#ooo stanleys gonna get digested ooo

[softfeelingsandangstywriting]

my thoughts about how Stanley got into the In-Between in the HWINEBHABWNAJCAHOWEEATOWEUB au :3 bc he's my son and i am in terrible terrible pain. i just got a little silly and neeeeeded to get this out of my brain

@a-scary-lack-of-common-sense i'm lowkey (highkey) sure you didn't want 2 be pinged but here is my offering (ricky, when i catch you ricky. when i catch you ricky. ricky when i catch you ricky. ricky when i catch you ricky--)

uhh word count is ~600, just a little baby drabble

---

Shadows. Gold and red, triangles and hands and overwhelming fear.

Stanley.

Stanley, Stanley, Stanley, the cause for Ford’s own terror, he was with the gold and not the scarlet, but he was not supposed to be there, so close to the screaming dangerdangerdangerdangerdanger.

So far from them, he could see his brother's lips moving, moving fast, no doubt speaking whatever he thought may get him out of the situation.

Good, Ford thought bitterly. The demon was his problem and his problem alone, born of his own foolishness.

He’d be damned if Stanley found his way into its maw because of him. He needed to get up, get going, movemovemove before he lost something so dear to him once more. Fidds had been enough to teach him his lesson right and proper.

(Stanford tried to ignore that he’d almost missed the universe’s cue. That he’d almost continued his work towards the likely end of his species.)

No, no– He was almost stilled by the choking darkness, as though he were moving through a sea of molasses to get to his brother. The great beast’s eye did not move, but he could feel its look upon his skin, boring through flesh and sinew and bone into the very depths of his skull. His struggles had drawn its attention.

Yet still, it did not look as starved as it did trapped.

And its newest victim was its only likely way out.

STANLEY!

His voice, though loud in his ears, rang out exactly nowhere. This damn place, trapping him as a witness. Could he fight it? Could he push against it? Where even was he?? A mindscape? If so, who’s? Stanley’s? Because this was a very depressing mind if so. But it wasn’t his, and he had incredible doubts it was Cipher’s. And that was hinging on the question of if they could enter his or not.

A dream, maybe. He prayed it was a terrible, awful, fever-dream vivid nightmare.

That he was very much consciously thinking about and aware of. He wasn’t one to experience lucid dreams, they’d never come to him as easily as they did–

Right, Stanley. Stanley. How had he forgotten? It was, quite literally, the most important task at hand. He needed to try and do something, fight against the oppressing disgust the place was beginning to cause him and the way it felt as though it was beginning to crawl into his limbs and settle there, weighing him down.

Shit. Keep moving, keep kicking. If he stopped he might not try again to get up and that would leave his twin all on his lonesome.

Red and yellow and white and black black black black black black black black– It was all alarmingly starting to mix together in his swimming head. It was getting to him.

What was getting to him?

Right. Stan. Stan. He had to move. The scarlet was being swallowed up by the grow of the golden glow and that was never a good sign.

Stanley still wasn’t looking at him, he’d hardly moved besides the short, uncomfortable fidgets Ford knew of him (they hadn’t talked in so long. Did he get any back from their childhood, out from under pa’s thumb? Did he lose any? How well did he even still know his brother?) and the occasional glance around when the triangle had moved.

Oh, but now he was hastily backing up. A good idea. Ford was closer, but still not close enough.

Not enough to reach Stanley. Not enough to stop the gilded arm that grabbed at his twin while Ford shrieked.

Up it went, the pyramid breaking its shape to bend backwards and

down

and

down

and

down.

And Stanley was gone.