#man ford must have been really bad about changing light bulbs :/

[fordanoia]

I Think I Saw You [Ch 1: A Place to Start]

Fandom: Gravity Falls || CW: - || Stan comes to Gravity Falls upon receiving a postcard from Ford, but he can’t find him and he has to figure out what’s going on. || Ao3 || Fic Tag

Prologue || Ch 1 || Ch 2 || Ch 3 || - || - || -

______(~3.5k words)______

After an hour he still hadn’t seen Ford, and it was still freezing. When he checked the thermostat he saw why the heat hadn’t changed, out of the side of it there a few wires poked out and when Stan pulled the cover off he saw the bundle of mangled wires that had been shakily cut and pulled.

An hour and a half ago, this would have been something he could play off, instead it just added onto the pile of everything else he had found since. The blood, the locks, and then all the writings.

The paranoid scrawls of Ford’s handwriting across papers scattered both on the floor and his desks, none of any that made real sense. Most of his cursive had turned illegible with haphazard lines and out of what wasn’t it was mostly technical talk about machinery and electric waves that Stan didn’t understand the first thing about.

There was only one idea that Stan could get out of the writings, because Ford had written it over and over in different ways, and it was creepy as hell.

‘I’m being watched.’

The idea echoed throughout the entire house - into the excessive amount of locks on the front door, the extra nails in the thick boards pressed against the windows, the barbed wire strung out in the snow around the house.

It even followed Stan himself when he had gone outside to grab firewood from the stack of cut logs near the edge of the trees. He only felt it though because he’d been reading the idea over and over while in some kind of horror movie murder hut looking cabin out in the middle of the woods.

It somehow felt even colder inside even after he closed the door. The icy wind from outside whipping inside after him and scraping at his sides and around his shoulders persisting until he was halfway down the hallway. He supposed that’s what he got for breaking a window for all the wind to come in through.

Stan carried the logs to the fireplace and lit a fire there, settling down on the floor in front of it for the heat.

His gut insisted something was wrong, but Stan had already figured that when he’d gotten the letter. Only difference now was it was a lot harder to think that Ford had sent him the postcard so they could reconnect or- or something like that.

There was no denying something was wrong by this point. He just wished Ford would show up so he could ask him what that something was.

Stan waited by the fire, letting crackling heat fill the space and time with half thoughts flitting every which way.

One particular rabbit hole of thinking kept pulling him back down every time he tried to convince himself that Ford would be back any minute.

Where would his brother have gone out in the middle of a blizzard so bad it frosted over Stan’s car in five minutes? And why?

After a half hour, the question was too big to ignore.

“Dammit, Ford, where the hell are you?” He muttered absently. Another cold wind wound its way into the room.

Grimacing, Stan got up off the floor, leaving his duffel bag in the middle of the floor and went to the kitchen. The fridge wasn’t empty, but it was clear not everything in there was meant to be food so Stan turned towards the pantry instead. As he did though, his eyes caught onto the window and stared. Between the wooden boards, the view outside was darkening.

If Ford was still outside - what if he was stuck somewhere close? Just nearby, Stan could check that far. Ford himself couldn’t have gotten that far on foot himself, and if he was in a car then he at least had something to hide in to keep himself from turning into a popsicle.

Even if he didn’t find anything, Stan couldn’t stand just waiting around and doing nothing like this, not when something bad was looming over this whole situation.

Stan turned on his heel, out the kitchen and unlocking the back door before remembering to zip his jacket closed and pull up the hood. Stepping outside, he pulled on his gloves. He didn’t bother locking the door back.

The white expanse in front of his feet quickly led to the tall forest, and Stan walked forward, keeping his hands in his pockets for the time being, only pulling them out to mark snow against a tree side to help him keep track of where he was at or for balance going down a steep little hill.

“If you’re stuck in a damn ditch right now...” He swore aloud, nearly losing his balance and falling. With the light of the sun dying he couldn’t stay outside long, and he knew it and he knew walking into the woods when it was getting dark was stupid, but it was better than nothing.

As Stan turned right, walking in a large circle around where he knew the shack was, he shouted for Ford as he went. Nothing around him looked like a person and the only colors around were white and brown.

Stan got increasingly frustrated as the light dimmed to the point that he had even less of a chance of making anything important out.

Ford was supposed to be here. Not outside here, but- but when Stan had showed up! Instead Stan came up to an empty cabin. Something was wrong enough for him to call Stan and he couldn’t tell what because Ford couldn’t even just be here for when Stan showed up!!

He looked like he’d been the one needing help though. Maybe a gang was after Ford. He didn’t really think Ford would have gotten involved with a gang much less people at all looking at the state of his house, but it’d at least make sense.

All the little details inside the house screamed that Ford was scared of something or someone, and that wasn’t even bringing into the fact that Ford wrote like someone was after him, watching him.

Stan’s foot snagged onto a covered tree branch and he tipped forward with a curse - hands going out to catch himself. He hit the snowy floor on his gloved hands and then down the hill, sliding onto his side.

He stopped halfway down the hill, his entire right side covered with snow. He turned to a sitting position and carefully stood up, wobbling against the wind. He numbly wiped the snow off of himself before it all melted, gloves wet by the time he was done.

He sighed, biting down on his lip and taking in his dark surroundings. He wouldn’t be able to see Ford even if he was here.

Stan took in a deep breath, then cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted one last time. “Ford if you’re there then just say something!”

He waited in the dull hum of wind broken up by dense trees and softly shifting snow, straining his ears for a response.

Standing still like this and waiting for a noise only made him feel all the more alone.

He glanced down at his hands and took the wet gloves off to shove into his pockets up against the brass knuckles. Turning, he headed back up the hill towards the shack, pushing his hands into his pockets.

He started shivering after a couple minutes, clenching his jaw tight to stop his teeth from clacking.

Stan pressed his arms into his sides bracing himself as he made it back onto flat ground again. The wind has since started to die down, at the very least.

A little while later he finally saw the shape of the shack through the trees, and turned direction to make a beeline towards it.

His right arm and leg felt like they were overheating by this point, but he’d been around enough to know when he was actually in danger of frostbite. That being said, he needed to change and light that fire again because the house was cold enough he’d definitely catch frostbite if he didn’t do anything about it.

Still shaking, he started the fire again. It took a few minutes because his fingers weren’t exactly cooperating right now, but hey.

He went upstairs to swipe some clothes from Ford’s room. He snorted at seeing the few sweater vests hanging in the closet, instead going for a plain black shirt and some pants.

After he changed, he raided through closets until he finally found one with a blanket inside and wrapped it around himself before going back down and sitting in front of the fire to warm up. He was still hungry, but he could deal with that later.

The more he warmed up the more bone tired he felt.

Stan tried to let himself fall asleep, and he was well beyond the point of being tired enough for it, but it took a while. He knew he’d wake up if Ford did come back in the middle of the night, he was a light sleeper. Not knowing what was going on though wasn’t helping.

Eventually though Stan fell asleep.

______

When Stan woke up the fire in front of him had burnt out and the cold was creeping in at him where he wasn’t covered.

He sat up, rubbing his eyes and blearily staring at the burn out embers turned black and gray now.

After a while he finally got up and changed into his dry clothes, calling a couple times into the empty house for Ford. It was worth a shot, even if Ford was nowhere to be seen, of course.

Stomach growling and rolling in on itself, he went to the kitchen and pulled a sleeve of crackers out from the pantry to eat on at the small kitchen table and sitting near the window so he could look out between the wooden boards.

Finding Ford was- hell Ford was the only reason he was here in the first place, he had to find him. And if he hadn’t showed up by now he wasn’t coming back here.

Stan sighed heavily. It was either finding him or figuring out what happened so he could find him. Neither one was going well right now though.

“Okay,” he said to himself. “Okay.”

“So-” he ran his hand through his hair and sighed again. “So, what do I got? He thought someone was watching him, built this place up like he was expecting a raid or something, and now he’s not here.” Stan tapped his finger on the table and chewed on another cracker.

Both doors were locked too so it didn’t look like he was dragged out. Even if someone did drag him out of here, locking the door wouldn’t have made a difference and would have been more work than it was worth.

Stan pulled the postcard Ford had sent him out of his pocket now, looking at it and flipping it over. It had gotten crumpled and the texture had changed from where it had gotten wet last night, but everything was still readable.

He frowned. No send date stamped on it, so that didn’t help him. It could have taken the mail system anywhere from a few days to a few weeks for the post card to reach Stan from Oregon.

So... why would Ford have left this place after he’d fortified it this much. He couldn’t have had somewhere more secure than this, right? Not unless there was secretly a castle in the woods he could hold up inside. Did being watched matter so much that he had to get out of here?

Stan was still looking down at the postcard, thumb tracing over the bent corner that was close to falling off.

Where would he go if he thought this place wasn’t safe?

“Who’d even be watching you out here...?” Stan muttered, tucking the card away and getting up.

Stan went back through the rooms, grabbing any scrap of paper he saw with writing on it and dumped it all onto the desk in a relatively empty study.

He turned the lamp overhead on and started going through the papers for any information, quickly slapping all the stuff that only had equations on it into one pile to look if he got desperate.

What he was left with was - still hard to read just like yesterday, but this time he took the time to try and figure out the actual messy scrawls where they happened and find anything that could help point to what was going on.

The most legible stuff was full of technical jargon and Stan had to focus hard to not read the same sentence over and over again or look at the occasional doodled triangle.

It seemed to be about some machine to do with... electric omega waves? Some kind of waves. The more Stan read the more he picked up on the less scientific stuff inside. Supernatural barriers and rituals that definitely hadn’t come out of a physics textbook.

There was a room here that had been half filled with photos and samples of supernatural things, like mushrooms three times as tall as Ford himself and the needles of whatever a gremloblin was. It was a nice reminder that even if he hadn’t seen Ford yet, his brother still hadn’t changed that much.

After reading through most of the boring stuff Stan was able to piece together at least something. Ford had made two machines.

The first one, which Stan was going to call the problem machine, had made some kind of problem that Ford was trying to fix. He kept briefly mentioning this problem - a hole, a rift, a breach, never anything specific enough to know what it actually was though. No matter what though it always sounded like something about it was a problem or had made a problem.

The second machine was supposed to fix that. Stan didn’t really know how, kinda didn’t look like Ford had figured that out either, but it had something to do with waves and something supernatural.

Going from knowing zilch to knowing something was great, really it was better than the absolute jack all he had yesterday, but he still didn’t know what these machines were actually for.

If he was trying to use the supernatural with the fixer machine though maybe the problem also had something supernatural to it. And whatever the problem was, it was definitely big. Big enough that someone was after him.

Stan nearly gave up on the really illegible stuff, but half way through one page he realized that for several lines Ford was writing the same thing over and over ‘can’t sleep.’

Stan felt a pit drop into his stomach, looking for the very worst writing he could find across the pages and nearly every sentence he managed to trudge through sounded like that. Over and over again, Ford kept talking like even a nap like it was the end of the world.

Finally- god damn finally- Ford mentioned someone.

‘I have to stay awake. I can’t let Him win.’

“Come on, give me a name or something here." It was like the most annoying game of 'Guess Who' but from a vague piece of paper that nobody else besides Stan probably would have bothered to read through considering it was torn nearly in half and smudged in dirt.

Tapping his foot, Stan tried to quickly read and just winded up getting frustrated when he couldn’t, before he finally tossed the paper away from him.

His imagination got away from him, seeing Rico’s guys coming after Ford - except as soon as he imagined them creeping up to where Ford was tucked into the cabin it stopped making sense and the picture in his head fell away.

There were no bullet holes anywhere around the house, not even any forced signs of entry besides the one Stan made himself. So what had been going on when Ford had been here?

He wasn’t sure if he’d prefer if it was like the people he’d dealt with before, it’d be bad, but at least Stan knew how to work with that. This guy? Stan didn’t know what this guy had been doing or what he’d been planning to do that had Ford this scared.

“What was this guy watching you for anyway?” He asked the paper, the only damn thing around here that could even answer his questions.

The lamp light flickered three times before returning to normal. “Better not be cameras in here.” Stan muttered, before picking up a new page to read.

The lamp, however, started going in and out, electricity failing for long enough that it got distracting.

Stan stood up and unplugged the lamp from the wall then securely plugged it back in, looking back at the light a moment to make sure it wasn’t about to go on the fritz again before sitting back down.

He didn’t get far though because the light flickering again, stopping when Stan turned his head to watch it for a moment. He leaned back in his chair, tipping it back onto two legs and letting his eyes glaze over in the direction of all the paper piled up in front of him.

Maybe the guy had nabbed Ford while he was out of the house. It made enough sense. It’d explain why everything had still been locked up when Stan got here and why Ford wouldn’t have come back to his fortress of solitude.

If he was watching Ford then sure he’d know when he left the house and Ford couldn’t stay inside forever if he ran out of food.

The only other option Stan could really think of was that Ford decided this shack wasn’t safe anymore, but again - Stan had no idea where Ford could have gone.

Technically, he also had no idea where anything in town was or where someone could be trapping Ford, but finding a shady place sounded a lot easier than finding whatever Ford would consider safe from this guy’s eyes when a remote cabin out in the woods wasn’t. If Ford left for a new hideout, paranoid that he was being watched, then chances were he made sure he wasn’t seen and left no traces behind.

Stan started to feel grounded, with some options finally sliding into place.

Ford was either being held captive somewhere or he had hidden himself somewhere nobody would find him. So all Stan had to do was look around until he found someone that fit the bill, or if Ford was hiding out somewhere then for him to notice Stan running around and eventually leave him some kind of sign.

Stan's eyes focused as the light from the lamp started to quietly buzz, darkening to a low light before it began flickering.

Stan tipped his chair back to the ground, and reached inside to twist the bulb in tighter.

He watched the lamp expectantly and for a solid couple seconds it seemed like it had done the trick.

Then the light began to flicker on repeatedly, flashing three times and after a pause the light held on for a moment before the bulb darkened again.

Stan watched the faulty light flicker along for a few seconds before he finally stood up and just unplugged it from the wall entirely. He was done reading anyway.

Plus he could eat pretty much anything he wanted when Ford wasn’t here. Even if Ford wanted to get mad at him about it later, he’d just say he couldn’t get to the store for food anyway. Not that Stan had any money to buy food even if he went to town.

Stan went downstairs and into the kitchen, ready to rummage something more than crackers this time.

When he flipped the light switch on though it started flickering and Stan groaned. “You gotta be kidding me.”

He flipped the switch back off. Then on. “Work.”

The light turned on and Stan stayed poised with his finger at the switch and waited. When nothing happened he finally went over to the pantry. “That’s what I thought.”

He pushed aside the box of crackers and started to inspect the cans for soup or something good when the light started slowly flickering again. He ignored it for the first couple seconds, but it kept going.

After a dozen seconds he finally shot a scowl at the still flickering light before walking back towards the switch. The instant he took a step, the light started going completely haywire and he swore he could hear the electricity from it buzzing.

“Alright, yeah that’s-”

Stan had made it halfway across the kitchen when there was a loud pop and the light over his head burst, plunging the room into darkness with the tinkling of glass and a crackling noise of uncontained electricity that soon died down.

[sevralships]

“Worlds Apart”

(So, the other day I watched ‘Blendin’s Game’. At one point, Dipper has the throwaway comment “No one should be alone on their birthday.” The line is made in reference to Soos, but Stan is standing right there when it’s spoken and BOOM just like that, my brain started cooking up some Stangst).

It’s been a few months since Ford was accidentally sucked into the portal. Ford tries to avoid being captured in a dimension far from home, while Stan closes up the new and flourishing Murder Hut. Angst, good grief, so much angst. SFW. 4,429 words.

Fic below cut! Enjoy!

“Thank you for exploring the mysteries of the Murder Hut!” Stan said jovially, as he ushered the last patrons out of the gift shop, “And thank you for buying our over-priced souvenirs! Don’t forget to tell your friends and remember, no refunds!” The couple chuckled as they got into their station wagon, as if he were joking about the no refund policy. Stan watched the car pull out, leaving tire treads in the torn up lawn. As the tail lights disappeared from view, he flipped the sign on the door so that the side that read CLOSED faced outward, resolutely turning the deadbolt.

Stanley turned around and appraised the gift shop. There was merchandise on the shelves that needed to be restocked or tidied, but apart from that he thought it had really come together. It almost looked at if the racks of punny tee shirts and shelves of tchotchkes were the use for which this room had always been intended. It had been some kind of storage room before, and alone he had hauled all of the mysterious sciencey boxes and crates to the lab below or to the junkyard. It wasn’t the first time Stan considered the irony that the weirdness he was peddling wasn’t half as strange as whatever dumb research had been going on here before.

He sighed heavily, and grabbed dad’s old fez off his head, placing it on the counter with some disdain. Stan glared at the symbol of the Holy Mackerel for a moment, absentmindedly running his hand through his hat-flattened hair. Whaddya think of my latest scam, pops? he asked in his head. Sure, he’d probably never become a millionaire at this gig, but people were forking over the dough like you wouldn’t believe. If he’d only known sooner what a natural he was at the sideshow business, he never would have wasted all that time on Stanco Enterprises.

So, yeah, he was making decent money, but it wasn’t like that would matter to dad at this point. Even if he could present the old man with millions, would that explain away the car crash in which he’d ‘died’? Or the reason no one had called him by the name ‘Stanley’ in months? Or why the real Stanford was nowhere to be found?

“The hell with you, old man…” Stan muttered dismissively, flicking the fez and watching it topple over.

-

Well, then, onwards and upwards, Ford thought bitterly to himself as he awkwardly clambered up the ladder of some sort of fire escape. The beings in this dimension had six limbs and as a result, their gait was quite different from that of a human, and the rungs were spaced impractically for a four-limbed biped such as himself. His twelve fingers had made him a freak in his own dimension, and they were no advantage to him here either.

He swiped stinging sweat out of his eyes with one of the aforementioned abnormal hands and kept climbing. He huffed and puffed as he went, cursing the abysmal heat of this dimension. He wished he could ditch his pack, the extra exertion of carrying it contributing to his unreasonably high internal body temperature, but he didn’t dare risk it. Everything he owned was on his back, and some of his belongings had been hard won. Most expendable were the outer layers of clothing he had discarded in an effort to survive the temperature of this world without heat stroke, but he didn’t even dare toss those. For all he knew, the next dimension he found himself in might very well be a frozen tundra, and he would be damned if he was felled by something as avoidable as hypothermia.

“There it is!” A voice behind him called, modulated strangely by his dimensional translator, “The interloper must not get away!”

Stanford cursed under his labored breath, forcing his burning limbs to move faster. Interloper? He didn’t know what he had done to get on these beings’ bad side, but they certainly didn’t sound happy with him. He racked his mind for some perceived infraction. The two chasing him now were the same that had given him food and shelter, and he had no idea what had precipitated their change of heart. What custom had he failed to follow? What offense had he committed? Nothing came to mind, and as he reached the rooftop, he hoped he was overlooking some innocent mistake. If not, there could only be one other explanation, he thought grimly, they struck a deal with someone who made my capture worth their while.

-

Stan’s grumbling stomach led him into the kitchen. He flipped the switch and the exposed bulb overhead came to life, bathing the room in light. The wood-burning stove was cold, useful as it had been in the winter and spring, it was unnecessary in the humid heat of Oregon summer. The climate reminded him of his childhood summers in New Jersey, but it clammier here in the western mountains. He opened the fridge, appreciating the cool air that gushed out at him as he looked over its meager contents. He grabbed a couple things before closing the door and setting about making himself a bologna sandwich just as he had the last three nights.

Stan’s evenings had been too full to devote too much time to making dinner. Instead, his nights were spent wishing he had paid attention to his science classes in high school instead of cheating off of Ford’s work all the time. He wouldn’t have been West Coast Tech material even if he had studied his tail off, but some of that nerd stuff might have come in handy now. Ford’s portal was undeniably well beyond anything the brothers might have learned in their bare minimum public school curriculum, but at least Stan wouldn’t have started right at square one.

It’s useless, he thought to himself, I’ll never be able to get him back. The bite of sandwich Stan was chewing tasted ashen in his mouth. No! He told himself stubbornly, his free hand curling into a determined fist, Stan Pines doesn’t give up that easy! He felt a pang of guilt for even considering it. Sure, it might be impossible, but he’d be damned if that meant he wasn’t going to give it his best shot.

Would Ford do the same for me? Stan couldn’t help wondering, not for the first time. He had never stopped considering Ford his brother and best friend, even as a decade of silence and estrangement passed between them. It didn’t matter. As far as he was concerned, it would take more than ten years to come between twins. Apparently, it would take more than the mysterious gulf of time and space between them too. But would Stanford feel the same way? When he’d first brought Stan here, it wasn’t as a brother. It wasn’t as a friend. It was as a pawn, a partner at best. If he didn’t want anything to do with me then, Stan thought, his shoulders slumping with blame, why would he want anything to do with me now?

-

Finally on the roof, Ford desperately ducked behind a large funnel-like structure to hide. It very seldom rained here, he had been informed, and it was crucial for the six-limbed humanoids here to gather as much of the rainwater as they possibly could. Grateful for the slightly less suffocating heat in the shade of the funnel, Ford dug into the satchel at his waist for the device that allowed him to move between dimensions at will. It was not of his making, but rather a very important acquisition he had made shortly after escaping the Nightmare Realm. Hopefully he’d get a chance some time soon to tinker with the thing and make it more practical. Had he designed such a device, he would surely have given the user the power to choose which dimension they would be transported to. Whatever lunatic was responsible for the design of this device had thought to include all sorts of features, a day-counter, an external thermometer, something like a compass, but hadn’t thought to give the user any way of controlling or predicting where they ended up. It was a gamble of which his pragmatic mind was not too fond.

Holding the device in his hands now, Ford was perturbed to find that the thermometer on it read a higher temperature than he’d ever seen on it. He wasn’t sure what unit it measured in, not celsius or fahrenheit or even kelvin, but he’d gotten a rough idea of the conversion rate from observation and the number he saw before him did nothing to ease his mind. Don’t be foolish, Stanford, he scolded himself, you did not need a thermometer reading to ascertain that this dimension is unbearably hot.

Ford’s unease doubled however, when his attempt to leave this god-forsaken dimension was unsuccessful. Instead of doing as he had told it to do, the device gave him some sort of error message. He was still deciphering the language the device had been programmed to display, but he knew enough to figure out that the device was too overheated to function. He muttered a curse to himself as he heard his pursuers reach the roof.

“Where did it go?” One of them asked, “Did it go down the other side?”

“I still smell it,” the other replied plainly, “It was complaining of the heat, maybe its weak body gave out.”

“You’d better hope not,” the first creature replied, “Not if you want One-Eye to keep up its end of the wager, at least.”

“Of course, I do,” came the reply, “You check that side of the roof, I’ll check around the rain-catcher.”

So it is as I feared, Ford thought grimly, blowing on the overheated device in his hand in a vain attempt to cool it down, He’s found me again. Who knows what he promised these fools in exchange for my capture. He could hear the four feet of one of his pursuers grow near, and slipped the device back into his satchel and clenched his fists. All my education and sometimes I swear those boxing lessons are the only thing on which I can rely.

-

With the hunger in his belly acceptably sated, Stanley set to work getting the gift shop ready for the following day. It had been a decent day for sales. He hadn’t realized the summer drew so many tourists to Roadkill County, Oregon but he was more than happy to clean out their wallets for them. He tried to quiet his worries as he set about replacing shirts on emptied hangers, filling in gaps on the shelves, adding more Murder Hut pens and bumper stickers to the trays by the cash register. It wasn’t working.

This place was strange. It was the key to the Murder Hut’s success. Despite the offbeat wackiness of the fake attractions he had been fabricating, it was the pervasive weirdness of this place that really sold it. None of the outlandish attractions he was showing were as bizarre as the real things he’d seen around Gravity Falls. It had seemed like a nondescript enough place when first he had arrived this past winter, but his first impression had been wrong. He could have sworn he’d seen small bearded men scurrying across the forest floor, had seen butterflies that upon closer inspection sure looked like some sort of pixies or fairies.

His nerdy brother had always been fascinated with oddities, had always been drawn to the strange creatures and monsters of science fiction, fantasy, and folklore. It made sense that Poindexter had chosen the freakiest town in the country to throw away his grant money. Some things about his house, however, didn’t seem to add up. His eyes traveled on their own to the rug beneath his feet. He’d moved it in here to give the gift shop a more welcoming, kitschy vibe, on account of the mysterious one-eyed triangle design. He’d only ever seen something like the design on dollar bills, but doubted Ford’s otherwise shabby, unfinished home drew any decor inspiration from money. It was a motif he had found all over the house, windows, paintings, glass prisms, everywhere he looked he seemed to find more triangles. He remembered Ford excelling at and enjoying trigonometry in high school, but even Ford didn’t love math enough to let it dictate how he decorated his home. Most of the triangles had eyes, never more than one, giving Stan the skin-crawly sense that he was being watched.

Well, I’ll just have to ask him, Stan decided, using his foot to smooth a wrinkle in the eerie rug, I’m sure he has some dumb explanation for the triangle obsession, and just as soon as I get him back, I’ll find out what it is.

-

Without hesitation, Ford threw a punch, his fist connecting loudly with the face of one of the beings that had been following him. His knuckles landed square against the creature’s nose and he felt the brittle exoskeleton fracture. An instant later he was running across the rooftop, towards the edge. It was only a few feet between this building and the next, and without allowing himself time to hesitate he leapt, easily clearing the gap. It was not a maneuver that would come easily to the scuttle-y movements of this dimensions inhabitants, and he wanted to put as much distance between them and himself as possible.

The sky was a strange wash of greens and purples, something he had come to recognize as an equivalent to the vibrant sunsets in dimension 46’/. He was outside the settlement where his two betrayers had taken him in, and he knew they wouldn’t dare pass into ‘the wilds’ as they called them, especially not past nightfall. The climate here was like that of a very extreme earthly desert; once the sun was below the horizon the temperature would drop drastically. Had Ford been planning to spend another night here, he would be worried for his life. Between the cold and the mysterious beasts that inhabited the wilds, it was not a place he would like to try and make camp. However, he only intended to stay long enough to get his overheated device back in working order so he could get the hell out of dodge.

Stanford did not slow down until he approached a strange cluster of plants, large as the maples and pines of Oregon but more like cacti in structure. The sandy ground would have been shaded here for some time already and with the sky growing dark the temperature would be plummeting soon. He sat down in the sand and placed the device on the ground in front of him, impatiently checking the temperature every few seconds.

He nearly fell over with shock at the sight of Stanley on the small glossy screen, only to realize with a start that it was his own reflection he was seeing. He touched the fingertips of one six-fingered hand to the scruffy facial hair on his chin and jaw, hiding the cleft chin that was easiest distinguishing mark to tell the twins apart. He wasn’t wearing his glasses, having been too worried he would lose or break the precious tool in the chase, and he looked scruffy and wild-eyed, with a few scuffs and scrapes on his face. It was startling to realize the resemblance when it was normally like night and day for the twins to tell themselves apart in photographs. He sighed, and realized to his own surprise that he was actually disappointed that he couldn’t see Stanley. This is all his fault, he reminded himself stubbornly, pushing away the thought before it could distract him too much, If only he’d listened to me, instead of letting his emotions run rampant yet again…

Finally the device in his hand was back to a functional temperature, and not a moment too soon as the cold air was making goosebumps rise on his sweaty skin. It’s no use thinking about Stanley, he told himself sternly, It doesn’t matter where the blame may lie, you’re never going to see him again. He’s not the one you should concern yourself with. The device began whirring in his hands, sending small surges of power through his fingers, feeling almost like static shocks. As the ground seemed to fall out from under him, and he was pulled into the tight vacuum of teleportation, Ford reminded himself obstinately, Bill Cipher. It’s not my reckless brother, but my deceitful Muse who is to blame.

-

Stan gingerly rolled the snack cart aside, revealing the door down to the lab in the basement. He reminded himself again to find something better to cover the door. What lay beneath the house was too important, and too dangerous, to risk some dumb tourist wandering down there by mistake. He moved down the dim stairs carefully, reluctantly even. He didn’t really want to go down there, he had to.

He emerged into the lab and once again the enormity of his mistakes weighed heavily on his shoulders. All of Ford’s machines, many of which he did not know the function of, hummed and beeped along, absolutely indifferent to their creator’s absence. He couldn’t have disagreed more. This place, more than anywhere else in Gravity Falls, more than anywhere else in the Murder Hut, was Ford. It was of Ford, and for Ford, and every panel, lever, monitor, and jarred specimen seemed to bear Ford’s name.

Guilt gnawed in Stanley’s gut. I never meant for any of this to happen, he thought, desperate for some kind of forgiveness. But what sort of forgiveness could he find? Not from his parents, who thought him dead. Not from Ford, who was worlds away if he was even still alive. Certainly not from himself. There was no way he could forgive himself until Ford was home safely, but it was hard to believe in the probability of that. Stan’s jaw tightened as he gazed through the glass at the mysterious portal, dormant and showing no signs of ever having come alive.

How many times had he replayed that fateful day in his head in the past few months? He was dying to make more sense of it, but it had just all happened so fast. Ford had seemed so different from the moment Stan had arrived and in hindsight, that should have made him behave more cautiously. Ma always said hindsight is 20/20, Stan thought absently, and tried to ignore the stab of loneliness for his mother he felt in his chest. Grow up, he scolded himself at one, what grown man wishes for his mommy?

Even if there were some way he could reach out to his parents, there was nothing they could do. This was his mistake, his fault, his crime. And only he could fix it.

-

The intense pressure lifted and Stanford felt solid ground beneath his feet. His stomach heaved but he managed to keep from vomiting. It was nighttime in this dimension as well and quite dark, although the sky was littered with an unbelievable amount of stars. He crouched down, touching the ground tentatively with one hand, and was relieved to find soft grass beneath him. He lied down immediately, eager to rest after yet another day of running and betrayal. An indignant twinge ran through him, Have I not had a lifetime’s worth of running and betrayal already?

Ford drew a deep breath in through his nose and slowly let it out his mouth. He stretched out on the soft ground and looked up at the sea of stars, telling himself that he would figure out where he was come morning. No sooner had he shut his eyes than Bill was there, applauding patronizingly, “BRAVO, FORDSY,” he said, his eye smiling smugly, “QUITE  A SHOW YOU PUT ON TODAY!”

“This is a dream,” Ford said stubbornly, turning his back on Bill and trying to ignore the dim shadow of Glass Shard Beach around them.

Bill was instantly in front of him, his small black hands at his sides as if on his hips, “OF COURSE IT IS, THAT’S NO EXCUSE TO BE RUDE.”

“You have no authority to be giving me lessons in decorum,” Ford sneered. He jabbed his chest with a finger, “I escaped your goons.”

Bill shrugged concedingly, “PITY FOR THEM,” he said off-hand, “BREAKING A DEAL WITH ME TENDS TO BE FATAL.”

“Well, it would appear that isn’t always the case,” Ford said, determined not to let Bill bully him.

“OH, I DON’T MEAN YOU, FORDSY,” Bill corrected, practically batting his eyelashes, “YOU STILL HAVE A PART TO PLAY IN MY PLANS.”

“You’ll have to catch me first.” Ford snarled challengingly, only to garner a bone-chilling cackle from his ex-Muse.

“YOU CAN’T RUN FOREVER, FORDSY,” Bill said, his voice almost genial.

“I’m not scared of you, Bill!” Ford insisted, shutting his eyes tight and willing the dream to end.

Bill laughed again, “C’MON, PAL, WE BOTH KNOW YOU’RE SMARTER THAN THAT!”

Ford opened his eyes, a fiery retort ready to leap from his tongue, only to find a serene starry sky before him instead of his traitorous foe. He hoped Bill was bluffing about killing the beings from that desert dimension that had taken him in and then betrayed him. Yes, they had sold him out to Bill, but who knew what he had promised them. In their world, even water was a commodity, no doubt Bill had presented a reward they couldn’t turn down. Bill cannot win, he told himself for the umpteenth time, pushing away his pity for the two new casualties, Destroying him may very well be impossible, but I’d sooner die trying than be a pawn to him ever again.

He sighed heavily and sat up, grabbing his inter-dimensional teleportation device, hoping to distract himself trying to learn something about this new dimension. He observed the temperature, the compass reading, other various readings about the atmosphere. His eye was drawn to the day-count feature. He had acquired the device only a couple days after going through the portal, by his rough estimation, and he had managed to re-program the feature to count up from that point in hopes of measuring how long he had been away from his home dimension. Like a prisoner or a castaway’s tally marks on the walls of their cell or cave, there was something sickening and yet satisfying about seeing the number grow. It read one hundred twenty; about four months.

He reminded himself that the count might be somewhat off, but it did little to ease the queasiness he felt all of a sudden. It was likely that some of that was a result of hunger or teleportation, perhaps some a response to something unique to the air in this dimension, but there was no denying that some of it was regret. Regret for trusting a lying beast like Bill Cipher, regret for turning his back on his brother, regret for calling on him the way that he had. It had been selfish, blind, and he knew it. What good does regret do you now? He reminded himself, trying to shake off the feeling, You were only doing what had to be done. But whatever his motives had been, the result was still he and Stanley spending the eleventh consecutive birthday alone.

Just at that moment, a deep menacing growl issued from a spot a few feet away from Stanford and he was back on his feet in an instant. Well, maybe not exactly alone, he thought wryly. The unseen creature growled again, and Ford thought bleakly, Happy birthday, Stanley.

-

Stan groaned in frustration, slamming Ford’s journal shut. It was no use. I’m too tired and too stupid and too fucking sad to make sense of any of this, he fumed to himself. He had been dreading today for weeks. Missing Stanford and hating himself for losing him were central to all of his days lately, but he knew it would only cut that much deeper today.

As children, they’d loved their birthday. It didn’t matter much what they did with the day, they were best friends and just the fact that the day was shared made it special. But that very same thing was what had made it impossible to enjoy the day ever since he’d lost everything. He still swore it had all been a big misunderstanding. Of course, he hadn’t wanted his best and only friend to move across the country and move onto a life in which he was out of place, but not enough to ever commit the crime of which he’d been accused. Stanford was the most important person in the world to him, he would never have sabotaged his chance at happiness and fulfillment. Sure, he was selfish, but he could never be that selfish.

But somehow it had happened twice. A fit of hurt and anger had pulled Ford from his life yet again, and this time he wasn’t going to take it lying down. He had worked hard trying to find some way to earn back his place in the family the first time around, but this time it wasn’t about pops or about acceptance or a pat on the head. The most important person in his world was no longer actually in his world, and he needed to fix it. He had broken it, and he needed to know that he could fix it.

But he had to accept that it wasn’t getting fixed tonight. He grabbed a permanent marker from the cup that held several writing implements on the desk. He stood up, popping his back, and walked over to the very utilitarian calendar that hung on the wall. At first after Ford had been snatched away from him by the bizarre portal, he had been numbering the days, before it had become apparent that he wouldn’t be able to just get the portal going with a little elbow grease and ingenuity. It had been too depressing, watching the numbers grow, and he had opted just to cross off each box with an x as the days passed.

He drew an x through June 15th and sighed again, dropping the marker back in the cup. He turned his back on the inexplicably lifeless portal. As he started up the stairs, despite knowing there would be no reply, he softly muttered, “Happy birthday, Ford.” to the empty room that held his only hope for redemption.

[fordanoia]

I Think I Saw You [Ch 2: Interference]

Fandom: Gravity Falls || CW: - || Stan comes to Gravity Falls upon receiving a postcard from Ford, but he can’t find him and he has to figure out what’s going on. || Ao3 || Fic Tag

Prologue || Ch 1 || Ch 2 || Ch 3 || - || - || -

______(~6.3k words)______

Stan squinted up at the small ceiling light, eyes adjusting to the sudden change in light. When he could see again, he was able to make out shards of glass from the light bulb sitting at the bottom of the foggy dome.

Great.

He quietly flipped off the light switch for all the good it did and walked back to the pantry, rubbing the back of his neck. 

Light bulbs going out wasn’t that out of the norm though. Even as he tried to reason that out to himself though, he knew it was bull.

Sure. Light bulbs going out was pretty common. What wasn’t ordinary was faulty lighting that followed you into a different room in a house that was working with zero problems beforehand. 

That wasn’t normal. Nothing about this - any of this was normal. 

Stan sighed, rifling back into the cabinet for food and making himself a can of soup.

The house could have had bad wiring, and maybe it actually did, but not one light bulb even so much as flickered yesterday when he’d had every light on in the house at the same time.

It was suspicious, and he knew it was still just a light bulb blowing out, but he wasn’t an idiot. Well, he wasn’t that much of an idiot. There was ‘weird,’ and then there was ‘something is definitely going on here.’ Heck, Ford’s house was chock full of weird stuff and half of that stuff looked supernatural so it’s not like it would be that much of a surprise. 

In all honesty, he still hadn’t ruled out something supernatural for what had been going on with Ford. Not like he’d been able to rule out anything since he’d started actually thinking about how to find him though. 

In a matter of days he’d gone from not caring about Ford to caring a whole lot about finding him. If Ford hadn’t written him, Stan wouldn’t have even known or worried about this. Maybe Ma would have written to him about it though.

Ma’s letters had gotten a lot shorter and started showing up a whole less often a long time ago, but Stan still got them now and then. The few times she had mentioned Ford in her letters it had been with a quick, lone sentence slipped between sentences about something else entirely. She didn’t even use his name, it was always ‘your brother.’ Shermie was Shermie, but ‘your brother’ was only ever Ford.

‘Your brother’s off at school now.’

‘Your brother’s got a research job all the way in Oregon.’

The comments always stuck out in the middle of her words like a sharp tack. No matter how she tried to slip it in casually and pretend like stuff was fine, it still stuck out like a sore thumb. 

It was like some bad joke, except there wasn’t a punchline here. 

Stan smiled to himself, imagining how she would have told him about this. 

‘I’ve been doing tarot readings on my calls now. Your brother’s missing. Describing the card’s meaning adds up so much time.’

He tried to think about that, about how funny that part of the situation would have been, how funny it was because it was pretty much how it would go down if it happened. 

His own word choice eventually sunk in though. He hadn’t really thought of Ford as ‘ missing’ before. ‘Missing’ brought with it a lot of other meanings and implied situations than just ‘not home’ or ‘gone’ did. 

This whole thing with Ford may have looked bad... and it was, but if Stan could bounce back from going missing missing a dozen times then Ford could do it at least once, right? 

All Ford had to do was be alive.

The thought sat heavy for a moment with half formed ideas that he immediately pushed away. He didn’t need to get caught up thinking about- about dumb stuff. 

Ford was just... missing. Ford was just missing, and all Stan had to do was find him. That wasn’t too bad. It was still bad and Stan was having a hell of a time since he’d gotten that postcard, but it definitely wasn’t the worst situation Stan had ever been in. 

Stan had food, a roof over his head, and so far nobody in town wanted him dead! If it wasn’t for the missing brother he was trying to find, he’d be doing great.

Even weird spirits messing with lights weren’t that bad. It just was giving him some bad ideas about what was going on here. 

He wouldn’t be surprised if something in Ford's house could mess with lights though. Between all his nerdy science junk and the nerdy supernatural stuff, there was something bound to mess with electricity. 

Stan had spotted more than a dozen homemade looking gadgets around the house, and he didn’t know what a single one of them did. He’d tried picking up a small remote looking thing in the kitchen and pressed a button on it. It had made a quiet hum noise, let out three angry beeps, then shot out a piece of metal into his palm and shocked him.

He stopped messing with the gadgets after that one.

So there was a good chance Ford had something hooked up that was zapping the power in the house weird. Or Stan had awakened a vengeful spirit from its resting place of some spooky vase he’d nudged.

Either one was fine by him. Honestly, he already had plenty of people that wanted revenge against him so one spirit that couldn’t even throw a knife was really low on his list of worries for his own life.

Heck, even thinking about some ancient cursed spirit or invisible wizard floating around him made him feel better. It was like having company around. Invisible, probably floating company like an annoying upstairs neighbor he never actually saw.

“Hey,” Stan spoke, his lips quirking into a lopsided smile. “If there’s a ghost here then knock over a chair or something.” He half joked. “Oh, or slam open all the cabinets at the same time. I always wanted to see something like that happen.” If he was in a haunted house he might as well make the most of it.

He didn’t hear anything though, besides the noises of the microwave. Eventually the timer went off and Stan popped open the small door.

“Eh, suit yourself.”

Once he finished eating, Stan got ready to head into town. As fun as reading barely legible notes were, he could only figure out so much from them and he wasn’t going to find Ford in that house. 

Either he’d find someone suspicious in town or someone suspicious would come after him if he stirred things up enough about Ford. If they tried to get rid of Ford then chances were good they’d try to get rid of him if he just kept bothering enough people about him. 

Stan picked his bag up and headed towards the front door. He hesitated at all the mismatching locks drilled into the wall beside the frame.

He’d already seen it, but it was still an unsettling reminder. A guy doing fine didn’t have seven different locks on his door. 

His ears buzzed in the silence, the stagnant air at his back pressing in on him. 

On a whim, he looked backwards into the dim hallway and reached for the light switch near the door, keeping his finger against it as he flicked it on.

The hallway illuminated in a soft warm light that did nothing, no changing brightness or unsteady flashing that could hint at anything else being here besides himself. 

If Stan just kept his eyes on the hallway, and not down at the mess near his feet or into the shadows of any of the rooms, it looked like a cozy wooden shack. It looked like a place that could have been nice. It would have been too. If the rest of the house didn’t practically scream that something was wrong. If Ford wasn’t...

Stan scoffed at himself, and flipped the switch back down again before undoing the locks on the front door to leave.

  All things considered, it looked like a pretty regular small town, and for some reason something about that pissed off a small part of Stan. 

Okay, maybe... half of him...

Okay, so it pissed him off, but he didn’t know why. 

Something about Ford choosing to come to a small town. He couldn’t care less to follow down the why of it though. Besides, that didn’t matter. A small town right now was great because it meant less places Ford could be holed up at and that he didn’t have to waste gas to get around.

He drove around once to get his bearings and hopefully spot something good. The snow had been plowed off of the roads and he’d seen a few people walking around on the sidewalk. No sign of Ford, of course though. The universe couldn’t make it that easy for him apparently. 

The town had a pretty basic layout with everything centered around the town square and a water tower you could always see that made it easy to tell where you were in the town.

Stan parked at the nearest place to Ford’s house which turned out to be a diner on the side of the road not far from the outskirts of town called Greasy’s Diner.

The diner was in front of the woods and the building itself was shaped like a friggin’ log laying on its side. He went inside, the bell ringing as he opened the door.

It didn’t look too busy. There were a couple people scattered throughout the small diner, and only one waitress who was standing behind the counter. 

She had bright blue eyeshadow and shiny earrings that caught the light when she turned towards him with a smile, cheerfully greeting him. “Hi, stranger! What can I get for you?”

“Do you have a menu?” He asked, with absolutely zero intention of buying anything as he sat down on one of the stools at the counter.

She turned to point at a chalkboard that had a small list of items on it. No big surprise when he saw the same breakfast food every diner had. 

“I might need a minute.” He said. 

“That’s alright, take your-” She stopped suddenly, her voice quickly and excitedly picking back up. “Wait a second, I know you!”

Shit... Shit.

Stan laughed tensely, turning his face away and pretending to look at the arm wrestling machine. “Me? Ha, no way. I just got into town, see. You must be thinking of someone else.”

He hadn’t even been to Oregon before, how did she know-?!

“No,” she insisted, “you’re that- you’re the mysterious science man from the woods, right?”

Stan’s mind stopped running through where he could have seen her before, and he looked back at her again.

She lit up at his reaction. “I knew it!” She said happily. “I knew I recognized you. I’ve got great eyes.”

His own face recovered before he did, giving a practiced, winning smile. “Close! I’m actually his brother.” He stumbled over the final word.

"Oh brother, huh?" She said with interest, and then the light just behind her began to flicker, and Stan wasn't looking at her anymore. "Well, nice to meet you, I'm Susan-!"

"Does your light always do that?" He interrupted. 

Susan turned, catching sight of the flickering bulb. “Ohhh, I just replaced that one!” She took a step stool tucked away, and set it underneath the lightbulb, stepping onto it to reach the light.

As soon as she started touching it though, it stopped flickering, and she set her hands on her hips with a self-satisfied smile.

Then the next hanging light bulb started flickering. 

Amidst the waitresses’ commentary that he was tuning out, Stan realized the light was flashing a pattern he recognized. He pushed himself to stand, hands on the counter, staring at the signal. It wasn’t perfect, but it was there. Three short, three long, three short, and over again.

Whatever was doing that, it was signalling S.O.S..

When Susan's hands settled on the flashing light bulb, it stopped and the next light bulb over immediately picked up the pattern.

A small cry from his right finally broke his attention from the flashing bulb, and Stan glanced over. A light bulb hanging over a booth burnt out, and Stan realized all the lights past that one had gone out already, leaving the far end of the diner dim.

The next closest light, the one hanging over the counter, fizzled out then burnt out next. Stan glanced to his left and saw the same thing happening on his other side.

One by one, it kept happening, the lights going out slowly all in a line headed right to him. Indiscreet murmurs made it hard to hear the buzzing of fluctuating electricity. 

And still, still, the light bulb right in front of him was signalling S.O.S., flashing quicker, more insistent, as the lights burnt themselves out in quicker succession the closer they got to him.

Stan braced for an unseen impact that never came as the last few lights broke. 

As it reached the last bulb, the one that had never stopped flashing over his head, the bulb shattered. Sharp, thin sounds of glass hit the counter and floor, punctuated by Susan shouting in surprise. 

“Darn transformer!” Susan said, brushing her apron free of any glass shards.

He slowly shook his arms to throw off any glass on him and ran a hand through his hair. 

“The transformer?” Stan slowly looked at her. “The transformer ? Transformers don’t do that. Lights don’t-” He cut himself off, glancing up briefly at the broken light bulb that had been flashing S.O.S. not even knowing where to begin thinking about that yet.

She looked back at him, confused before awkwardly picked out a dustpan. “Well, sure.” She thought for a second, then added on as she swept up the glass. “Well- You know, the power used to go out all the time here. All across town! It’s probably just that starting back up again, actually!”

“Why though?”

She hummed. “I dunno.” Susan said as she dumped the broken glass into a trash can then carefully wiped the counter for any glass. “Always thought that it had something to do with whatever mysterious thing your brother was working on. It stopped a few months ago though. Maybe he’s working on something again in that house! Have you been to his house yet? I bet it’s filled with all kinds of experiments.”

“Not yet. I better go see him actually. I’m shoplifting something to eat anyway.”

“Huh?” She stopped cleaning to look at him. 

“Uh- I said I’m eating with him anyway.” He smiled at her. “Hey, has anyone ever told you you’re really good at wiping counters?”

She immediately brightened up at the compliment. “Oh, thanks! I wipe in zigzag patterns! ”

“...I noticed.” He backed up to leave. “Well, anyway see ya.”

“Bye! Come back soon.” 

The door chimed after him once he left. He stuffed his hands into his pockets and turned out onto the sidewalk heading further into town.

Okay. Okay . 

His thoughts just kept swirling around over and over, none of them settling long enough for any of them to go anywhere. He already didn’t know what was going on here, and now? Now there was something weird in the mix that apparently wasn’t just stuck at Ford’s house?

Maybe it had something to do with all this, maybe it didn’t. Either way it wasn’t telling him anything.

“You know I’m kinda busy right now, yeah?” He muttered to the air. “You need help? Then actually say it or- hell.”

Stan stopped walking along the strip outside of some shop front. The large glass wall showcased some antiques set up front for display and past that there were shelves lined with more knicknacks. He leaned close to the glass, taking in a deep breath of air and letting it out to fog up the window. 

“Alright.” He said, writing a question mark into the fogged up glass. “Say something.”

He waited, watching the fogged spot. 

Instead of messages getting written in the glass, one of the lights on the strand lining the window began to flicker. You know what, fine, that worked too.

Three short blinks, S. No- four. No. No, it wasn’t- it wasn’t morse code. It was too erratic and fast. It was just... flickering.

“That’s nothing, you’re saying nothing.”

As if angered, the light bulb burnt out in response. Then three more of the lights started flickering then quickly burnt out. Again though, it wasn’t any kind of morse code, it just looked like a light going out.

Stan turned on his heel without hesitation and walked down the sidewalk. “Yeah, yeah, I got that the first time.”

The ghost- spirit, whatever it was - he didn’t care and he didn’t pay attention to it. As he walked, lights would dim or flicker when he passed by them. If he couldn't understand it then there was nothing he could do about it anyway. 

This was exactly what he needed, one more confusing layer on this whole thing, because apparently now there was a spirit involved in all of this now. This was his life now. 

He couldn’t even care less if he was being haunted right now, at least up until it started throwing knives at him. What he did care about though was if it had anything to do with what was going on or if Stan really had just accidentally cursed himself when he was rifling through Ford’s junk. 

He also wasn’t sure why it would need help and even less sure what he could even do to help a spirit that he couldn’t even understand. He was half thinking it was just messing with him.

Why did it signal for help, then just decide to go back to ‘spooky flickering lights’ instead of using morse code again even if it was just S.O.S. over and over? It didn’t make sense. Nothing since he’d gotten here made sense.

Stan twisted his knuckles against each other through the fabric of his pockets, ignoring the occasional flickering light. Eventually the lights stopped, taking the hint.

  He might not have had any leads about where Ford was at, but he knew at least one place Ford had to have visited.

The library was a pretty small wooden building, cozy and by the looks of it empty too. Ford probably would have thought it was the perfect place. 

The second Stan pushed in the front door, he heard a buzzing to his left and the light in the small foyer flickered haphazardly. He rolled his eyes, ignoring the bulb burning out and kept walking inside.

A quick glance around, he didn’t see anyone around. After looking down a couple aisles though he spotted someone glancing over a row of books. Stan was about to dismiss it as another patron before they glanced over at him and jumped.

Their hair was pulled back into a haphazard bun that looked like it was gonna fall loose when they turned their head from whatever hair tie or clips that were holding it together. 

“Oh-! Uh.” They paused, looking at Stan, uncertain. “Ford?”

Fucking Bingo. 

Stan walked closer so he could talk with them. “Hey, really close. I’m his brother. I was actually looking for him.” 

“Oh.” They straightened up. “Sorry, uh... I haven’t seen him around here lately.” 

Stan hummed. “Hey, you work here, right?”

“Yeah. Can I help you with anything?”

“Yeah,” Stan said. “Yeah, could you tell me what books Ford’s got checked out right now?”

They agreed easily enough and led him back towards the circulation desk and turned to the rows of small square drawers on the back wall behind the desk.

Once they pulled out one of the drawers, the desk lamp Stan had only just really noticed started to flicker, and Stan shot a warning look at it. 

It stopped flickering. 

The librarian, Lee going by the name tag that was close enough for him to read now, turned back around, looking at a card in their hand. “Yeah, this is it.” They said, looking up and holding the card out to him. “Here.” 

As soon as Stan grabbed it the desk light suddenly burned out into a dark grey as it went out.

The librarian paused with their hand out, looking over at the lamp before focusing back on Stan again and retracting their hand. “Uh, anyways, this card has all the books he had checked out. They're all overdue..."

"Ha, yeah, that's Ford for you." Stan said with a short smile. “Booknerds, am I right?”

Their mouth opened a couple times like they had a couple different things to say before they finally settled, frowning at him. “They’re really overdue...”

Eh, that’s on him for trying to talk about nerds to a librarian. “Yeah, yeah, right. I’ll tell him when I see him.” He looked down at the card, quickly realizing the dates on the books checked out. 

"Hey, nothing's been checked out in the past few months." Stan said, looking back at them. "You got a newer card?"

"That's it." They answered simply. 

Stan half smiled, feeling a laugh curdling and souring in the back of his throat. "Come on, ha, you're telling me he hasn't been here for what, weeks?"

Quietly, they looked back at him with a half concerned expression. 

The silence quickly stagnated the air around them.

He cleared his throat and checked the card again, reading it all the way through this time. “Okay then...”

It looked like there were still five books checked out. Most of them had some kind of occult or supernatural title like 'Exploration of Demons & Spirits’ except for one that had a really long title about neural oscillation and electricity. His thoughts went dead in the water, trying to make sense of that one.

Who went and decided a title could go on for two or three sentences?

Even the short titles didn’t stick out to him much past them being about supernatural ghosts and fairies. No matter how he turned all the titles over in his head all he could take away from it was that Ford was reading up on ‘supernatural stuff and science junk’ which covered everything Ford studied. 

Stan heard the tail end of a question, “-ng alright?”

“Huh?” Stan looked up to see Lee watching him. 

“I said, is he doing alright?” They asked again, brow slightly furrowed. 

Lee had only been the second person he’d talked to Ford about today, but It felt like Stan was getting asked the same annoying question for the thousandth time. This person had to know something.

“How'd he look when you last saw him?" Stan asked instead.

They paused awkwardly and glanced aside, meandering with their words. "The last time I saw him... he seemed like he was in a hurry. Maybe he had a work deadline? I think he was stressed out.”

“Did he ever mention some guy?” 

They paused. “I’m... sorry, what?”

“I said, did he ever mention some guy?” Stan repeated himself. “When he was stressed out, did he ever talk about anybody. Or have any friends? Hell, did anybody ever come in here with him or seem like they were looking for him?” 

Lee’s eyes widened before their whole face shut down into an even expression and they took the card back out of his hand, busying themselves with putting the card back in its place. "I actually don't know." They said in a clipped tone. "Sorry."

Stan wanted to reach over the desk to pull them back by their shirt. He knew, he knew he was asking suspicious questions and he should have been playing it cool. They were hiding something though. 

“Hey, buddy.” Stan said, waiting for them to turn back around.

They tensely turned back towards him with a polite expression. "Is there anything else I can help you with?" Their fingers tucking into the edge of the check out desk.

"Cut the bull." Stan told them, well beyond irritated. “Whatever, you know, I don’t care, but whatever it is I need to hear it.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Nope. Try again.”

“I don’t-” Lee put up their hands. “Look, he was getting really suspicious about people last I saw him, but I don’t know anything about- whatever all this is about.”

Stan felt something in him, some tiny thread just snap.

“You have to know more than that.” Stan said, not even looking at them now. “You talked to him.”

He started to walk around in a short circle and gestured as his voice climbed, getting gradually louder. “This was the goddamn library, he was probably here- what? Countless times. More than- more than the friggin' grocery story or any other stupid building in this whole town outside of his own house!”

Stan pulled his voice back down, straining his voice. “Someone has to know something about my brother.” He said, finally looking back at them. 

If even the damn librarian barely knew anything about Ford...

Lee was watching him, fidgeting with their hands. “Alright... Uh.” They pushed their hands flat onto the desk, continuing calmly. “Look, he was here a lot, yes, but he didn’t talk about himself a lot and... and I really don’t know why he stopped showing up.”

“He never mentioned a name...?” Stan tried, hoping for something.

“No. Have you tried asking his neighbors or friends?”

Stan shut his eyes for a moment, all of his energy just leaving him all at once. “He lives out in the middle of the woods, and... and if he has friends I don’t know who they are or how to find them.” 

Stan opened his eyes back up again. “I’m just trying to find him.” He said. “I know you just work here or whatever, but I don’t know anybody that knew him and I don’t know where he’s at. Just...” He breathed in, feeling his ribs pressing in on him, “gimme something here.” 

They looked at him quietly and then their eyes shifted downwards in thought “He did come here once with someone a couple times... but that was- half a year ago?”

“You know who?”

Lee shook their head. "I don’t. He came every now and then, without your brother, but I haven’t seen him in a while either. He was tall and lanky though." 

“Anything else?”

“Uh.” They shrugged their shoulders. "He... might have had blonde hair? It was too long ago, I’m sorry, I really couldn’t tell you.”

A guy. A guy that was maybe blonde.

“Great...” He said.

“You know- he picked out textbooks mostly. I could check through some name cards and see if maybe I can spot him.”

Stan perked up a little. “You really think you would recognize him by some  books he checked out?”

“Well- maybe.” They said. “The textbooks don’t get checked out that often except by students so it’d stick out.”

Wait.

“You said textbooks? Do you remember what kind?”

Lee steepled their hands underneath their chin, squinting in thought for a long moment.

“... Math?” They finally said. 

“So definitely another nerd then.” 

That sounded like someone Ford could be friends with, also could be someone that was behind this. Either way if Stan could find him, he’d consider that a win.

“It’ll take me a couple days to check through the cards though.” Lee said.

“You’re actually going to do it?” Stan asked, a little surprised. 

“I mean, it’s not like you’re gonna beat the guy up or nothing, right?” They half joked, smiling.

That depended on what the guy was like.

“Oh, course not.” Stan scoffing and waving his hand nonchalantly. “Ha, no. No, I’ve never even gotten into a fight.” He said casually, swinging his arms then planting his fists against his side.

A brass knuckle fell out of his coat pocket and hit the thin carpet with a dull thud.

Stan swiped down to pick it up, putting it back in his pocket before the librarian could see it. “Paperweight.”

“You carry a paperweight around with you?”

“...It’s Ford’s.”

“Ahh.” Lee nodded their head in sudden understanding. “Okay, well, anyway, try coming back here in a couple days.”

“Will do.” Stan turned to leave with a wave. “If you see him then just let him know I was looking for him.”

  After long enough of poking around town, it’d turned dark and he’d gotten zero leads after asking practically half the town. Nobody besides the librarian had even seemed to know Ford’s name or anything about him. People only seemed to know him as the mysterious man who did science out in the middle of the woods. 

Even the seediest looking place in town, a bar that didn’t even look bad, hadn’t given him anything. Well, he could get a job smuggling some dogs, but he’d come back around to that offer later. 

He’d even wandered around the town after it turned dark and the streets had cleared out in the hopes someone would just jump him for asking too many questions. The town stayed quiet and he remained untouched even through barren streets and dimly lit alleyways though.

His faint reflection followed beside him in every darkened window he passed by as he headed back towards his car at a sluggish pace. He got so used to the accompanying shadow beside him that he didn’t even glance over when he saw it out of the corner of his eye anymore.

Which was why it took him an extra moment to realize that there was a second shadow casted onto the brick wall beside his own, moving at the same pace as him.

Stan spun on his feet to see the culprit, already pushing his fingers into the brass knuckles in his pockets.

He just turned to an empty street though. He glanced back again to the wall, only seeing his own shadow there, alone.

“Where..?” He looked down both ends of the street, not seeing or even hearing the signs of another person. Stan double checked again thinking maybe he’d missed a trashcan or something someone could have ducked behind when it finally hit him.

If there wasn’t anything physical around him, that didn’t leave a whole array of options.

“Hey.” He said. “Hey, buddy, I saw you.” 

The spirit, because what the hell else could it even be now, hadn’t done anything for a long time now. The flickering lights had sometimes started as morse code that never went past two letters and the rest of the time just looked like flickering. They always ended with a burnt out light bulb no matter what though, and after the millionth time he’d figured the thing was either purposefully trying to mess with him. The lights messing up around him had been steadily lessening throughout the day, and he hadn’t seen anything for the past couple hours so he thought the thing had finally gone.

Instead, it was apparently still hanging around him. “Hey, I’m talking to you!”

The low light washing over him began to flicker and Stan looked up at the lamp post responsible. It flickered (not morse code) then burnt out.

Stan lifted his hands. “Ooooh, spooky lights. Talk to me when you got something new, pal.” He turned to keep walking to his car.

He could hear buzzing lights behind him and ignored it. He was fully prepared to ignore it too until he saw a lamp post at the end of the street falter. 

It only flickered once, staying on, then the next lamp post coming towards him flickered as well, before moving onto the next one. 

Stan sighed heavily.

“You already did this bit before too, buddy.” Stan said, as the flicker kept heading in his direction through the lamp posts overhead. 

The light flickered overhead of him, and then a light behind him flickered, going past him this time. Confused, he turned to look behind him. 

The flicker of light bulbs was heading in a clear path back along the street.

After a moment, it happened again, the lamp post over his head flickering once and then the flicker went in a line down the street and back around a corner further into town.

He perked up, watching it happen again.

“You better be actually showing me something.” He warned, following the faulty lights.

There wasn’t any answer, no surprise there, but he kept following the trail anyway.

Stan was frustrated and tired of shooting in the dark all day, and right about now he was willing to check out anything out of the ordinary for some answers.

He wound up back in the middle of town again and saw the trail turning around the corner into town square. Before he could make it there, the street lamp at the corner shattered with an explosively loud buzz of energy.

Stan slowed to a stop and the flickering lights that were still trailing in the same direction picked up speed, urgently flashing in a fast line to the corner building, some dance studio.

He ran to the dance studio, trying to avoid stepping all over the glass shards on the sidewalk. The studio had large windows that made it easy to see inside, but he didn’t see anyone or anything suspicious inside.

Stan paused and checked for a door when he heard the buzz of electricity further on, and looked around the corner that led into the town square. All the lamp posts he could see from where he was at had gone dark.

He pushed against the building’s edge, running into town square, glass crunching under his feet every time he went under another dark lamp post until he went into the street.

“What the hell...?”

More than half the square was shrouded in darkness from broken lamp posts. To his left was the only side of the square that had any lamp posts left, and he could see them still breaking.

He heard the distant buzz of electricity and tinkling of glass hitting cement as the remaining lamp posts’ lights continued shattering, one after another. The first one he’d seen had bursted within a second, and it had been loud, but he swore these were quieter and taking longer to break. After a few more broken lights he was sure, with each one it was taking longer like the thing was running out of energy.

The trail of flickering lights had since stopped by this point so Stan just kept watching the breaking lamp posts.

With only a few lamp posts still shining, a lamp post weakly flickering for long enough that Stan wound up walking towards it. Even once he got to it, it was still going. Within seconds, the flickering eventually died down to nothing.

He looked at the building in front of him.

“Ice cream shop’s super important, huh?” He asked, slowly walking under the lamp posts that were still lit, no flicker from any of them. 

Maybe something was here, but he also wasn’t going to break into five different shops to find it. He didn’t even know what he was supposed to be looking for though. 

He continued wandering around the square. Nearly every window to every building was dark. The library, the museum, the shoe store, all of them. If there was anything or anyone suspicious around here then he wasn’t seeing it.

Stan stopped, watching one of the still shining lamp posts. “You ran out of juice, didn’t you?”

After a moment, the lamp post dimmed slightly, but so briefly Stan would have missed it if he hadn’t been staring right at it.

Alright. He rubbed his face with his hand.

“Again,” he said, starting the walk back to his car again, “this vague, ominous shit isn’t helping me understand whatever you’re trying to get across.”

He got into his car and turned on the radio, flicking through stations until he found something playing music he liked. The music station he’d picked out turned to quiet static once he was inside the woods though.

His car made its way along paths that wound around trees that took him further and further away from town. Driving to Ford’s shack was a lot easier this time, following his tire tracks still leftover in the snow from when he had left.

Stan sighed, pushing buttons for a station that was strong enough to make it through the thick trees. He eventually let it go, leaving the static on so he wouldn’t be driving in absolute silence. It filled the car with sound and made it feel less empty.

Driving through the woods was actually pretty nice when there wasn’t a blizzard threatening to push his car this way or that.

A garbled voice came through the static, a few words unintelligible through the static before it went back to silence.

He continued to drive, reaching for the knob and turning up the volume.

Sound came from the radio again, syllables half mangled. “ -t an - e y. ” It sounded like-

Stan slammed on his breaks, car sliding a few feet on the snowy path before stopping. He stared at his radio, cold needles pricking up his forearms. 

The static fluctuated, then more sounds came as a distinct voice forced its way through the static. 

“ S t--- ----. ---l o ? St an, s--- - a n- -- - -e-r ---? -- --- -. ” 

A cold weight settled into Stan’s stomach.

“...Stanford?”