cars.

For the last few weeks Stan had been in New York, causing trouble for a drug racket he'd discovered upstate; he had no personal problem with people deciding to use that crap on themselves, but when they decided to sell it to kids, they were crossing a line. After the worst of the gang got busted and locked up, he decided he needed a vacation, and headed to Florida for some time in the sun. Since he was over on the east coast, with a good view of the ocean if he drove on the right highways, he decided to take the scenic route; it wasn't like he was in any big hurry.

As he headed further south, it got warmer and warmer, and the angel grinned to himself as he tapped his fingers on the wheel in time to the music playing on the radio. As it got closer to sunset, though, Stan finally pulled over to the side of the road to take a nap before going any further; he'd discovered the joy of sleeping during the fourteenth century, and just like when he'd learned about how awesome eating was, he had never regretted indulging in yet another human pleasure. The backseat of the Stanley Mobile wasn't the most comfortable place in the world to sleep, but Stan stretched out there anyway, after kicking his belongings onto the floor. Then he just pulled a blanket over himself and draped an arm over his eyes, before slowly relaxing into slumber.

He was stirred out of his nap by a soft click, and an unexpected breeze against the top of his head.

Stan's sleep-fogged brain didn't have time to really register what was going on before he was being grabbed around the arms, and roughly dragged out of the car to land with a harsh thud on the asphalt.

The pain, however, was enough to wake him up; with a speed that a normal human of his age and build wouldn't have been capable of, Stan leaped to his feet, and dealt one of his attackers a swift crack across the jaw with the set of brass knuckles he was suddenly wearing.

Another one came at him from behind with a bat-Stan turned in time to dodge the swing, and shot in a few blows at his ribs that responded with a satisfying cracking noise; seconds later the bum was on the ground, moaning and clutching his side.

Stan turned with a satisfied grin to face the two guys still standing. "You guys want a piece of me too?"

They looked at each other nervously, before one of them, a muscly guy wearing sunglasses at night (seriously? Some people went to such stupid extremes to look edgy) came at him, flipping open a switchblade.

Stan dodged the first strike, and hooked his leg around the goon's, pulling him off balance before swinging at him with a sharp left jab that got him in the shoulder. He went down for a moment, but quickly rolled before Stan's foot could smash into his face, and soon enough was on his feet again, swinging a wild haymaker that Stan easily dodged. Stan went in with another jab at his ribs, but he managed to block it with his arm in time, and threw a punch that this time caught Stan in the arm and made him stagger back a foot.

They paced back and forth around each other like lions, each looking for a good place to strike. Stan kept an eye on the other thugs too, in case one of them got brave enough to try something; he also struggled, as he bounced back and forth on the tips of his toes, to remember if he'd ever met these jokers before to give them a reason to come after him.

It wouldn't surprise Stan if he had; quite a few people he'd met over the centuries had developed some kind of beef with him, from King John Lackland back in the 1100's to this one joker named Ronald Reagan he'd gotten in a fistfight with a few years back. It was the kind of thing that just tended to happen to him.

Finally, the goon charged at Stan again, fists still clenched. Stan dodged it like a matador, expecting him to go barrelling past and fall to the ground from using too much momentum. Instead, though, the goon spun around, and slammed his hand into Stan's back, pressing against his shoulder.

He barely had a brief moment to wonder what the heck kind of stupid fighting move that was, before he was being knocked to his knees by a sudden, burning pain.

WHAT THE [CENSORED] WHAT'S HAPPENING TO ME WHAT IS HE DOING-

Stan collapsed to the ground, barely even noticing that the goon had let go of him until he put his boot in his gut, flipping him onto his back; his shoulder screamed with fresh pain as it made contact with the asphalt.

The goon grinned down at him, and lowered his glasses a few inches, allowing Stan to see through his hazy vision that there was...something kinda funny about his eyes. Like they were in reverse: all black, with tiny white dots in the middle. And he kicked himself for not realizing sooner that he could smell the scent of demon surrounding him-or would have, if he wasn't still incapacitated with agony.

"Bill sends his regards," the goon said softly, before swinging his boot up into Stan's face.

When Stan regained consciousness, with his nose and shoulder throbbing and all the rest of him feeling like he'd been beaten over and over with a sock that had a half-brick inside of it, he was crammed in the trunk of a car, and he could hear the rushing sound of water.

Oh, don't look at me like that. You all knew it was gonna be something like this.