#stan definitely fell asleep against ford a lot when ford did his reading

[artsymeeshee]

they chillin like old times

[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.

[freeamoebas]

Bill Cipher was awake, as usual, at 3AM.

He absolutely refused to sleep, the idea of entering the plane of consciousness he used to dominate humiliated and (even if he’d never admit it) terrified him. Occasionally, he’d doze off for a couple hours at most, but that was once every couple days. Plus, those precious couple hours of sleep were usually disturbed by nightmares regarding the axolotl, the second dimension, or worse.

Bill was wrapped up in a fluffy blanket Mabel had provided, rereading Flatland by Edwin Abbott. The story was strikingly similar to how the second dimension actually was, with all the rules about shapes, sides, women, etc. The book reminded him of Liam, his irregular brother, and how he read so many illegal books about the third dimension. Odd that a dimension like this would have books about something as dull as the second dimension.

Bill realized it was probably because humans craved the idea of suffering. Or at least the idea of apocalyptic eras. Funnily enough, they didn’t seem to get too big of a kick out of his Weirdmageddon.

The demon’s body froze up when he heard creaks from the staircase. His heart raced, worried it was Sixer coming back to scold him after their little… argument, which resulted in Bill gouging his own eye out after a complete nervous meltdown. Now he had to wear this dumb piece of gauze to cover the wound up.

He found himself pulling the blankets closer around him, as if it were a shield of some sort. He relaxed when it was just Mabel, going to the kitchen to get some water. “Hi Bill,” she said, her voice thick with sleep. “Shouldn’t you be-” She was cut off by a yawn. “Shouldn’t you be sleeping?”

“Can’t.” Bill held the book close to his chest and warily eyed the girl.

“Why not?”

“Oh, I dunno, Shooting Star, maybe because sleeping wastes ONE THIRD OF YOUR PUNY EXISTENCE, WHICH ISN’T SAYING MUCH CONSIDERING YOU MEAT SACKS LIVE, WHAT, EIGHT OR NINE DECADES BEFORE KICKING THE BUCKET?” Bill’s shrill voice came out louder than anticipated. He hoped the Stan twins wouldn’t wake, he was way too tired to deal with them at that very moment. Mabel simply blinked at the string of words that tumbled out of the demon’s mouth.

“...Does Mr. Grumpypants need someone to stay up with him?”

Bill huffed at that, but made no move to stop her as the teen sat next to him on the couch. She peered over at the book he had still clutched against his chest.

“Yanno, I always see you reading that book. I tried reading it once! It was really boring,” Mabel said, bluntly. She paused for dramatic effect, but noticed the odd, almost irritated look on Bill’s face, and quickly continued. “Why do you keep reading that book over ‘n over again, anyways? I could show you better ones, if you want!”

Bill’s odd expression melted away into something tired and… sad? No way, Bill Cipher’s only emotions were irritating, angry and crazy laughing. Those were totally emotions, at least in Mabel’s mind.

“It makes me feel… nostalgic, I guess,” Bill finally murmured.

“Oh.” Mabel didn’t really know what else to say. How does a dumb confusing book make someone nostalgic? Maybe Bill’s mother- if he even had one- used to read it to him when he was little. That would make a lot of sense, actually. Weirdo.

They sat in silence for a few more moments before Mabel turned to him. “Want me to show you me and Dip Dop’s cool hiding place?” Her mouth stretched into a mischievous grin. She knew Bill had the tendency to hide in odd little spaces. She’d found him in closets, under tables, but usually he’d bundle himself up and hide under the blankets the Pines provided for him. “Blanket town” Mabel had affectionately nicknamed his most common hiding spot.

Bill glared suspiciously at Mabel, clearly not trusting her judgement of what she considered cool. Finally, he shrugged and got up, still keeping the fluffy blanket wrapped around his shoulders. “I literally have NOTHING better to do,” the demon sighed, and followed his ally to a not so trustworthy looking ladder.

The climb to the top was… rigorous, to say the least. Bill nearly fell off the ladder several times, not knowing completely how to put one foot above the other, and occasionally forgetting he had to hold onto the railing. When they finally managed to climb out of the chimney, they sat on the floor of the little flat above the gift shop.

Bill was panting as if he had run a marathon and Mabel was beaming, congratulating him on how well he did.

“Yeah yeah, you don’t gotta BABY ME, yanno.” Bill waved her off with his gloved hand, doing his best to sound irritated. He’d never admit it, but he actually liked Mabel’s pity praises. It definitely beat Sixer’s life lessons about how everything bad that has happened to the Pines family during the past 45 years was Bill’s fault.

Mabel giggled at Bill’s dull attempt at sounding mad and turned her attention up at the starry sky. One thing she adored about Gravity Falls was that there was no more city haze to cover her view of the stars. She could look up, and boom. Thousands upon millions of pretty twinkly dots in the sky, waiting to be stared at.

Mabel turned to Bill. “Do you have any alien friends?” she asked, wiggling her eyebrows. Bill frowned at her, not entirely sure what Shooting Star was implying.

“Sure, kid.”

Mabel gestured for Bill to continue. “C’monnn, didn’t you liberate like… a bazillion dimensions? Tell me about a good one.”

Bill shrugged. “Shooting Star, you gotta remember that what I consider good and what you consider good are LITERAL POLAR OPPOSITES.”

“Okay,” Mabel said slowly. “Tell me about a good dimension… In my standards.”

Bill gave Mabel an exasperated look. He was way too tired to try to remember some puny dimension he had liberated eons ago, especially with his memory failing and all, but at the same time he was way too tired to deal with Shooting Star haggling for a happy story.

“FIIINE,” Bill snapped. He then rested his chin in his hand, trying to think of the best story that would shut Shooting Star up. A small grin appeared on his face and he finger gunned in her direction.

“Did Fordsy ever tell you about GOOD OLE’ DIMENSION 1610?”

And then he continued with an elaborate story about a world where the world hunger issue was solved, the majority of countries allianced with each other under a common socialist society, Bernie Sanders became president, superheroes were real, and much much more. He most of all emphasized how he had influenced the majority of these fortunate series of events, since he wanted at least one good dimension to come out of the countless dimensions he had ruled in the past.

Mabel listened the entire time with round, amazed eyes. Everytime Bill would add a new detail, she would always dramatically react, encouraging Bill to continue.

The story went on for a couple hours at least, Bill staying animated as ever the entire time. When he was finished, the sky was beginning to lighten.

The demon crossed his arms, grinning. One thing that definitely puts him in a good mood was talking about himself.

“So?”

“So…” Mabel’s gaze darkened, giving Bill an extremely serious look, making him worry he said something wrong. “That was… SO FREAKING COOL! And imagine having a superhero boyfriend… Spider-Man… if you’re out there… Why couldn’t you have done that instead of ruining our town?” The girl excitedly rambled.

After a good five minutes of talking, Mabel began to settle down, realizing just how late- or early- it was, and how little sleep she had gotten. She was going to need a lot of Mabel juice today if her and Dipper were going adventuring.

Bill laughed as Shooting Star analyzed his story, with that classic unhinged laugh that always gave her chills no matter how often she heard it. She was a little too tired at the moment to care about just how creepy Bill’s laugh was.

“I just so happen to know a g-” Bill was cut off when Mabel rested her head on his shoulder. His entire body stiffened.

For a split second Bill was tempted to shove the girl straight off the roof, but knew better. Ford would blast his head off without a moment of hesitation. So instead, the demon forced himself to relax and take a few breaths.

He hated being touched, but he realized the only times he’s ever been touched in this new body was when someone was punching him in the nose or yanking his collar so hard he choked. Mabel’s head against his shoulder was… comforting, in a way.

Mabel felt Bill stiffen. She braced herself to have his shoulder yanked away with a snarky comment following. It never came, though, and she let out a small breath of relief.

Mabel talks to Bill the most out of everyone in the Pines family, since she was the most sympathetic. Although, she was very aware to keep a distance, not wanting to be manipulated as Ford had been. Nonetheless, she was glad their friendship had reached a peak from annoying ex-demon living with her family to someone who tells her stories until she falls asleep.

“You know… you’re not that bad of a dude,” Mabel mumbled before her eyelids drooped and she dozed off.

Bill blinked at that final comment, totally taken by surprise. He hadn’t heard someone say that about him in… years. The demon’s heart swelled just a tiny bit, although he wasn’t quite sure what this emotion was called. In the future, he will discover this emotion is called friendship, something the All Seeing Eye hasn’t truly experienced in eons.

[a-mad-scientist-approaches]

The Cipher Conspiracy (7)

Phase 1: Collection Phase 2: Construction (this one!)

There's a bit of a time jump in this one, so if you find yourself wondering, "Wait, what's Stan doing here?" then that's your answer. It's only, like, a day, so don't freak out. This will only make sense after you finish reading the chapter, but, when we get to Ford's perspective right at the end, it's like we're going back in time a day to see what happened to him when the bros parted ways. Before that, it’s focused on what happened with the others. Things are going to be slightly out of sync until Chapter 9. :)

Adeline Marks is @hntrgurl13‘s OC, and I love her. So much. Honestly.

The Addiford ship belongs to @scipunk63 (not much of that in this one, sorry!)

Madeline McGucket a fun character from @missinspi.

AO3  1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9  10  11  12  13  14

Chapter 7: A Dream Come True

Chicago, Illinois (USA)    ∆

No matter what Ford did, he could not seem to move fast enough. It was the ice on the road, the people in the way, the very air in front of him that slowed him down. Something unspeakable was happening to his brother, he could practically feel it, and if Addi was with him . . .

He and Fiddleford burst into the bar, barrelling past the doorman like he was non-existent. They stopped.

Too slow, too slow!

Back room. Ford saw it instantly.

Move!

People blocked his path. Drawing his gun solved that problem.

Faster!

His ears were roaring and he did not think it was all to do with the blood rushing through his veins. The look on his face cleared the crowd quicker than his weapon. Ten steps to the door, five, zero, Fiddleford slammed it open before him, two men, backs exposed, blocking the view beyond, God help them if either of their captives were hurt, strike that, not taking any chances. Or prisoners.

He fired two silent gunshots and he saw the bodies fall to the floor. There was no need to worry about them anymore, so they dissipated. The only important thing was that Stan and Addi were safe now –

On the floor. Shape on the floor. Lying.

Blood on his shoes.

He was too late.

There was already a round little hole in Stan’s head, and his skin was cold, so cold, colder than the outside air. Red trickled down his face, pooled on the floor, lapped against Ford’s knees as he fell, fisting his hands into his brother’s shirt and yelling into his chest while that same muted sensation continued to crash down, muffling everything.

There was another bloodless hand lying next to Stan’s – smaller. Addi’s. The hair splayed underneath her elbow was matted with darkness. He could not bear to look any further and reached out to touch her.

Footsteps. He looked up. Bill stood above him, looking viciously delighted at the shining memory gun in his hand.

“ALRIGHT SIXER, LET’S GET TO WORK!”

Everything flashed yellow.

∆

It was an hour past midnight. Stan really shouldn’t be awake. On the other hand, it wasn’t like he was going to get to sleep anyway, so he might as well do something productive.

The apartment lights cast a soft glow on the scene. He had been rooting carefully through Ford’s bags, looking for some evidence of whatever all these machines and materials were going to be used for. It wasn’t like he could stop Ford: they were at the end of their collaboration, as he would put it. He was just trying to settle his own fears about his brother going back to whatever situation he was in.

“STAN!”

The door on the left side of the entrance hallway banged open, Ford hurtling out in his shirt and boxers, ruffle-haired and wild-eyed, half-asleep. He crashed into the door opposite, knocked frantically for a fraction of a second, then fell through into Stan’s room. There was a moment of silence, then –

“STAN!”

“Whoa, I’m right here bro,” Stan said from the living room, hurriedly shutting a bag full of machinery. He stood and went to see what was wrong.

Ford stumbled out again, letting out a shuddering breath when he saw him.

“Just a dream, just a dream,” he muttered. Stan winced in understanding, patting his brother’s shoulder soothingly. He didn’t think it would be too far out of field to think Russia was no longer part of either of their preferred holiday destinations.

Ford raised both hands to rub his face tiredly. One had a gun in it.

“Okay, whoa, no, let’s get you back to bed.” Stan said, snatching the firearm away as Ford looked at it in bleary confusion. “Come on, let’s go.”

“I’m not tired,” Ford protested, swaying.

“Load of crap,”

He steered Ford back into his room, the man falling asleep as soon as he flopped on top of the sheets. Good enough, Stan supposed.

His search was getting nowhere. He should head back to his own bed and try to sleep, unlikely as it was to happen. He was turning to go when a shine caught his eye.

That journal of Ford’s was lying on his bedside table, hallway light bouncing off the gold six-fingered hand on the cover. He hesitated before sitting down on the edge of the bed, picking it up, and flipping through. Starting with the most recent entry, he began to translate and read the code inside.

Russia was . . . not ideal. B changed the plans so that S and I would be split up, which was only the start of the problems we would eventually face. Quite apart from anything else, I do not have much time with my brother left before we part ways, and I am feeling now more urgently than ever how every second counts.

I cannot help but feel as though B was wrong to set up the meeting with the Mafia, regardless of how beneficial it was – we did retrieve the filament. Far be it from me to second-guess him, nevertheless, I am unable to say with any sort of confidence that I have complete faith in his wisdom now. On the other hand, I expect that the incident would not have rattled me so badly had I been alone. Alone, I do not stand to lose the people close to me, and nor can anyone be tempted to take them. Perhaps this is why B is so adamant about having solitary operatives.

One of the agents we have encountered on previous missions, F, proved to be a great help in refining the design for the device. Conversely, A and S found themselves in a situation no one should ever have to face. I swear I have never been more scared in my life. I cannot understand why either of them were able to look me in the eye afterwards. After all, I was responsible for what they had to endure. That being said, I am also immensely grateful that they seemed to place not even the slightest blame on me. They deserve a much better friend than myself. Hopefully I will be able to live up to that one day.

The writing continued, detailing the events of the night. Stan didn’t read any further.

“Sixer, you knucklehead . . .” he said softly, shaking his head at Ford’s lightly snoring form.

∆

Chicago DuPage County Airport was busy. An unbelievable amount of people crowded the waiting area.

“Must be winter holidays,” Stan said.

“What?” called Ford.

“I said it must be winter holidays!”

“What?!”

Stan waved a hand, dismissing the comment. They attempted to move further away from the crowds. At this rate, they wouldn’t hear the calls for their flights.

Not flight. Flights. Here was where they parted ways. Stan to California, Ford to Oregon. He wasn’t sure what was going to happen to them after this. Would it be another five years of silence? Longer? Would he never get another postcard in the mail? He could always drive up to Gravity Falls. He knew where Ford lived now. But would Ford want to stay in contact? Would he decide that his work was too important again, or – especially after Russia – would he decide it was too dangerous for anyone else?

A three-tone dial sounded loudly over the speakers. Ford’s flight was boarding.

“I guess this is it,” Ford said, distinctly dispirited.

“Yeah,” Stan said, trying to convince himself that no, his throat was not closing up.

“I’ll, um, have someone get the Stanmobile back to you,”

“Oh yeah! Right.” He couldn’t believe he’d forgotten about his car.

A silence bloomed, where neither of them were sure what to say. Ford cleared his throat and frowned at the ground.

“Goodbye, Stan,”

Stan looked at the ceiling. “Seeya rou – I mean, bye, Ford.”

Ford nodded shortly, then spun on his heel and left. Stan sighed. Good one. He looked for somewhere to sit down –

- and Ford crashed into him, hugging him tightly. Stan responded gladly.

“Don’t get too caught up in your work, nerd,” he said thickly.

“I won’t. Would it – would it be okay if I came to see you after it’s finished?”

He did not sniff, he did not just sniff. “Yeah. Yeah that would be – be good,”

With a lot more throat-clearing and gruff pats on the back, they both pulled away and gave each other smiles that were definitely not watery. Then Ford went off to find his plane for real.

Another announcement was made over the speaker.

“-to Sacramento, California has been delayed. Approximate waiting time is thirty hours. The next available flight to Sacramento is in twenty hours. We are not that sorry for the inconvenience. It’s not our flight, after all,”

Unbelievable.

He might as well head back to the hotel, then. Glumly, he realised that this time he’d have to pay for a room himself, since Ford had taken all his money with him. Well, it had only been two flipping weeks without seeing Carla, what was one more day? A damn mess, that’s what.

A jewellery store caught his eye as he passed.

He supposed if he was going to do this, he might as well do it properly.

Manhattan, New York (USA)    ∆

“Agent Marks, come in,”

Addi entered Jheselbraum’s office, still stretching out her muscles after the flight from Atlanta and the drive from LaGuardia. It was very early in the morning, and she was still recovering from the jet lag hanging around after the Russia flight.

“How are you?”

“Happy to be back,” Addi said firmly, approaching the desk and sitting in the chair opposite the director.

Jheselbraum examined her closely. “You don’t look like you slept well,”

From past experience, Addi knew that deflecting the question or outright lying would not do her any favours. Once, Jheselbraum had gone so far as to drive her home herself when she had kept insisting she was fine after a particularly rough mission.

Russia had been a new kind of rough. Things had never gotten that close before. Addi didn’t want to admit it to anyone, even herself, but at the moment fieldwork . . . didn’t seem as fun as it used to. She bet that the most danger the building’s analysts had been in lately was of a stapler fight if someone forgot to unjam the printer.

“We had a couple close calls on this one,” she eventually said, avoiding Jheselbraum’s eyes.

The other woman stood up and walked around to her side, signalling that it wasn’t necessary for Addi to stand. She leaned against the desk and placed her hand lightly on Addi’s shoulder.

“You’re safe now,” she said plainly, “and you’ll have a rest from dangerous missions for a few weeks.”

Her tone brooked no argument, and frankly, Addi wouldn’t have protested anyway.

“Take the rest of the day off,” Jheselbraum added, “have a warm bath, do what you want for a change. Put high-stakes chance games out of your mind.”

Addi started. She hadn’t included Russia in her report or debrief, for the obvious reason that it hadn’t been a sanctioned operation, and the not-so-obvious reason that there were only a few people she was willing to talk about it with – four, to be exact, including the woman in front of her.

“How did you know about that?”

“About what?” Jheselbraum smiled. Then she sat back down behind her desk as Addi took her leave.

San Jose, California (USA)    ∆

“It’s about dang time,” Fiddleford sighed longingly, when he had retrieved his luggage from the baggage claim. He was finally getting to go home. It had been far too long since he’d seen Tate’s drawings stuck on the fridge, heard Madeline singing as she moved around the house, and held them both in his arms as they settled down to watch TV. Just a few more hours, and after that a few more months, and then he wouldn’t have to leave home at all.

His phone rang.

“I sure hope this isn’t Jheselbraum about to tell me Ah can’t go home yet.” He looked at the caller ID. “That ain’t a good sign. Yes ma’am?”

“Agent McGucket, I’m sorry to do this to you, but you can’t go home yet,”

It wasn’t a surprise, but it still chafed. However, it was not like he was going to ignore whatever assignment Jheselbraum had for him; the work they did was important, even if he was tiring of it.

“What is it? And is it at all nearby?”

“Indeed it is. If there was anyone else in the area, I would have asked them, but unfortunately you are the only agent in several organisations who is close,” Jheselbraum said, genuine regret in her voice.

“Aren’t I lucky,”

“Do you recall our FBI contact, Carla McCorkle? I’ve decided it’s time to unite our investigations. I need you to head over there immediately and give her a copy of our findings. She’s at the FBI field office in Sacramento,”

Fiddleford sighed again. Nothing like a few hours driving after a few hours flying.

“You got it,”

“I promise that you’re free to spend a few days off as soon as you’re done. Again, I am so sorry,”

“Thank ya kindly, ma’am,” Fiddleford said with only the barest trace of acerbity, which he simultaneously regretted and did not.

Sacramento, California (USA)    ∆

Carla tried not to feel like she was being watched. It was something she was fighting more and more lately.

There was a spy in the FBI, specifically assigned to her and her work. She couldn’t tell anyone about it, because that would draw their attention. She didn’t know who it was, and she couldn’t investigate, because the spy might find out. Everyone was a suspect. The janitor had surprised her the other day and she’d almost punched him in the face.

When she received a text from Jheselbraum, she breathed more easily than she had in days. With no word from her, no one to confide in, and no one to take her mind off the situation, she’d been feeling extremely cut-off and isolated, not to mention simultaneously anxious and bored. She’d swept her office for bugs four times.

Carla’s fingers were busy tapping a tattoo on the desk until the office phone rang. She scrambled to pick it up.

“Agent McCorkle, there’s someone here to see you. Says his director sent him here for a meeting with you?”

“Send him up!” She tried not to sound too eager.

A minute later, a weary-looking man with glasses and a green suit stepped into her office and closed the door behind him.

“Hi, I’m Senior Special Agent Carla McCorkle,” Carla said, holding out her hand.

“Agent Fiddleford McGucket. Jheselbraum sent me,” Fiddleford said, shaking it.

“Please,” Carla beseeched as they sat, “tell me you have something good. Our case has gone so stale that yesterday Agent Wexler tried to get the Special Agent-in-Charge to tell me to give it up.”

Fiddleford frowned slightly and handed over a thumb drive. “Ah can’t say whether this’ll do ya much good, but it’s worth a try. That there’s everything we’ve managed to collect on the Cipher Wheel,”

Anticipation stirred in her as she took the drive and inserted it into her computer. It contained a single file. Okay, so that’s a little unexpected, but this is the work of an entire agency here. It must be good.

She downloaded the document.

“Symbols?” she said blankly, scrolling through. The document contained pictures of maybe ten symbols, the locations said symbols had been found, and underneath each a detailed report of any unlawful, suspicious or just plain unusual activity in the area at the time it had been discovered.

Fiddleford grimaced. “Yep. Just symbols. Ah expect it doesn’t help much?”

“Oh no, no,” said Carla hurriedly.

“It’s alright if ya say so,”

“No, no, I’m sure it will be . . . of some use . . . maybe. I’ll have to go over what we have again, see if any crop up,”

“Good luck.” Fiddleford said. “We think those symbols are a kind of signature for Cipher Wheel operatives. If they contact someone, this is how they show they’re workin’ for Bill Cipher, or maybe it’s just to show who they are without giving away their names. We’ve only managed to get these from reconstructin’ burned documents. They’re thorough, whoever they are,”

“Tell me about it,” Carla muttered. She ejected the USB and put it safely in a pocket. “I suppose all that’s left now is to-”

The door banged open.

“Hey darl’, guess who’s back!”

Stan practically leapt into the room, motormouth running at full speed. “We are finally in the same place after two weeks and three days, so grab your coat because I’m taking you out-” He spotted Fiddleford and slammed on the figurative brakes, an astonished look on his face. Fiddleford’s mouth dropped open. Carla noticed everything.

Funnily enough, the first question she voiced was not “How do you two know each other?” because something more surprising had occurred to her.

“Did you cut your hair?”

“Uh, yeah,” Stan touched his shortened locks quite vulnerably, looking more like a deer in headlights with every passing moment.

Not only had Stan foregone the mullet, he looked like he was wearing some new clothes, too. He’d really neatened up while he was away.

Wait.

A thrill went through her.

He was back! He was finally back!

“You work for the FBI?” asked Fiddleford finally, looking baffled, but there was a faint grin appearing on his face which showed he was pleased to see Stan. Not enemies then.

“With the FBI,” Carla and Stan corrected at the same time.

“So what were ya doin’ overseas?”

“Actually, I’d quite like to know that as well. And why you two have met,” added Carla.

“Can’t say,” said Stan and Fiddleford quickly.

“Mission secrecy,” elaborated Fiddleford.

Stan addressed the Oracle agent. “What are you doing here?”

“That’s classified,” responded Carla and Fiddleford together. A strange mixture of emotions swirled around inside her. There was irritation and curiosity about what these two had gotten up to overseas, but they were quickly dissipating in an onslaught of sheer joy – she might just refrain from interrogating the men! For a maximum of two hours and thirty minutes!

Fiddleford suppressed a laugh at the way their inquiries were going. “Well, nice ta meet ya, Agent McCorkle, and it was good seein’ ya again, Stan.” He said, getting up to leave. “I doubt this’s the last time, either.”

“At the rate this is going, we’ll probably end up working together,” agreed Stan, shaking Fiddleford’s hand.

The agent went to the door, with a last amazed look in Stan’s direction.

“Oh! Wait!” Carla exclaimed before he could leave, her responsibility to her job shining through despite her excitement to spend some time with Stan. “Don’t you need the FBI’s informa-”

“Lalalala!” said Fiddleford loudly, sticking his fingers in his ears. “NolalalalalaI’mgoin’homelalalalahere’smanumberifyaneeditandonlyifyouneeditmindyoulalala!”

He tossed her a card that was blank except from a phone number in the centre, then hurried away, presumably before anyone could call him back and delay his departure.

“I like him,” Carla decided. Then she vaulted over her desk and flung herself at Stan, wrapping him in her arms and not wanting to let go.

“Whoa!” Stan laughed as he caught her and hugged her tightly. “I’ve missed you,” he mumbled into her hair.

“Missed you too,”

Stan let go. “Do you have work to do?”

Carla’s answer was a frown.

“Well, not anymore! We’re going out!” He grabbed her hand and dragged her out the door, snagging her coat and bag on the way. Carla didn’t complain.

Manhattan, New York (USA)    ∆

Addi could feel tension that she hadn’t even been aware of draining out of her. She was curled up in a blanket, sitting in her pyjamas, watching her favourite movie, and eating snacks. She was free to do what she liked for the first time in a long, long while, and as a result her head was beginning to droop with the peace of it all. She felt completely safe.

The phone seemed to blare into the silence, shocking her out of drowsiness. She tripped over her blanket as she shot off the couch towards the kitchen, stumbling over it and using an athletic manoeuvre to roll when she hit the ground and come up right where the phone was.

“Yes? Hello?” she said through uneven breaths.

“Agent Marks,” said an unfamiliar voice, “these are your superiors,”

Addi was quiet. “You mean . . . as in Jheselbraum’s overseers?”

“Yes,”

“The in-charge people?”

"Yes,”

“The head honchos?”

“Yes,”

“The-”

“Yes. We are contacting you for a very important reason,”

“Why directly? Why not through Jheselbraum? That’s how missions are usually assigned,”

“This is a one-time scenario. Rest assured, it will not happen again. To you, or any of Oracle Division, for that matter. It is for the best that we . . . shake things up. For good,”

Addi decided not to press any of her questions yet. The person on the other end of the line seemed rather preoccupied.

“We are giving you a mission. It is essential that you start immediately,”

The last of Addi’s good mood evaporated. “Understood,” she said, containing her frustration.

“At the FBI field office in Sacramento, an investigation is being undertaken to an unacceptable end. Efforts to derail it have failed.”

“What’s being investigated?”

There was a pause, during which Addi became certain that she was asking questions the other person did not know the answers to. She wondered if the superiors had superiors.

“That is not of your concern,” was the eventual reply. “All you need to know is that drastic action is required. Something that will put all investigations on hold while the case in question is altered to reflect more suitable facts.”

Something was knotting in the pit of Addi’s stomach.

“An assassination,”

“Who?” she managed.

“Start with the Special Agent-in-Charge. The Senior Special Agent leading the investigation may also be necessary if she continues to pursue this. You are expected in Sacramento immediately,”

The only thing able to permeate Addi’s numb mind was the thought that this flight would be a muscle-cramping six hours long. It was only eight in the morning, so plenty of time to get there.

She would be thankful for that, but really it depended on whose perspective it was considered from.

Gravity Falls, Oregon (USA)    ∆

Ford sighed and dumped his bags in his living room. Over two weeks away, and the only thing different about the place was the fine layer of dust covering everything.

Although . . .

Perhaps it was just the strangeness of actually being at home. Yes, it must be. It was bordering on superstitious to think that abiotic surroundings could be imbibed with emotional qualities.

Nevertheless . . .

It did seem to be missing a certain vibrancy he had become accustomed to of late. He surely had not felt this alone when he had left Gravity Falls.

He was torn from his thoughts by the sound of the basement door opening.

“Welcome back, smart guy!” Bill grinned, spreading his arms grandly as he walked into the living room.

“Bill,” Ford greeted, shoving away thoughts about how alike the smile of the man in front of him was to the one he had seen in last night’s dream.

“Got everything we need, I see. Alright Sixer, let’s get to work!”

[lamerdeseslarmes]

Silent Lies

Mabel falls head over heels in love almost every week. Stan shrugs it off -Dipper and her are just kids, and who hasn't had an awkward crush when they were twelve ? (Stanford didn't.) Dipper tries not to show it but it frightens him, his sister's ability to love someone at first glance, to become obsessed with them like this, finally to move on quickly. (He's still not over Wendy, but he won't admit it.) He cares for Mabel, and doesn't want her to get hurt.

As for Stanford, he says nothing. The others never ask for his opinion on this, at least. But Stanford sees it all, and says nothing. It's easier this way. So when Mabel asks him if he's even been in love, Stanford says : no. The lie is easy. Easier than to tell your grand-niece, whose biggest dream is to have a summer romance, that yes, you did fall in love once.

You fell in love once, and the world almost ended.

Mabel pouts, but she doesn't insist. Yet, somehow, there's something in her eyes, a glimmer of understanding that should definitely not be there. Mabel hugs him and Stanford can feel himself shudder, because Bill, Bill was so warm too, in the quiet of the mindscape.

*

They burn the artefacts, all of them. They watch them burn, all of them, and they roast marshmallows with the fire. They laugh, all of them, and it's the best evening Stanford has ever had in... (something like thirty years, whispers a vicious voice in his mind.) Forever. The best evening he's ever had in forever.

The best evening. In forever. With his family. And Stanford laughs and he fits in there, with Stan and Dipper and Mabel, even with Soos and Wendy. He belongs there, he knows it.

Bill's all-seeing eye burns in the night, till nothing's left but ashes. And Stanford knows Dipper double-checked after him, to see if Ford didn't hid one of his many (too many, not enough) Bill related objects. The lack of trust should make Ford uneasy, but no. Dipper is right. Dipper is right and goes as far as to scratch away every tiny Bill Ford engraved into the walls, carved onto the floors. The boy's eyes glow with panicked fervor as he goes on with this task. Dipper knows better than anyone what harm Bill can do, how dangerous Bill can be. (Lies. It's all  l i e s. Stanford knows better.)

So they burn the artefacts, all of them, and Dipper silently asks Ford if he hasn't concealed one of them, somewhere else. Ford says : no. The lie is easy. Easier than to tell your grandnephew, whose biggest fear is a dream demon now forever haunting his nightmares that yes, there are more.

There are more of them that you branded into yourself, carved in your own skin with quiet devotion, and they make your heart burn, burn into the dead of the night.

Ford smiles and ruffles Dipper's hair. His nephew looks at him with admiration, and Ford can feel himself shudder because he knows this look, he knows it. He used to look at Bill with the same adoration in the eyes, too.

*

Smart guy, Bill says. (smartguygeniusbrainiaciqbrilliant m i n d--) Ford wakes up to the feeling of black silk-like arms touching him. His mouth is dry, his throat tight. Slowly, he puts a six-fingered hand over his mouth, nails scratching slightly at his stubble. His hand is calloused and feels rough, nothing like how Bill's inhumanely soft fingers used to feel against his heated skin all those years ago. Ford closes his eyes, tries to fight back the memories of Bill that surround him.

He remembers how Bill would possess him, how they had learnt to share his body, how Ford relished in having the control taken away from him. Unconsciously, his lips have started moving against his fingers. (He remembers how he used to kiss his own hand, the one Bill had control over. He remembers how good it felt, to be this intimate with a god, his god. How he felt his own breath hitch, more heated than before.)

Then Ford bites down, hard, and blood trips on his shirt. Everything was a lie, and he shouldn't delude himself further. Hasn't he already made a fool out of himself long enough ?

The day after, he'll tell Stan that he fought off a monster (that's Gravity Falls for you, right?!). Stan's eyes will narrow, but he'll say nothing.

But for now, as he tries to fall asleep again, his wounded hand clutched on the fabric of his shirt, right over his heart, Ford knows that he has lost.

…

He falls asleep soon after, a shy smile on his bloodied lips, hollow praises echoing through his mind.

*

The two brothers spend a lot more time together now. They don't fight anymore, and the bitterness has gone. (Well. Mostly. It isn't visible anymore at least.)

(Stan still wakes up shivering at night, convinced that Ford resent him, that Ford never loved him.) (They're just thoughts, he tells himselfs. Nightmares.)

Stan is glad to have his brother back. Ford is glad his brother regained his memories. Most of the time, they make it work. But once in a while, one of them slips. Memories from another time haunt them. Stan isn't sure they're even real. Ford knows they're too real, and they taste like regret.

“Hey Sixer”, Stan says. And sometimes Ford's eyes widen, his smile shatters and his hands tighten into fists. “Hey bro, is something wrong ?” Stan worries.

Ford shakes his head, faking a smile he hopes convincing. Stanford says : no. The lie is easy. Easier than to tell your twin brother, who sacrificed himself for his family, for you, because he loves you more than anything, that you hate this name now.

You hate this name now, because Bill tainted it, Bill went as far as to ruin your childhood memories.

Ford says nothing, listens to his brother, to his rapsy voice that's nothing like Bill's. Bill's voice, as annoying as it really were, sent shivers of pleasure down Ford's spine, and Bill called him Sixer and touched him and it was perfect.

*

Everything is calm in Gravity Falls now. Sure, there are still some weird occurrences sometimes -gnomes stealing pies, a triple-headed bear blasting off Disco Girl so loudly the entire forest can hear- but that's about it. Nothing too weird, nothing out of the ordinary. And it's fine, truly.

For the first time in thirty years Stanford doesn't have to run, doesn't have to watch his back. Days in Gravity Falls are sunny, filled with Mabel's laughter and Dipper's last discoveries.

And Bill is dead.

Bill is dead and finally Ford can sleep without fearing the demon will haunt his dreams. Bill is dead and they burned everything.

Sometimes Ford still flinches, though. Because of a sudden noise like an echo of laughter in the woods, or a triangular shaped hole in a tree. But Bill's All-seeing Eye is closed forever now, and Ford is safe.

… It is hard to believe he is truly free of Bill. Hard to believe that it's finally over, after all these years. His brother sacrificed himself for them all, and he saved them all.

And Bill is dead and the days are bright and slow, perfect and uneventful.

Isn't this life boring ? He asks himself.

Stanford says : no. Nobody can hear him now, nobody will ever be able to hear his thoughts again. But he says no, of course he's not bored, he loves everything about this life. If he says it loud enough maybe he will convince himself. Maybe one day he will truly feel this way.

So the lie is easy. Easier than to admit that you're bored. Bill is dead and you didn't even get to kill him yourself. Bill is dead and the only thing you've got now is a statue in the woods. (He thought about desecrating it, once. He will do it, one day.)

The truth is that Stanford Pines is bored and wishes he had something to look forward to.

(you lost, Ford. D'you really think you could get rid of me this easily ? Calm down buddy ! I don't wanna ruin it for ya but it's a bit too late, don'tcha think ? Oh, you can say whatever you want. That you don't love me anymore, that you never loved me, you hate me, you wanna kill me, yadda yadda. I don't care, Stanford. Thing is : you lost. Because guess what ? For more than thirty years I've been the only thing on your mind, Fordsy. Doesn't matter if it's because you wanted to annihilate me. The result's the same : now I'm gone and you're bored. Don't worry though, Ford. Not everything I say is a lie ; you're really gonna die at ninety-two. So, think you can bear to live so many years without me ?)

This is no good this is no good this is no good-

Ford can't recall the last time he heard Bill's voice inside of his head. He knows he's dreaming it, he has to be, because Bill's fucking dead and he won't come back, never

(Hey Ford, do you miss me yet?)

Stanford says nothing. It's only been a few days, and he's already tired of lying. His entire mind begs him not to answer, to laugh at Bill -like he should, because Bill isn't even there anymore, Bill is d e a d and

“Yes.”

Everything is quiet. Ford's heart is hammering inside his chest. He expected Bill's laughter to taunt him. But everything is silent.

Oh. Yeah. Right. Bill can't answer him after all.

If you made this far, thanks !! I actually wrote this some months ago, but I was wondering if I should add some other scenes in it (I decided against it) so that’s why I’m only posting it now. English isn’t my first language so it was a bit of a challenge -hopefully there aren’t too many mistakes left. But I had a lot of fun writing it, so I can only hope you liked reading it too !! -^^-

[apathetic-revenant]

by the skin of your teeth: part eight

I warned you guys. 

(trigger warning on this one for psychological tormenting and finger trauma. if anyone needs additional tags I’m happy to oblige.) 

By the time he found the third journal, Stan was extremely tired of snow.

Everything was white, white, white, from the ground to the sky, with the black and gray sketch-marks of trees the only points of distinction in the emptiness. The woods were weighted with silence, as heavy and cold as the snow, into which his own little noises fell and disappeared like pebbles sinking into a deep lake. He felt as if he was walking across an alien landscape, somewhere that time moved differently; within a few minutes of the house disappearing from view he had already lost track of time and distance and begun to feel as though he had been walking for years.

What did not feel distant and unearthly was how extremely cold and wet he was.

Loathe though he would be to ever admit it, he was grateful for Ford's extra clothes, but the coat and sweaters didn't do anything to stop the snow soaking into his pants, or falling into his boots and freezing his feet. He had wrapped his scarf up around his nose and mouth and he could feel his breath in it, hot and wet, the only warmth to be found anywhere in this frozen limbo. The cold sunk in everywhere else, bit by bit, sliding under his clothes, chafing and scraping at him as he walked.

He remembered hearing, somewhere, about people dying of cold, how it felt a lot like falling asleep, how the temptation would start to tug and whisper at you to lie down, close your eyes, just for a minute, just rest a little while, and never wake up again.

Don't sleep, can't sleep. Like Ford, staring at him red-eyed, saying: I cannot rest, not yet, not yet. Like Stan, moving, never stopping, for ten years, because he couldn't, not yet, not yet. Miles to go. Miles to go...

He hated the silence for letting him think. Thinking never got him anywhere good. That was Ford's job.

Last I checked…

He couldn’t take it anymore. He started humming aimlessly, a long and rambling tune that meandered through every song he could think of, trying to focus on the imagined lyrics instead of...anything else. It didn't help a great deal.

He did, at least, have to concentrate a fair amount of attention on not getting lost. Ford had scribbled out something that was half map and half directions, with comments like “follow the path until you get to the big rock that looks like this” and “once you hit the creek turn left and keep following it”. It probably would’ve been more helpful if the snow hadn’t blotted out most of the landmarks, making the woods an identical, featureless expanse. At least Ford had also thrown a compass into the bag. Stan rapidly began to suspect that it might turn out to be the only thing keeping from never finding his way back to the house at all.

Somehow, mostly by aiming in what seemed to be the right general direction and hoping for the best, he eventually managed to find a patch of woods that looked more or less like Ford’s disjointed description. There were instructions on how to find the correct tree, but after a minute of staring at them, Stan gave up, broke off a nearby branch, and just started banging it against every tree he saw.

Whack-Whack-Whack-Whack-Whack-his arm was starting to get tired-Whack-Whack-had he hit that one already? They all looked the same-Whack-Whack-Whack-Whack-CLANG--

Stan stopped and squinted. It looked like all the other trees, but when he tapped the branch against it again, it definitely made a metallic sound. Huh. Well, he had to give Ford this much: he sure could make a surprisingly convincing fake tree.

He brushed the snow and moisture off the tree with the back of his sleeve until he could make out the faint outline of a panel. Getting it open presented some difficulties; the metal had frozen shut, and with his gloves on he couldn’t get a purchase on the thin crack. Exposing his bare hands to the icy metal did not feel like a particularly appealing idea.

Well, Stan, what kind of criminal are you, if you can't even get into a basic unlocked compartment? C'mon. You can do better than this.

He fished out his pocketknife and used the flat of the screwdriver attachment to pry the panel open just enough to get his fingers under it. The panel resisted, but after a few moments of struggling, it finally sprang open, very nearly smacking him in the face in the process. Behind it was a hollow compartment with a strange device sitting in it, something like a radio with a lot of dials and buttons that he couldn’t make heads or tails of.

Thankfully, he didn’t have to. He pulled out the paper again and followed the instructions Ford had written. Turn this dial this way, and toggle that switch back and forth three times, and…

He heard a muffled sliding noise, and a soft whumphf, and turned to see an indentation in the snow that had definitely not been there before. Oh. Because of course Ford had hidden his journal in an actual hole in the ground. Which a bunch of snow had now fallen into. Great.

Groaning out loud to the empty air, he trudged over to the indentation and began clearing the snow away, first with his branch and then, as he got closer to the bottom, scooping it out with his hands, until he saw a sudden flash of gold. He gently brushed the snow away, uncovering red leather embossed with a gold-foil six-fingered hand like the one on the first journal.

“What the hell, Ford,” Stan muttered into his scarf. “You could at least have put it in a box or a bag or something. Now it's all wet.”

He lifted the journal clear of the snow and shook it off. His gloves were soaking wet by now, so he yanked them off and shoved them in a pocket, wincing as the cold bit into his fingers, before doing his best to dry off the book against his sweater. It was still a bit damp, but fortunately it looked pretty sturdy.

Curious, he flipped the book open. He'd never actually looked inside the journal Ford had given him, what with all the...distractions. Probably he wouldn't understand most of it, maybe any of it, but still, he kind of wanted to see what all the fuss was about. It wasn't like Ford had told him not to look at it. As such.

He expected something alien, more of the equations and technical gibberish that littered Ford's house, but in fact what greeted him was achingly familiar. It looked like the journals Ford used to keep when they were kids, full of doodles and notes on things he had read about, or things he and Stan had found on the beach or the boardwalks; piles of notebooks crammed tight with monsters and cryptography and dreams. The handwriting was a lot neater, the drawings more lifelike, all contained within a heavy and professional-looking tome instead of a cheap dime-store composition book, but the heart of it was the same.

Some things about his brother hadn't changed at all.

He stood there in the snow, almost forgetting about the cold, flipping through accounts of folklore and secrets. Dangerous creatures, lumberjack legends, ghosts and zombies...some of the pages had been ripped out or scribbled over angrily. Some had splatters of red on them.

The journal ended abruptly halfway through, on a dramatic note about how Ford was being watched and had to hide this journal immediately.

“Great job on that,” Stan muttered. “You hid your doodad in a tree. In lumber country.”

The pages immediately before that were a mess of paranoia, ravings about seeing things, not being able to sleep, bleeding from one eye, the whole deranged plan to travel into the caves, and then...

Ironically, the only other person left that I can trust is the least trustworthy person I know. He is a thief and a charlatan-but a well-traveled one. I have no doubt that he is familiar with mob hangouts and back alleys the wide world over. He will find somewhere to hide Journal 1. I have sent word to him and now must await his arrival.

Perhaps he can yet prove his worth to me.

Stan stood there, forgetting the snow almost up to his knees, forgetting his shivers and sodden clothes, forgetting the feel of his hands against the damp leather, forgetting everything but those words and the way they burned cold and bright inside his chest.

It was true after all, then.

And he wanted to be angry, he wanted it desperately, for the anger to rise up and burn away the cold that was settling inside him like snow, like frostbite, turning everything numb numb numb until he was frozen all through and he knew he would shatter at the faintest touch, but it didn't. It wouldn't. Anger should have been the one thing he count on but the cold just kept coming and he couldn't stop it.

He'd been kidding himself. He'd forgotten. He'd let himself forget. He'd said: it was all the demon, it was Bill, it was Bill holding the knife, it was Bill saying those things, and he had stopped remembering that Ford had said things too. That Ford had turned his back on Stan. Had left him out in the cold for ten years and only called him when he wanted something.

It was pathetic, really. He'd been so relieved that his brother didn't literally want to kill him that he'd forgotten that Ford still hated him.

Or no. Didn't hate him. Hate might have been...better, worse, he didn't know, but that wasn't what was written here. This wasn't hate. If Ford had raged and spat across the page, he might have understood that, might have been able to rise to it with hatred of his own, but the words were flat and uncaring. Ford didn't hate him because Ford didn't even think he was worth hating. Ford didn't think he was worth anything at all.

And he knew this was no demon's doing, because he knew the demon and he knew Ford, and there was none of that gleeful spite here. The words weren't calculated to sting. They were only stating a fact.

That was the worst of it. It was a fact. It was true. He couldn't argue for his worth because he knew he didn't have any. What, in ten years, had he done to prove his worth to Ford, to anyone? Sold a bunch of dodgy products, got in trouble with the wrong people, wound up broke and getting more broke all the time. He'd been falling so long he knew he didn't have a hope of ever climbing out of the pit he kept on digging for himself, let alone recovering the millions he'd carelessly lost.

He snapped the book shut, dropped it in the satchel, and fished for the radio.

“Ford?”

A faint crackle, and then: “Stanley?”

“I found your journal.”

“Oh. Good.” There was a staticky pause. “Any problems?”

He'd hoped that hearing Ford's voice would spark some anger, something to drive him on, push him righteously forward.

“No,” he said. “No, there's...nothing. Just wanted to let you know.”

“Oh. I see. Thank you. Well, uh...carry on, then.”

Stan dropped the radio back in the bag and pulled his sodden gloves back on.

Maybe. Maybe there was finally a chance here. To do something. He couldn't make himself worthwhile, but maybe something he could do would be worthwhile.

He was going to get that damn hair and no overdecorated fairy horse was going to stop him.

Stan took a deep breath and pushed forward.

Ford put the radio down with a frown. Stanley had sounded...odd, but he couldn't pinpoint why. But then, there was nothing new there.

“Sounds like he's doing alright so far,” Fiddleford said from across the room.

They were in Ford's workshop, which, like the rest of the house, was an unholy mess. Ford had mostly just shoved everything off to the sides in a disordered pile. He'd sort it out later. If later ever happened.

“Yes,” Ford said absently. “So far.”

He picked up the wire he had been shaping and resumed working on it. Fiddleford was constructing the main device they were going to attach to the gun, while Ford was working on the spell components. It was delicate work, but this was what he was good at. Science. Studying. Equations and precision. Here, at least, was one thing he could understand.

He really wished his hands would stop shaking.

They'd moved the space heater in there with them, but it was still damn cold. Fiddleford had put a blanket on him-again-but it wasn't helping all that much. It felt like the cold was coming from inside him, somewhere deep in his core that no outside warmth would reach.

They worked in silence for a while, with only the sounds of their tools and Fiddleford's occasional quiet swearing to disturb the dusty air. Eventually Fiddleford laid down his pliers, cracked his knuckles, and slumped back in his chair with a sigh.

“This is a damn odd project we're doing here,” he said. “I don't understand the half of it.”

“I'd be happy to go over the advanced theory with you sometime when it doesn't hurt to talk,” Ford said.

He didn't turn around, but he could feel Fiddleford's eyeroll from across the room.

“You stick to your advanced theory,” the engineer muttered. “I don't want to know any more about this than I need to.”

“That's not a very scientific outlook-”

“Well it hasn't done you a lot of good, has it?”

The words hung for a moment in the cold air.

“...'m sorry,” Fiddleford said eventually. “That wasn't called for.”

“Maybe not,” Ford said heavily. “But it wasn't wrong either.”

By the time he found the magical glade or whatever it was, Stan was so exhausted he could barely stand. The walk from the house to the standing stones would have been long enough already without also having to push through the snow, not to mention getting lost and having to radio Ford for help three times. He'd seen the silhouettes of things he couldn't quite identify darting between the trees, and once caught a flash of red that looked an awful lot like a pointy red cap, but by and large everything looked the same, just endless blank whiteness that was starting to make his eyes hurt.

But there was no mistaking the place now that he'd found it. He'd started to pass strange carved stones poking up through the snow, and now he could see a circle of them up ahead, like some kind of knockoff Stonehenge. According to the first journal, he had to stand in front of them and perform an 'ancient druidic chant' to open the gateway. There was even an illustration of a druid on the page, as if this might in some way help.

Well, there was nothing else for it now. Stan stood in front of the stone ring, coughed a few times, and then, feeling like a total idiot, began chanting.

Just as he was starting to think that absolutely nothing had happened, he felt the rumble.

Slowly, ponderously, the stones pushed up from the snow, extending taller and taller, bringing the snow and dirt up with them in a thick wall that seemed to age and solidify into as it rose until it resembled some forgotten settlement from the Bronze Age.  As Stan watched, slack jawed, vines and flowers pushed out from the dirt, winding around and around over the sheets of shaggy moss that were spreading over the stones, while the snow and mud rapidly melted away to reveal a huge set of golden doors inlaid with fist-sized pink jewels.

Stan he reached out a hand, touched the burnished metal of the doors, tugged gently at a flowering vine, tapped the side of the gemstones, just to make sure this was a real thing that had actually happened and not some hallucination born of cold and sleep deprivation. It felt real. One of those jewels alone could set him up for life...but they looked very well attached, and anyway, thief and charlatan and knucklehead he might be, but he wasn't stupid enough to think stealing right off the front door of a magical garden that had appeared out of nowhere was a good idea. That sounded like a great way to get cursed.

Besides, he had other business.

He took a deep breath and pushed open the doors.

Before him was was a beautiful, sunlit forest clearing, unmarked by any sign of winter. The grass was lush and deep, a rich green dotted here and there with brilliantly colored flowers attended by gently buzzing insects. A clear, bubbling stream ran through it, fed by a rushing waterfall that danced with rainbows. The air was warm and soft and smelled faintly of wildflowers and honeysuckle and something else he couldn't identify. Everything about it felt more...just more, a little more intense, the colors brighter, the scents clearer.

And there in the middle of the grove were two unicorns.

For a moment Stan just stood there, staring at them dumbly. Up until this exact moment he hadn't actually, really believed he was going to see any damn unicorns. He'd expected...he wasn't sure what, maybe some weird mutant creature that Ford had just called a unicorn for convenience, or a misshapen goat Ford had seen from a distance, or maybe he would just find that Ford had hallucinated the whole thing. Because sure, by this point Stan had more or less accepted that there was something not normal going on, something weird, something he didn't really understand, but there was a pretty big difference between that and actual real fucking magical unicorns. But here they were, right in front of him, undeniably real and undeniably unicorns.

Inasmuch as he'd been expecting anything, he'd had a vague idea of a horse with a pointy bit on one end, which had made him a bit nervous to think about, not that he would ever admit that to anyone.  He'd encountered horses a few times-sleeping in barns, picking some fruit for an old guy for an afternoon's salary and a bag of apples, legging it through a field without any pants after a con attempt gone especially wrong-and he'd found that horses were, well. A lot bigger than they had looked on TV back in Glass Shard Beach. And people said horses were all timid and frightful and maybe they were, relatively speaking, but all Stan knew was that they had feet like chunks of iron and they could kick harder than any punch he'd ever throw, and there had been nothing timid and frightful off about the huge black mare he'd intruded on during his escape. Suffice to say it had been a lot harder to make it out of that field after that encounter.

The unicorns did look a bit like horses, but they looked more like deer, all slender and pointy and delicate, with dainty hooves and long tufted tails like lions. One of them, which was perched majestically on a rock and catching the light, was a blue so pale it was nearly white with a mane that was a swirl of rainbow colors. The other was a rosy gold dappled with star-like spots of white and a gold-flecked blue mane,  and was somewhat more prosaically chewing the grass in a corner of the glade.

Stan felt betrayed by reality.

The blue unicorn lifted its head and tossed its mane dramatically before turning to look at him. Its eyes were pink and glittering and really quite uncomfortably large for its face.

“Welcome, visitor,” it said-or at least, its horn glowed pink and it seemed to produce a voice, somehow, though its mouth didn't move. It was a high, flouncy sort of voice, and...probably female? It was a little hard to tell, honestly. “The world outside is harsh. Come inside and rest a moment.”

“Uh,” Stan said. “Thanks.”

“But do take your shoes off first,” the unicorn added quickly as Stan stepped forward.

Stan did a double take. “What?”

“Your shoes. I have a thing about shoes.”

Stan glanced down at the lush, deep grass, shrugged, and pulled his boots off. At least it would warm his feet. He'd lost feeling in them some time ago.

As he stepped forward gingerly in his wet socks, the unicorn rose to its hooves and paused for a moment to pose in the spray from the waterfall. “Greetings, weary traveler. I am Celestabellabethabelle, last of my kind.”

Stan's eyes automatically flicked to the other unicorn still calmly eating grass in the corner.

It was hard to tell with the horse face and all, but Stan could swear the first unicorn looked annoyed. “By which I mean, I am the last female of my kind. Skystardancechaserton is the last unicorn stallion.”

“Call me Chase,” the gold unicorn said languidly. “Please.”

“What happened to the rest of the unicorns?” Stan asked.

There was a very long pause.

“That's a very sensitive subject and I'll thank you not to bring it up,” Celestabellabethabelle said. “Now, if we're done with the rude questions-”

“Sorry.”

“-what is your name, o traveler?”

“Oh, uh. Stan. My name's Stan.”

It felt...weird. Aside from meeting Fiddleford, he hadn't introduced himself by his real name in...well, longer than he could really remember at this point. Years, at least. It wasn't even really a matter of hiding any more; there was just no point. It wasn't a name attached to anything anyone cared about.

But the unicorns could probably detect lies or some shit like that, and anyway he doubted they were going to do a full background check and call him out for selling dodgy dishtowels in New Jersey ten years ago. Although, at the rate things were going, he didn't think he'd be all that surprised if they did.

“Welcome, Stan.” Celestabellabethabelle cleared the stream in a graceful leap and paced towards him. Stan backed away instinctively. Alright, so the unicorns weren't quite as hefty as horses, but they were still big enough to be getting on with, and that horn looked sharp.

“Pray tell, what is the purpose of your quest, Stan?” Celestabellabethabelle fluted at him.

“What?” Stan said, distracted by the presence of a very pointy object on level with his face. He was suddenly acutely aware of the bandage over his face, and the tingle of the cut underneath it.

Celestabellabethabelle s eyes narrowed slightly. “Why are you here?”

Oh. Oh, right. Stan straightened up a bit and tried to put on his most charming expression. “Ah, yes, about that. I, uh, I came to ask for a bit of your hair. You see, there's this-”

“Very well!” Celestabellabethabelle tossed her head again and struck a pose. Stan got the feeling he had finally managed to wander back on script. “Step forward, and let us see if you are truly of pure, perfect heart.”

“Oh, uh, well, about that-whoa!”

The horn was very suddenly extremely close to his chest and oh man, it was sharp. Stan instinctively stumbled back, temporarily forgetting about anything other than getting some distance between that thing and his precious vital organs.

He'd barely had time to chastise himself for this-great, he'd probably screwed up even before the test had begun-when the unicorn reared up with a wild bray. The sudden movement tripped frantic alarm bells in Stan's head-horn, hooves, limbs moving blow incoming, get down, cover face, cover chest-and he was flinging himself onto the frozen ground and rolling away without even thinking about it. “NOT PUUUUURE OF HEEEEEAAAAART!” the unicorn bellowed.

Stan flinched and curled in on himself, waiting for the attack.

It didn't come.

“Are you even listening?” Celestabellabethabelle demanded. “And why are you on the ground?”

Stan slowly raised his head. The unicorn's tail was twitching, and it definitely looked annoyed, but it didn't look like it was about to smite him.

“Sorry,” Stan mumbled, clambering to his feet.

“I said you are not pure of heart,” the unicorn repeated huffily. “You have done bad things!”

Stan's people-reading skills didn't work quite so well on unicorns as they did, well, people, but he got the distinct impression that Celestabellabethabelle wasn't angry at him for being impure so much as she was angry at him for not reacting properly to this revelation.

“I mean...I coulda told you that without all the theatrics,” he said, brushing grass out of his hair.

Celestabellabethabelle gasped dramatically. “You knew you were not pure of heart? And yet you dare to come here and ask a boon of a unicorn?”

“Well...it's for a very important reason,” Stan said. “My brother-”

“I will hear no more! Leave!” The unicorn reared up again and Stan flinched, but this time she only turned her back on him and strode back toward the stream. “We grant our hair only to those who are pure and perfect. You do not qualify!”

“I know I don't qualify, but-”

“No arguments! Take your shoes and go!”

“No,” Stan said.

Celestabellabethabelle jerked her head around in surprise. “No? What do you mean, no?”

“I mean, no. It ain't that easy to get rid of me, lady.” Stan folded his arms and looked steadily back at her. Out of the corner of his eye he could see that the other unicorn had stopped eating and was watching the scene with interest.

“You dare-”

“Let me ask you something,” Stan said. “When was the last time you actually met a person that was perfect and pure of heart?”

He watched for the hesitation. He wasn't disappointed.

“It's...been a very long time,” Celestabellabethabelle said. “Such hearts are very rare-”

“If they're so rare it shouldn't be hard to remember the last time you encountered one.”

Unicorns, it turned out, had very bad poker faces.

“Why do you ask these impertinent questions?” Celestabellabethabelle said eventually, after too long a pause. “It is no concern of yours-”

“Yeah, yeah, cut the crap,” Stan said. “I know a con when I see one. Let me guess: you've never encountered someone that was pure of heart. Probably because they don't exist. Everyone's got some bad in them. Maybe...maybe some of us more than others, but-”

“And I suppose you know everything, do you?” the unicorn snapped. “Who are you to argue with a unicorn on matters of the heart? We can see within you, we know-”

“Yeah?” Stan said. “So if you know so much, tell me, just what bad things have I done? If you know all about them it shouldn't be hard to name a thing or two.”

“It...it doesn't work like that,” Celestabellabethabelle muttered. “It's more of a vague-”

“It doesn't work at all, does it? You didn't even get near me with that thing before you were brayin' about impurity. I told you, I know a con when I see one, and I gotta tell you, this one is pretty weak. You just think no one will argue with you 'cause you're pretty.”

The other unicorn broke out laughing.

“Chase!” Celestabellabethabelle hissed angrily, shooting the gold unicorn an evil look. “Don't you have somewhere else to be-”

“I do not,” Chase replied. “It's not your glade, C-beth, and I'm tired of you hogging it just so you can play your stupid games. Anyway, why would I leave now? This is the funniest thing I've seen in years.”

“Chaaaaaase,” Celestabellabethabelle whined.

“You got in one, dude,” Chase said, tossing his head at Stan amiably. “She's been pulling this stupid trick over on people for ages. We can't see into anyone's heart. Our horns don't do jack 'cept glow and play disco music.”

He raised his head and, sure enough, his horn glowed and emitted a snippet of obnoxious music.

“Urgh,” Stan said.

“I know, right? It changes from time to time. Not sure why.” He twitched his tail in what might have been the unicorn equivalent of a shrug.

“I am protecting our glade,” Celestabellabethabelle insisted. “If word spread among the outside world of the properties of our hair, why, we were would be hunted to extinction, our land destroyed-”

“Yeah, no,” Stan said. “I think you just like screwing with people.”

“Alright, maybe I do!” Celestabellabethabelle snapped. “They're so...so...whiny and stupid! 'Oh, please, beautiful unicorn, may I have a lock of your mane to protect my family'-blah, blah, blah! It gets tiring, you know! And they're so gullible, they fall for anything! I say they deserve it! After all, how would you like it if I came into your house and demanded you give me some of your stupid hair?”

Stan was done with this.

“Boo fucking hoo,” he snarled at the pouting unicorn. “You want to know how I'd like it if I got to sit around in a magic glade doin' nothing all day and the worst thing I had to put up with was having people come by to flatter me? I think I'd like that a whole hell of a lot! It'd beat the shit out of being homeless, broke and on the run for ten years! You know when the last time I got to have a shower was? Wash my clothes? Eat a decent meal? Sleep in a damn bed? Listen, you overrated carousel reject, you want some hair? Is that your problem? Because you can fucking have it!”

He grabbed at his pocketknife, yanked the blade open, and, in a fit of towering spite that had escalated well past any rational thought, hacked off his tied-back hair and flung it in the unicorn's face.

Celestabellabethabelle stood there, blinking, nostrils twitching, looking considerably less elegant and otherworldly with chunks of brown mullet all over her, and made a small horsey sound of distress.

“Now,” Stan said, breathing hard and drunk on the feeling of pure unthinking anger, “I did not wade through two feet of snow for hours to get here just to turn around and go back empty-handed. You want to talk about being hunted to extinction? Fucking try me.”

The unicorn stared at him for a moment longer before bursting into tears-somehow-and running away.

Chase bellowed with laughter.

“Dude, that was amazing!” he gasped, doing a kind of gleeful tap-dance with his front hooves. “The look on her face! She's never gonna live that down! Listen, buddy, you really need that hair, you can have some of mine. You deserve it after that performance.”

“Oh,” Stan said, slowly lowering the knife. “Uh, thanks.”

He pulled his boots back on, wincing at the feeling of his wet socks squelching around inside, and picked his way across the grass over to the gold unicorn.

“Actually, if you could take it off the front, that'd be great- yeah, like that.” Chase cocked his head to the side and let Stan cut a few locks off the front of his mane. “Yeah, that's the ticket. It's been getting in my eyes, and lemme tell you, man, it is hard to get a haircut when you don't know anyone with opposable thumbs. Oh, wait'll I tell everyone about this...”

“So you're not really the last ones,” Stan said.

“Oh, Epona, no,” Chase said. “That's just part of her stupid game. Honestly, she's taken so many people in with that, I cannot tell you how great it was to watch someone call her out on it for once. Usually they just run away crying. Although I heard one guy challenged her to an arm wrestling match.”

Stan carefully tipped the glittering blue hair into the little plastic baggie Ford had put in the satchel and tucked it away. “Well...uh...thanks. For this, I mean. It really is important.”

“Sure, dude. Least I could do, I'm gonna be riding that story for months.” Chase swished his tail and went back to chewing on the grass.“And hey, good luck on your quest!”

“Thanks,” Stan muttered, turning back toward the gateway. After the brief reprieve of the warm glade, the cold waiting outside felt even worse. “I think we're gonna need it.”

“Ford?”

Ford jerked upright at the touch of a hand on his shoulder and realized with a sick jolt that he'd been drifting off over his work. He couldn't afford that. If Bill got loose, here, now, alone with Fiddleford...he didn't want to think about that.

The engineer in question was standing over him, holding a steaming mug and looking concerned. “I, uh. I made some more tea. That coughing sounds like it's getting pretty rough.”

He held the mug out tentatively.

Ford took it. It was his favorite, he realized, the one with the NASA logo on it. A graduation present. It had gotten chipped at some point.

“Thanks,” he muttered, setting the mug on the tabletop and wiping at his eyes. Just a little longer. He just had to make it a little longer, and then he could rest.

“Stanford,” Fiddleford said quietly. “I...I need to ask you something.”

His tone sounded ominous, but Ford was far too drowsy to properly process it, so he settled for making a questioning noise.

Fiddleford perched on the edge of the desk and kicked his legs back and forth across the floor. “This...this demon...is there, ahm...anything it's done that I should know about?”

Ford squinted at him. “I thought you didn't want to know things.”

Fiddleford blew out a tired, irritated sigh. “Look, I just...I...Stanley said it'd been, uh, it'd been...hurting you. And-”

“Stanley told you that?” Ford broke in, feeling a faint sting of betrayal. He'd rather hoped Stan would get the hint that it wasn't something Ford exactly wanted to be talked about.

“The issue was rather pressed when I started seein' all the blood around your house,” Fiddleford said, a faint touch of his old dryness creeping into his voice.

“It's not important,” Ford muttered, staring into his mug.

“We could debate that,” Fiddleford said. “But...well, it's just-I had a moment, y'know, seeing that...it made me wonder, well, what you'd been doing. I mean, if there were...other people...”

“If I'd been hacking people up in Satanic rituals?” Ford said. “Corpses hidden in my basement? That sort of thing?”

Fiddleford looked very tired.  “Stanford...you told me you made a pact with a demon that wants to end the world. There are...weird sigils and idols and things all over your house. And an awful lot of blood. I hate to break it to you, but you've kinda lost the benefit of the doubt on this one. So yeah. I guess that is what I'm asking.”

“Technically he's an extradimensional being-”

“Yeah, yeah, it's as close to a demon as makes no difference, from where I'm standing.”

Ford stirred his spoon around in his mug aimlessly.

“As far as I know I'm...the only one he's hurt so far,” he said eventually. “Well. And Stanley. Last night.”

Fiddleford nodded jerkily. “Right. And this pact-”

“It was just...an agreement. To work together. I didn't sign over my first born or anything, if that's what you're thinking.” Ford shrugged listlessly. “I thought he was a friend. He said he could help me, he could...keep working when I couldn't...I didn't see any reason not to let him. It was...easier, for him, if he could move in and out of my mind. And then later I...it turned out I couldn't take it back.”

“Why?” Fiddleford said.

“Well...the mechanism by which Bill is allowed access-”

“No, I mean...why was it so important for you to be working so damn hard?”

“Oh.” Ford took a sip of the tea. His throat felt raw, worn and chafed as an old rope. “I suppose Bill was very motivated to complete the portal as fast as possible.”

“Probably,” Fiddleford said. “But that'd be its reason. What was yours?”

“What?”

Fiddleford took off his glasses and rubbed at his eyes.

“You work yourself to the bone, Stanford, and I've never understood it,” he said. “Even before...all this. You get as much done as any three people could and you still push yourself to go harder. For as long as I've known you it's been like you're...you're racing towards something, but I don't know what. I'm not sure you do either.”

Ford looked away.

“You wouldn't understand,” he said. No one ever did.

“Yeah, sure,” Fiddleford said wearily. “Handy excuse to not bother tryin' to explain it.”

Ford bristled. “You know, I could be asking you the same question.”

“What? I'm not racing towards nothing. I take my own time-”

“No. Your first question. Is there anything I should know about?”

Fiddleford began to jog his leg nervously. “What would you be needing to know about?”

“Did you erase anything else?”

“I don't know if it's really any of your damn business what all I chose to forget-”

“I wasn't talking about what you forgot,” Ford said. “I'm talking about what I forgot. What did you erase from me?”

“Ah. That.” Fiddleford looked down at the floor. “Well...I...when I first made the gun, I used it on myself, to try and forget the, uh...something bad we encountered...”

“The Gre-”

“I don't want to know.” Fiddleford rubbed at his temples. His Southern drawl was coming on strong now, always a sure sign of stress with him.“You're not really getting the point of the whole 'erasing traumatic memories' thing, are you?”

“I get it, I just don't-”

“Anyway. After...after that happened, and we had that argument...” He closed his eyes and rubbed at the back of his neck. “I said I wasn't going to use it anymore, and, and I meant it, but I had...I had some things to take care of first...and you caught me...you were going to break it. To stop me using it. And I...I couldn't...so I used it on you. I didn't mean to. I mean, I never meant to use it on anyone who...who didn't need it. But I guess I panicked. And after, it was like...like rewinding time. Like I'd just gone back and we had the whole argument over again, except this time I knew what to do right. And it was just...easier to leave it like that.”

“Easier,” Ford said flatly.

Fiddleford shifted uncomfortably. “Yeah. Easier. Then later, when I brought the men round to help excavate...you...you got real upset. You were yelling about how we couldn't trust anyone, couldn't bring anyone else in, how things had to be secret...you-you were scaring me, Stanford. I'd never seen you so angry...”

“I...” Ford swallowed hard. “What happened to not using it on people who didn't need it? Not exactly the most beneficial usage of your wonderful device, is it, cheating honest men out of free labor?”

“It wasn't free labor!” Fiddleford said, scandalized. “I paid them! I just let them think it was for something else! Anyway, I reckon it was pretty dang beneficial to them, considering it was a choice between them forgetting what they'd worked on and you comin' after them for knowing your precious secrets!”

“What?” Ford's voice caught and he began to cough violently. It went on for some time. Fiddleford reached out a hand, hesitantly, but he didn't seem to know what to do with it, and eventually he took it away.

When Ford finally caught his breath enough to speak again, it was in a harsh whisper. “I wouldn't...I wouldn't hurt anyone...”

There was open concern on Fiddleford's face now, but he shook his head. “I heard you talking to yourself. You, um...I heard that a lot, actually. I don't think you realized...but that night, I thought you'd fallen asleep at your desk, and I went to get coffee, and when I came back you were talking about having to clean up...”

Ford's red-rimmed eyes went wide in horror.

“Bill,” he said. It was barely audible. “He...he must have...must have been planning...It wasn't me, Fidds, it wasn't...I wouldn't...”

“I didn't know that,” Fiddleford said.

Ford wrapped his arms tight around himself and said nothing.

“That was all, though,” Fiddleford said after a little while. “That was all I did. I've...been keeping an eye on you. When you came into town, and... I came around to the house a few times, to see how you were doing. I kept meaning to talk to you, to say something...but I always lost the nerve. But that's all. You, you worry me, Stanford...what you're doing worries me...but I haven't used the device on you again. I swear.”

“I thought I saw you,” Ford mumbled. “Watching me, but I wasn't sure...I thought it was a dream. Or maybe not.”

He rubbed a hand over his face, fingers pausing over his swollen eye. “I've been losing time, Fidds. Losing...bits of myself. I wake up in places that I didn't fall asleep in, I find...cuts and bruises that I didn't inflict, I...everything blurs together. Dreams, and visions, and I don't know what's real anymore, things just...come and go...”

Fiddleford frowned and rubbed his hands on his knees. “Stanford...”

“Listen to me, Fiddleford.” There was a sudden urgency in Ford's voice that made Fiddleford jerk his head up in surprise. “This is why, this is why what you're doing is dangerous, do you understand? This is what happens when you start...when things get erased. You lose yourself, more and more, and, and eventually you're...you're more negative space than positive. There's more of you gone than there is left. You don't want this, Fidds. Please. Don't do this to yourself. Don't make my mistakes.”

Fiddleford swallowed, bobbing his head nervously. “That's, uh...that's different, though...”

“How?” Ford said sharply. “How is it different?”

“Because I'm choosing what I want to forget!” Fiddleford snapped back at him. “Because I'm in control! I'm not just...at the mercy of...”

He caught himself and looked away.

“I only use it when I need to,” he said. “It's all worked out fine, so far...”

“So far.”

“I've been studying it, there's no side effects-”

“Don't you see, Fidds? You're...you're erasing symptoms, but you're not handling the problem. You say you take away the memory of what frightens you and you're fine...until something else frightens you, so you have to use it again...it's not solving anything! Unless you do something to deal with your fear, you're just going to keep erasing memories until there's nothing left-”

“That's damn easy for you to say, isn't it!” Fiddleford burst out. “Deal with my fear-like you have any idea what that's like! What do you know about fear? When we went up against those things...I never saw you blink! You, you laughed like you thought it was all fun! A game! And then you give me this spiel about finding 'creative solutions' and those damn meditation techniques of yours that didn't do anything...who are you to tell me how to handle my fear, Stanford? You never worry about anything, you just charge ahead!”

He trailed off, gasping, into a ringing silence. Ford was looking at him very strangely.

“Fidds...” he said quietly. “Why do you think I knew those meditation techniques in the first place?”

“I...I don't know. I thought you...went and looked them up. Got them from a book or something.”

“No...well, I did, but...not for you. Not then, I mean, I...I've been using them for a long time. For myself.” He shook his head slowly. “Just because I'm not scared of monsters doesn't mean I'm not scared of anything.”

“But you...” Fiddleford frowned at the reflection in front of him. “What are you afraid of-”

There was a pounding on the door.

Ford jerked his mug, narrowly avoiding spilling tea all over his schematics, while Fiddleford squawked and very nearly somersaulted off the table.

“That's...that's probably your brother, right?” Fiddleford said nervously, when they'd both recovered a bit.

“We can't be sure,” Ford said darkly. “Could be anything-”

“Ford, open the damn door before my fingers fall off!”

“We can be fairly sure,” Fiddleford said.

Ford took the crossbow with him the door all the same.

“Is this going to be a thing with you now?” Stan said when Ford opened the door with the crossbow ready. “Because it's getting old already-”

“Prove you're my brother,” Ford said.

“Uh, what.”

“Your hair is shorter. Did you think I wouldn't notice?” Ford brandished the crossbow threateningly. “I know how shapeshifters work. They always get one thing wrong-”

“Oh for fuck's sake.” Stan pinched the bridge of his nose. “Look, things...happened, alright? Long story. But I swear it's me.”

“Prove it. Say something only Stan would say.”

Stan stared at him for a moment. “You know what? Screw this.” He took the satchel off, shoved it at Ford, and stomped inside while Ford was struggling to balance both the satchel and the crossbow.  “I got your journal, I got your unicorn hair, I think I might have hypothermia now, shoot me if you want, I don't even care anymore. Go do your nerd stuff. I'm gonna steal some of your dry clothes before I shiver myself to death.”

Ford stared at Stan's retreating back, nonplussed.

“Did you get a haircut?” Fiddleford said as Stan passed him on his way upstairs. “How even-”

“Don't ask,” Stan growled. “Go do something with Ford before he tries to shoot his own reflection.”

Fiddleford blinked after him and turned back to the door to find Ford, crossbow forgotten on the floor, staring at a plastic bag filled with sparkling blue hair.

“He got it,” Ford muttered. “He actually got it. How?”

“Does it matter?” Fiddleford said. “At least we have it. That's good, right?”

“Of course it matters,” Ford said, and Fiddleford noted with alarm that he was beginning to shake again. “It means...it means...all this time...Stan's a better person than I ever gave him credit for. He's better than me-”

“Or maybe he just mugged 'em and took it,” Fiddleford said, gently taking Ford by the arm. “Let's worry about it later, yeah? You don't look so good, why don't you take a break-”

“No.” Ford shook himself free and staggered off back towards the workshop. “We can't stop now. We're so close. Just...just a little longer.”

Fiddleford chewed unhappily on his lip, but he followed Ford back to work without another word.

Stan's duffel had one spare pair of jeans that were mostly hole, and one spare t-shirt that was mostly stain, but they weren't wet and cold-not colder than anything else in Ford's house, at any rate-so at the moment they were preferable. He threw his wet outer layers into the bathtub for Ford to deal with and rubbed off with a rather manky-looking towel before changing. The dry clothes definitely helped, but he was still so cold he felt like he was turning blue, so dug around in the heap of clothes spilling out of Ford's closet and found another sweater (how many sweaters could one man own, anyway?), an old green thing which was tight but manageable on Stan.

When they were kids he and Ford had shared a lot of their clothes, swapping back and forth; they were the same size, after all, and money was tight, and Sherman only had so many hand-me-downs.

“It won't kill 'em to share a pair of pants,” he remembered hearing his father say to his mother. “What am I, made of money? They're basically the same kid anyway.”

There was less of that as they'd gotten older and farther apart in size and style, but they would still occasionally steal shirts or socks from each other. When he'd gotten kicked out, Stan had found one of Ford's shirts buried in the duffel bag his father had packed. He wondered if Filbrick had simply not noticed what he was grabbing in his hurry, or if he just didn't think it mattered what belonged to who. It had to be the first, he decided, because everyone knew the difference between him and Ford by that point. Everyone knew Ford was the better one, the one who was going to excel. Their father certainly did.

He wondered what their father would think of them now.

At first glance the bedroom looked mostly like the rest of the house, an indistinguishable mess of paper and clutter and paranoia, but, standing there looking around and feeling at a loss, Stan picked out a few buried traces of Ford as Stan had known him, as he must have been before all this had started. A poster on the wall of a mustached man in an old-fashioned suit, and another of a man in a turtleneck sweater smiling in front of a background of planets and stars. A mug on the desk with a broken handle and a cartoon alien face on it, full of chewed-up pens and pencils. Dog-eared Popular Science and National Geographic magazines scattered about. A set of Lego astronauts posed on the edge of a shelf along with a little stuffed platypus and a Spock action figure. In one corner there was a small, dusty bookcased, filled not with the heavy technical tomes that took up the rest of the house, but with fiction. Stan picked his way over to it and ran a finger along the spines of the books. Some of them were familiar to him: beloved old pulp paperbacks worn soft and cracked, the Tolkien boxset Ford had cherished like it was his firstborn child, the matched set of classic early sci-fi titles he had rescued one shining afternoon from a book sale at the local library, H.G. Wells and Jules Verne and Mary Shelley. Others were just as battered, but unfamiliar to Stan; he could imagine Ford in college, scouring libraries and yard sales and dinky little used bookstores with that particular gleam in his eye, like a prospector panning through mud for a glint of gold.

Stan sighed and looked away from the bookstore, towards the desk that stood beside it. It was buried under a sea of paper like most other surfaces in the house, but something caught his eye, a tiny triangle of color poking out from the mess.

He probably shouldn't pry-ah, who was he kidding? He was definitely going to pry.

He moved aside the papers and pulled out...

...a photograph.

Him and Ford, tiny and shirtless and sunburned, posing triumphantly in the Stan o'War on a long lost summer's day.

Stan stood there in the cold, dark room, holding the photograph like it was made of ash, like it might crumble and dissolve if he moved his fingers.

He didn't understand.

Ford had moved on. Ford didn't care anymore, not about Stan, not about their boat, not about the dreams they had been basking in on that sun-bathed afternoon a million years ago. He had said it himself: those things had no worth to Ford, not anymore.

But here was this photograph.

It didn't make sense.

Stan set it down, gently, and stirred his fingers through the mess of paper, looking for some clue, some context. His own name jumped out at him, and he realized with a jolt that it was written several times across the sheets.

Dear Stan-

Dear Stan, I know it's been a very long time, but-

Dear Stan, I am in trouble and I need your help-

Dear Stan, I've made some terrible mistakes and I don't know who else to turn to-

Dear Stan, I'm sorry for everything.

The letters all ended abruptly, or trailed off into hopeless, angry scribbles. Some had been balled up, or torn to shreds. Mixed in with the papers were bits of a postcard like the one that had been sent to him; this one looked like it had a lot more writing on it, but it was too thoroughly destroyed to know what it had said.

He wondered how many times Ford had started writing to him before giving up and simply putting down only two words. There seemed to be an endless amount of the half-formed letters, spilling over the desk, overflowing the nearby trashcan with paper wads, torn up postcards, and...

A book?

That was odd. Ford didn't throw out books.

Stan fished it out carefully, curious. It was a thin paperback, extremely battered, cracked and dog-eared with a huge tear down the cover, which was hanging on by a thread. He recognized it, another one of Ford's treasured old classics. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

That rung a bell. Ford had been talking about this just last night, hadn't he? Stan frowned and flipped through the pages gingerly. The inside of the book was more of a mess than the outside, dog-eared and marked up, passages circled or underlined or marked out altogether. One page in particular was covered with yellow highlighter, outlining a long passage that was strangely familiar. It took Stan a moment to realize where he had heard it before: from Ford himself, last night, as he had been falling asleep. If this were much prolonged...

As he flipped through the book, a sick feeling growing in his gut, a page fell out onto the desk. Its edges were torn, like it had been violently ripped out, and the passage at the top of it was underlined so heavily Stan could barely read it.

Under the strain of this continually impending doom and by the sleeplessness to which I now condemned myself, ay, even beyond what I had thought possible to man, I became, in my own person, a creature eaten up and emptied by fever, languidly weak both in body and mind, and solely occupied by one thought: the horror of my other self.

Underneath that the rest of the page was obscured by a scrawl of large, red-spotted childish letters that made Stan think of a too-wide grin and staring yellow eyes.

NO ONE TO BLAME BUT YOURSELF, SIXER.

Ford had gone quiet.

They were close, very close to finishing. Ford had done whatever it was he needed to do with the unicorn hair, and now they were down to the last few small but vital details. Fiddleford, concentrating on a bit of delicate soldering, didn't initially realize that the sound of Ford's ragged breathing and clinking of tools had died away until he finally put the iron down.

He frowned and glanced over at his colleague, sitting beside him. Ford was slumped on the desk, his head on one arm, chest rising and falling very slightly. For a moment, Fiddleford was tempted to simply leave him; God knew the man needed the rest. Then he remembered exactly why he couldn't do that.

He swallowed hard, trying to wet a mouth that had suddenly gone too dry to speak. “Ford.”

There was no response.

“Stanford.”

Nothing.

Hesitantly, fearfully, Fiddleford reached over to shake Ford by the shoulder. “Stanford, you need to wake up-”

Ford's hand came up far too fast and grabbed Fiddleford by the wrist.

“Hello, four-eyes!” Bill crowed cheerfully. “Long time no see, eh? Probably not long enough for you, though!”

Fiddleford stared, terrified and enraptured, at the venomously yellow eyes. “No. No, no, no-”

“Yes!” Bill grinned, achingly wide, and yanked Fiddleford closer. Ford's hand was burning hot and shaking in its grip. “I was wondering if I'd ever see you again! Couldn't take the heat, huh? See a little bit too much for your fragile little mind?”

“You-you-”

“You know, humans really are funny things!” Bill leaned close, too close, and Fiddleford could feel breath hot against his face, see the veins popping in Ford's eyes. “You know how hard I have to work to get into your heads? To really get the power to just wreck the place? It's not easy! But you, look at you! You did it all to yourself! You actually put this thing to your head and blew holes in your own mind! I didn't even have to suggest it!” The grin twitched, faintly, from side to side, teeth grinding against teeth. “And the really beautiful thing is, you have no idea what it really does! You don't know what you're in for, four-eyes! Oh, it's going to be a fun time for you-but I won't spoil it. Why don't you just tell me what you're doing with it now?”

“N...no...”

“Aw, c'mon, four-eyes, you won't share your secrets? I shared mine with you!” Bill cocked Ford's head to one side, slightly, like a carrion bird considering a potential meal. “I could share a few more, if you like! Wouldn't that be funny? If I just erased all that hard work you put into melting your own brain? How's about I remind you what you saw-”

“No!”

Fiddleford yanked his hand out of Bill's grip and stumbled back across the room, tripping and hitting the floor hard. His throat worked desperately, struggling to cry out, but no sound emerged.

“You and Sixer were testing my portal,” Bill said gleefully. “You had a dummy tied to a rope, but the rope came loose and then was another dummy tied to it! You! That's funny, see-”

Fiddleford dug his fingers into his scalp, his breath coming in rapid, panicked gasps. “No. No, no, no, not again, not again-”

“And it pulled you along and you went flying right on in and if Sixer hadn't caught you, you would've been lost forever-”

“Shut up, shut up, shut up-”

“And do you remember what you saw, on the other side?”

Fiddleford moaned and clamped his hands around his ears. There were tears streaming from his eyes.

“Tell me. Tell me what you're doing and I'll let it stay forgotten.”

“I...I can't...” Fiddleford whispered. “Please...”

“You saw me.”

Bill watched dispassionately as the engineer quivered and sobbed into the floor.

“Huh,” he said. “I really thought that would work. Oh well!” He picked up a hammer from the table and rose out of the chair. “More than one way to skin a southerner!”

He took one step towards Fiddleford and promptly collapsed to the floor in a sprawl of limbs.

“Aw, what the fuck?” Bill raised Ford's head slightly, groaned theatrically, and let it drop back down with a crack. Ford was shaking all over now, all the color long since fled from his face. “What's the point in me hijacking this stupid meatsack if it's not even going to work properly?”

“Y-you...c-c-can't...” Fiddleford hiccuped in-between sobbing breaths. “You c-can't...”

Bill narrowed Ford's weeping eyes. “Don't get too cocky over there, four-eyes. I have a few more tricks up my sleeve.” The grin reappeared, sudden as a striking snake. “Maybe I can't make it over there, but I've still got one human to work with. How about a little demonstration?”

Fiddleford's eyes widened in horrible realization. “What-no-no, don't-”

Bill held up one hand thoughtfully. “He doesn't like these extra fingers much, does he? Always whinin' and bellyachin' about being different and being a freak. It gets real tiring to have to listen to, four-eyes, you know that? Why don't we take care of that for him?”

“No, no, no, no, please-”

Bill raised the hammer.

Fiddleford clenched his eyes shut.

CRACK.

“Wooohoohoohoohoo!” Bill cackled. “Man, that is some good quality pain there! You wanna tell me yet, four-eyes?”

“Stop it,” Fiddleford whispered.

“Why stop now when I'm having so much fun?” Bill shrugged, pulling back and forth on the broken finger like it was an interesting toy. “Of course, you could come over here and stop me, but, hah! We all know you're too scared to do that! You always were a fair weather friend, four-eyes. Things get a bit too hot and you bail out! But I'll make it extra easy for you this time. Just tell me what I want to know! What could be simpler? No skin off your nose, just leave your friend to hang like you did before! Don't have to look, don't have to see anything you don't want to-”

Fiddleford opened his mouth, but nothing came out but a faint, strangled whimper.

“Need more time to think? Well, I've still got eleven fingers left! Course, it'll probably get trickier to aim as we go along, but that just makes it more interesting. Ready? Here we go!”

He raised the hammer again.

“NO!”

The hammer went skidding across the floor as Fiddleford lunged, crashing into Bill and pinning him to the ground.

“What the-”

“SHUT UP!” Fiddleford got a knee onto Ford's chest and pushed his arms down flat to the floor. He was shaking hard and tears were still streaming down his cheeks, but his eyes were wild and angry.  “I've had enough of you, you fucking snake-eyed son of a bitch! You've caused enough pain, goddamit, no more! No more!”

“Oh yeah?” Bill said cheerfully. “What are you gonna- mmphf!”

Fiddleford grabbed up the corner of Ford's coat and shoved it in his mouth. “STANLEY!” he screamed as Bill made muffled angry sounds around a mouthful of grimy fabric. “Stanley, get your ass in here!”

Bill glared at him and struggled as Stan's footsteps thundered nearer, but to no avail; there was no strength left in Ford's over-abused body.

“What? What's going-holy shit!” Stan drew up short in the doorway, boggling at the scene before him. “What-”

“Bill,” Fiddleford spat. “Now you wanna help me here or what?”

“Right, right. Shit.” Stan moved to help pull Ford up off the floor, yanking his arms behind his back while Bill twisted and kicked. “Oh, shit-oh, his finger-”

“I know,” Fiddleford said. “Help me tie him up and we can do somethin' about it.”

Bill managed to spit out the corner of Ford's coat as they shuffled him towards the chair. “Wow, you two just aren't gonna play ball, are you? Listen, I'm a generous guy, I'll give you one last chance to tell me before I really get going on Sixer here-”

“Shut up,” Stan snarled.

“You can't hurt him anymore,” Fiddleford snapped, pushing Bill down into the seat. “If we have to tie every finger down we will-”

“You really think that's the only way I can hurt him?” Bill said. “Wow, you two are dumb!”

Stan and Fiddleford stared at each other.

“What-” Stan said.

“I'm in his brain, knucklehead! You can tie me up, but you can't keep me out of your brother's mind! And, hooo boy, you have no idea how much I can hurt him there.” Bill grinned happily at them. “I'll find what I want to know. Eventually. Might destroy a few things along the way, but hey, don't say I didn't give you a chance!”

“You-”

The yellow drained from Ford's eyes and he slumped against Stan, suddenly as limp as a puppet without an puppeteer.

“Oh, God,” Fiddleford whispered. “Oh, God, oh God oh God-”

“How close is that gun to being finished?” Stan snapped.

“It's...it's...almost, it's nearly, but, but I-it'll still take time! There's things-I know the theory, but-”

“Well you'd better get to work on it now, then!”

Fiddleford yelped and scrambled towards the desk.

Stan gently settled his brother into the chair. Blood was trickling slowly from Ford's eye.  “Time. We need more time.”

“Maybe...maybe Ford can hold him off for a while...” Fiddleford said desperately.

Stan shook his head. “Ford can't bluff worth anything. He's no good at that sort of thing. That's...that's always been...”

That's always been my job.

Stan lunged across the desk, startling Fiddleford into very nearly embedding a screwdriver into the opposite wall.

“What are you doing-”

“The journal. It said...something about...” He yanked the red book out of the clutter of parts and tools and began flipping through it hastily. “I saw. Earlier. Something-there!”

He stopped and stabbed a finger that the page open in front of him. Fiddleford glanced at it and flinched away. On the opposite page was an ominous black drawing of a triangle with one staring eye.

“It is possible to follow the demon into a person's mind and prevent his chaos,” Stan read frantically, ignoring the way Fiddleford was staring at the illustration. He flipped to the next page impatiently. “One must simply recite this incantation...”

Fiddleford looked back and forth from the page, to Stan, to Ford. “You're...you're gonna go into Ford's mind?”

“Do you have any better ideas? We have to stall Bill until you can get that gun finished. We need a distraction. And I make a damn good distraction.”

“But-won't that put you in danger too-”

“I don't care.”

And he didn't.

He didn't care if Ford hated him, didn't care if Ford thought he was worthwhile, didn't care about the scar on his face or the hands shoving him to the floor, didn't care about ten years alone on the streets, didn't care about the anger and bitterness and betrayal, didn't care about anything right now except getting between his brother and that thing.

Fiddleford nodded slowly and pushed the remaining chair towards Stan.

“Give it hell,” he said.

Stanley sat across from his brother, grabbed Ford's unbroken hand in his, and began to read.