Chapter Text
When the knock came, Stan's heart leapt into his throat. “Just give me a few more days, Rico!” he called, voice cracking, and grabbed for the bat he always kept close to hand, not taking his eyes off the door. “I'll pay your goons back, I swear!”
He hefted the bat, palms sweaty against the smooth-grained wood but grip rock-steady even so, ready to swing on the first asshole to burst in through the door. That they'd get the better of him he had no doubt – they'd have guns, Rico was a professional, and he may have been an idiot but he knew what happened when you brought a baseball bat to a gunfight – but he'd be damned if he made it easy for them.
No one kicked the door in. There wasn't even so much as a second knock. The mail slot simply spat a card out onto the carpet with a rusty squeak, accompanied by a total absence of door-rattling, swearing, shouting, threats, or anything else Stan had braced himself for. More curious than afraid now, he heaved himself off the bed and peered through the peephole. Standing on the other side of the door was a scruffy old man in a blue uniform – his eyes said cop in the split second before his brain realized mailman . An unlikely goon, Stan had to admit, but he stayed glued to the door until the man had crossed the street anyway, just to be sure.
Satisfied he wasn't in for an ambush, he crouched down to retrieve the card. Even with one hand on the door, he overbalanced, knees thumping into the dirty carpet. He grimaced at that, but, hell, his knees had seen worse, and there was a mystery to solve, namely, who would possibly be sending him mail? He hadn't even been in this pit for a full month, and he couldn't imagine anyone who knew the fake name he'd rented it under wanting to send him a postcard, of all things. And what the hell kind of name is 'Gravity Falls', anyway?
Then he turned it over, and his heart flipped over in his chest.
PLEASE COME! - Ford
He'd signed it, the absolute fucking dweeb, even with his name right there on the other side of the card. A wave of mixed emotions washed over Stan, one part fond exasperation to several parts confusion, concern, and growing irritation. The signature and return address were wholly unnecessary – only Stanford would send him such a terse summons after ten years of radio silence, without so much as a greeting or hollow courtesy or even a whisper of explanation. Not that it wasn't obvious, both from the desperate jagged handwriting and the fact that he had written Stan at all, that Ford was in some kind of trouble and needed to be bailed out. The real mystery was how he'd gotten ahold of this address.
Part of Stan – the ugly, resentful part which seemed to take up more of him every year – wanted to tear the card into pieces and pretend he'd never seen it. What business was it of his if Stanford was in trouble? He'd spent the last ten years in trouble, and the only person who'd even bothered pretending to care was Ma. (Who, come to think of it, had probably given Stanford his address. She had an uncanny knack for knowing where he was, sometimes even when he didn't.) If he had a lick of sense, he'd get rid of it and deal with his own problems. Just push it right back through the flap. Tear it up into pieces.
Instead, he grabbed the doorknob, dragged himself to his feet with a groan, knees popping in protest, and sat heavily down on the sagging mattress. He held the postcard between his knees, rubbing his thumb over the writing. Whatever had driven his brother to send for him like this, it had to be bad. Stanford was every bit as stubborn as him and had always been the colder one, better at putting up walls, so he must have exhausted all other possible options first.
“Oregon, huh?” He looked around the cramped room – the sagging stained ceiling, ragged peeling wallpaper, the carpet discolored from years of ground-in dirt, the tattered curtains that barely covered the smudged and cracked window, all of it illuminated in a wash of red light from the flickering neon sign across the street. It stank, of earthy mold and stale cigarette smoke and the toilet that barely worked and the ripe smell of his own unwashed body, of despair. Eau de Rock Bottom , he thought with a humorless chuckle, and flopped onto his back, bedsprings squeaking mournfully at him. He held the postcard loosely in one hand, flung up above his head, and settled the other one on his rounded stomach.
There was not, of course, any question that he'd go. He'd known he would as soon as he flipped the card over and saw that handwriting, as familiar to him as his own. For all his bitterness, he'd never been – would never be – capable of simply turning his back on his brother in a time of need. Sure, it was presumptuous of Ford to expect him to drop everything and come when called, but it wasn't as if he had much to drop in the first place, except for a whole handful of problems he'd be happy to leave behind.
And, of course, the one that he couldn't. It made itself known in its usual fashion, turning and squirming and kicking restlessly inside of him, and he found himself stroking his belly on automatic, as if that would soothe it.
“Feelin' cramped in there, ya little freeloader?” he muttered. “Tell me about it.” That one at least would resolve itself with time, provided he didn't get his head beaten in first. “Huh,” he said slowly, mind catching on that thought and starting to race, “maybe a trip'll do us good after all.”
No doubt he'd be sent back on his way as soon as he finished helping Stanford out of whatever mess he'd gotten himself into, but if he could just have a few weeks – a few weeks hidden safely up north away from the likes of Rico and every other shark he owed money and favors, a few weeks in a house, a few weeks not alone , with family, with his brother -
A spark of hope flickered to life in his battered heart. He'd long since resigned himself to dealing with it alone. (He'd long since resigned himself to the fact that he likely wouldn't live long enough to deal with it one way or another.) All these months he'd been pushing down the fear, numbing out the parts of himself that said he couldn't, didn't want to, couldn't , and now here it all was crawling up his throat and squeezing away his breath because for the first time in months he had a chance. Hoping hurt after so long spent hopeless. The urge came over him again to rip the postcard up and throw it away and keep on living his miserable fuck-up life, because all he would do with a chance was waste and lose it the way he'd wasted and lost every other chance he'd ever had.
Another flurry of fluttering kicks interrupted his self-pity. “Fine,” he said, giving his belly an absent pat. “I'll stop feelin' sorry for myself. Fine.” With a groan he sat up, then pushed himself to his feet to get dressed and figure out his plan of action.
The sooner he left, the better. The urgency in Ford's message was unmistakable, and he doubted he'd be able to fob Rico off much longer. That he'd done it for two weeks was unbelievable enough. If he left all the unsold product here, the boxes of trinkets and the vacuums and all the clutter of useless crap, it might buy some time between leaving and Rico figuring out he was really gone, maybe enough to get far enough away he couldn't be followed.
Aside from that, he had precious little to bring. There were the clothes on his back, the slightly nicer set for when he needed to make a good impression, the battered and eclectically assembled first aid kit in the bathroom, and the baseball bat. After a moment's thought he took the dirty comforter off the bed, on the reasoning that it was cold up north and he might not be able to make all twenty-odd hours of the drive in one go, and that was it.
Stan fueled the El Diablo up with money he'd been saving to pay Rico back and was on his way west on the interstate within an hour.
The road unfurled in an endless ribbon of blacktop under his tires, the sky huge and dark and star-studded above, and the only other traffic was the occasional semi-truck. The car became its own little bubble of time, traveling apart from the rest of the world. Mile by mile the tension bled out of him.
How did he always forget how good it felt to be traveling? Sure, he was wedged tight in his seat, belly pressed up against the wheel no matter how far back he tried to move, and sure, he had to stop every forty-five minutes like clockwork to squat and piss beside the road, but that was such a small price to pay for the kind of peace the open road gave him. Out here no one expected anything of him. He didn't have to be anything. He didn't have to be any one . He didn't have to speak or even think, and for long stretches of time he didn't, mind as blissfully empty as the rocky red desert blurring by. Mile by mile, he settled back into his own skin. He always felt most like himself when he was going somewhere, though he never quite knew who that was anymore when he got there.
The landscape changed by degrees. Dusty yellow scrub turned into dusty red desert turned into towering red mesas turned back into more desert and scrub, all flat and spread out with the sky a huge cupped bowl above. The sun rose and stained the horizon all pink and bloody orange, then rose further and baked the sky a hard cloudless blue. On and north he drove, 'til the desert gave way again to rocky fallow scrubland.
Exhaustion dragged at his eyelids. He could have pulled over and slept, probably should have, but there was a nagging urgent feeling in his gut that kept telling him to hurry, hurry, hurry.
Anyway, the thought of falling asleep behind the wheel wasn't so bad. His eyes drooped shut and the scene painted itself across the back of his eyelids – the car veering, swerving, plunging over the edge of the road and rolling over and over until it finally came to rest in a tangle of broken glass and twisted metal, the bright hot flames licking up and the black smoke billowing... He'd always wanted to go out with a bang.
An insistent internal spasm pulled him out of that daydream. He opened his eyes, jerked the car back into the right lane, and rested a hand on his belly. “Don't like that idea, huh? Guess you wouldn't. You don't get a say though, y'hear? You're just along for the ride right now, ya little mooch, you don't get to call the shots.” Still, he stopped at the next ramshackle fuel station he saw and bought a tall cup of cheap coffee to keep himself alert.
God, it would be good to have someone else to talk to. Even Stanford.
Stanley Pines had seen some podunk places in his life. Glass Shard Beach had been a hole among holes when he was growing up, and the place he'd just come from would need a few years' worth of expensive civic improvement projects to even qualify as a hole. He'd seen and been run out of two-store towns, one-store towns, one- horse towns, towns where the population doubled when a bus drove through, and, on one memorable occasion, a town whose sole inhabitants lived above and ran its sole business, a gas station/gift store that sold the best damn praline he'd ever tasted.
Gravity Falls didn't even seem to be a town. It wasn't on any of the maps Stan already owned, though he didn't worry about that on his way through the southwest. Nor did he worry overmuch when he pulled over at a rest stop an hour south of the Oregon border and flipped through their maps without any more luck. But when he pulled into the tourist welcome center just past the state line and didn't find it on any of their maps either, he started worrying.
He didn't like the welcome center. The bored kid – maybe highschooler, maybe college-aged – sitting behind the information kiosk, which was just a folding table wedged between the vending machines, eyeballed him from the moment he walked in. When he finally gave up on the maps and approached the table, the kid looked him up and down, mouth twisted in disgust, and a cold sort of anger began working its way up through Stan's chest and into his throat.
“I need directions,” he said, planting his hands on the table and leaning in. “You ever heard of a place called Gravity Falls?”
The kid leaned back, mouth twisting harder. Her eyes kept flicking between Stan's face and chest and belly. “No.” Her tone made it clear she wanted the conversation to be over.
The smart thing to do would have been to just go on his way. There wasn't any help to be had here, and the longer the kid eyed him the more obvious it was he'd been clocked – what this snotty punk thought Stan was he could only guess, but there was the familiar mixed look of fascination and revulsion, the double-triple take that said 'what is it, what am I looking at, what a freak', the discomfort edging into hostility – but he was tired, he was hungry, every part of his body ached from spending eighteen hours cramped in his car seat, and the fact that he couldn't take it out on this kid for looking at him like that only made it all worse.
So he leaned in even closer, getting up in the kid's space, and gave her the kind of hard look he'd mastered after his first stint in prison. “Well, ain't that your fuckin' job? To know where shit is?” He dug into the pocket of his jacket, grimly satisfied when the kid flinched at the motion, and pulled out the postcard to shove at the kid's face. “Gravity. Falls. Either tell me how to get there or how to find someone who does.”
“I don't know! I've never heard of the place! It's not – I don't know every b-bumfuck town in this whole stupid st-state!” The kid pushed herself back against the wall, shoulders all hunched in and eyes wide, voice cracking as she spoke.
“ Then who does? ” Stan growled.
“I – I don't – there's a truck stop half an hour up the road, go ask there, Jesus!”
Stan stayed where he was a moment longer, maintaining eye contact, then stuffed the postcard back into his pocket and whirled around. His feet and ankles were swollen and sore enough that it hurt to stomp, but he still did it all the way out to the car, and slammed the welcome center door closed behind himself for good measure too. As he angrily fumbled with his seatbelt and jammed his keys into the ignition, a distant part of him suggested he'd overreacted. The rest of him kept thinking about how satisfying it would have been to hit the kid, even just once, and be damned with how recognizable he and the car were.
“Would it have fucking killed you to send directions, Ford? Or a map? Anything ?” He thumped the wheel and gave a disgusted sigh. “I tell ya, kid, your uncle Stanford's a real idiot for how smart he is. Dumbest genius I ever met. You keep that in mind when you meet him, okay? Don't be fooled.”
Right after he said that, he wished he hadn't. All the way up here he'd successfully managed to avoid thinking about how Ford would react to his...condition. Which was stupid, of course, because it was impossible to hide. He felt like an overinflated balloon and looked, even with his bulky jacket zipped all the way, like he was trying to shoplift a watermelon. Ford may have been oblivious, but he wasn't blind.
Even if Stan did somehow manage to hide it, that could only go on for so long. Hell, half the reason he'd decided to go was because it meant he could have Ford at his side when it came time for his little freeloader to make its dramatic entrance, instead of doing it in his filthy motel room with only the oversight of the streetwalker two doors down who did abortions on the side. Somehow he'd managed to hold that idea in his head without thinking about how he'd actually tell Ford .
He was beginning to think he might be a little too good at compartmentalizing.
The truck stop was actually closer to an hour up the road. Stan had just begun to think the kid had lied to get him out of there – couldn't blame her – when he saw the sign advertising FOOD – DIESEL – COFFEE come rising up above the treeline like a guiding star. He followed the curving road, crested a hill, and saw it there spread out below him in all its pothole-pocked glory, one weathered little building hunched in the middle of a wide sea of tarmac dotted with diesel pumps.
There were four vehicles in the parking lot, three semis and a single battered station wagon with four differently colored doors, all parked haphazardly at angles to each other. Presumably the parking lot had once had stripes, but weather and wear had long since erased them. Stan pulled around to the empty side of the lot and nosed the car up ten feet from the building, more or less straight, and called that good.
The encounter at the welcome center was still fresh in his mind. The last few months spent hopping from shithole border town to shithole border town had gotten him too used to people who knew better than to poke their noses in, made him careless. It couldn't happen again. So before he went in he dug through his cluttered back seat until he unearthed a heavy coat, a souvenir of winters spent north up on the east coast, and a button-up he hadn't worn since he was twenty. He got out, thankful for the bite of winter in the air which meant the layers would be merely uncomfortable rather than sweltering, and circled around to shelter in the lee of his car while he changed.
Red jacket off, wallet out of his jeans – button-up on, buttoned tight across his chest and left open over his stomach because there was just no way – red jacket back on, zipped all the way up to his neck – and finally he struggled into the heavy coat, sucking his gut in as far as he possibly could in order to button it up. He examined his reflection critically in the sideview mirror, turning to the side and smoothing a hand down the front of his body, and decided that he probably passed for potbellied rather than pregnant. As a final step he ran his fingers through his hair, trying to comb out the worst of the tangles, grimacing at the greasy texture of it. Nothing much he could do about that, nor the way he undoubtedly smelled.
He stuffed his wallet into the pocket of his overcoat, took a deep bracing breath, and went in.
Two truckers sat at the front counter, one was slumped over onto a table in the far corner, and the only person who looked up when the door opened was the single tired-looking waitress. She called out a perfunctory welcome, which he returned with a smile and a raised hand. After a moment's deliberation he dropped himself into a seat one over from the two at the front, crossing his arms on the stained counter and leaning forward.
All of these places had the same air: slightly stale, warm, and heavy with the scent of coffee and the kind of salty, greasy food that stuck to your ribs and warmed you from the inside out. This close to the kitchen he was bathed in cooking smells, which only served to remind him just how long it'd been since he'd eaten a hot meal. His stomach growled noisily as the waitress handed him the laminated menu, a single badly copied sheet with the plastic peeling off one corner. Her red lips gave a little twitch of amusement at that.
“Long drive, huh?”
He gave her his best aw-shucks grin over the top of the menu. “Yeah, been about eighteen hours. Came up from New Mexico.” By now it was second nature to smooth the Jersey out of his voice and slip into the sort of vaguely Midwestern all-American accent that fit in anywhere.
“All that way?” She leaned hipshot against the the counter, gaze flicking around the room, disinterest apparent in every line of her. Stan knew the way this game was played; as soon as he'd bought something and handed over some cash she'd thaw right out, try to chat and net herself a good fat tip. “Need a sec with the menu there?”
He scanned it over quickly, looking for the lowest price on there. “Nah, but I could use a coffee – two sugars, no cream – and, mm, how's about an omelet?” He'd be able to afford all that, just barely, though he'd have to figure something out for the tip.
“Sure thing, hon. You want a sausage link or bacon with that?”
He handed the menu back over with a shrug. “Bacon's fine. Say, you got a bathroom?”
“For paying customers, yeah,” she said, and looked at him expectantly until he dug his wallet out and handed over everything in it, still smiling.
Cash in hand, her demeanor visibly shifted, and she fetched him the key and directed him around back like she was jazzed as all hell to be doing it. He took it, thanked her, and ambled on back.
Maybe his luck was changing. There was only one room, a single-person affair with a urinal on one wall and a cracked toilet set crooked into the opposite corner. It smelled of poor aim and unenthusiastic cleaning, and his shoes stuck to the floor with every step he took, but the important thing was that he could lock the door.
The most important thing was the machine bolted to the wall between the urinal and questionably functional toilet. One side of it advertised flavored rubbers and sensual oils, the other Tampax, either available for just a nickel. Grinning like a cat in an aviary, he made his way over and felt along the sides and bottom and top of it, looking for screws, a catch, something.
He had to unbutton his overcoat to get at his pockets and the little roll of tools he always kept on his person. Three months ago it had lived in his boot, but that was before he'd started taking his life into his hands every time he bent over. At this point his front pockets were about as hard to get into, considering how tight his pants had gotten. He hadn't been able to button them in months, and only by the grace of God and his belt did they stay up.
He made quick work of the condom/tampon machine, tucking the front of it under his arm once he'd pulled it free. The haul wasn't anything to write home about – maybe a buck fifty – but it'd be damn near a 50% tip, and if that didn't get him some good directions then nothing would. It took some juggling to stuff the fistful of nickels into his pocket without dropping the front panel, but he managed, and fumbled it back on without much trouble. Then, just for appearances sake, he flushed the toilet, ran the sink, and buttoned himself back into his coat.
The bathroom did have a mirror, stained and cracked though it was, giving him the first good look he'd gotten at himself in longer than he wanted to think about. He looked like a man who'd driven halfway across the country on a few hours of sleep and a cup of coffee, eyes all bloodshot and bruised-looking and half-lidded, jaw rough with a few days' worth of uneven stubble, hair greasy and tangled and wild despite his earlier attempts at finger-combing. With some disgust he noted his face was breaking out, too. An impressively swollen pimple had sprouted just below his left nostril, and there was a whole cluster of smaller ones just to the right of his chin.
At least the layers did pad him out enough his stomach didn't stick out. He rested a hand on it, drumming his fingers in time to the fluttering movements from within. Just in the last few weeks his little freeloader had hardly stopped moving, turning over and kicking and pushing impatiently at his insides at all hours. Sometimes he barely felt it and sometimes it kicked hard enough to hurt, but he couldn't ever forget it was there.
The sight of himself in the mirror pulled him out of his thoughts. Standing there looking all unfocused with his hand on his belly like – like an absolute cliché, that was what, like some doe-eyed soft expectant mother in a magazine article about the perfect ratio of duckies to bunnies on the nursery wallpaper – it was ridiculous. He stuffed his hands into his pockets and wheeled around to leave, something somewhere between shame and anger coating his throat.
A mug of coffee was waiting for him when he got back, receipt tucked under it. He put the sugar in with slow, deliberate movements, tearing the top carefully off each packet and stirring it thoroughly in before he added the next. The ritual helped distract him from that image of himself. When the waitress came around with his plate he was calm enough to grin at her.
Eating distracted him further. The omelet was rubbery and burned on one side, the bacon limp and chewy, but he hadn't eaten anything since he'd finished his last bag of jerky in the motel three days prior and it was, therefore, the best goddamn thing he'd ever tasted. Only the fact that he was in public kept him from picking the plate up and licking the grease off it once he'd finished the food.
“You stopped anywhere since New Mexico?” the waitress asked, clearly taken aback by the speed with which he'd inhaled his food.
Stan picked up his coffee, downed half of it, and heroically smothered a belch. “Nope. I'm in a bit of a hurry. Y'see, it's – oh!” He smacked the heel of his hand into his forehead and dug out the change he'd just liberated out of his pocket with the other one. “Can't believe myself, forget my own head if it wasn't attached... This is for you, darlin'.” She made an appreciative noise when he dumped the pile of coins into her outstretched hand. “And give my compliments to the chef, too.”
“Sure will,” she said with a wink. “So what's the hurry, huh?”
“Oh, well – it's my brother, you see, he lives in some little place upstate, haven't seen him in a while, but he called me up the other day and told me his wife's expecting any day now and he wanted me to be there. Our parents ain't around anymore, you know, so it's just us, and, I mean, I couldn't miss it, y'know? Not for anything. But, ha -” he leaned in conspiratorially, voice dropping - “poor guy's so frazzled he forgot to give me directions or his number or anything. And I've been askin' around and I can't find the place anywhere on any of the maps.”
“Oh, yeah,” she said, nodding, “all these little logging towns all around, you practically have to be from there to know where they are. Lucky for you, sugar, I've been all over the place. Where is it you're headed?”
He plastered an expression of beatific gratitude over his face, hardly even faking. “Place called Gravity Falls. Y'ever hear of it?”
She frowned thoughtfully, tapping one long yellowed fingernail against her lip. “Gravity Falls, Gravity Falls...” For a moment he feared she wouldn't know it, that he'd be doomed to drive around 'til he stumbled upon the place or ran out of gas in the woods, and then recognition lit her face up. “Yeah, but, boy, that's out there. I've been through a couple times, got a cousin who lives in Blue Creek just next to it. Nice, quiet little place, good place to raise a family.”
“Yeah?” It took every ounce of self-control Stan possessed not to reach out and shake her and tell her to get to the goddamn point already. He just kept his hands around his mug and the smile on his face, head cocked.
“Yeah. So, okay, what you wanna do is, you wanna keep heading west 'til you hit I-395, then you take that up north and east for, oh, a good couple hours, 'til you hit Riley. Then you go east on the 20 'til Burns, and then north on I-395 again 'til Seneca. It's about an hour past Seneca, down some little county roads. I don't recall exactly which, but if you ask around up there they'll tell you how to get there.”
“ Thank you, ma'am,” he told her fervently. “I've been driving myself crazy worrying I wouldn't get there in time.”
She actually giggled, though the sound spoke less to girlish excitement than to a pack-a-day habit. Stan rounded out the conversation with a few more well-placed compliments, drained his coffee, and made his exit with a new spring in his step. Take that , unhelpfully cryptic shithead brother!
Twenty minutes down the road, his stomach started to cramp. A wave of anxiety rolled over him, drying out his mouth and making his chest go tight. “Just the eggs,” he told himself, and almost managed to believe it.
The pain crept up the front of his belly, squeezing, and he knew it wasn't just dodgy truck stop eggs. After a few seconds it went, then came back, then went again. Minutes passed, and just when he'd started to hope it was past it came back and didn't let up.
Stan tried to breathe. Tried to focus on the road, hands white-knuckled on the steering wheel. Tried to swallow down the panic clawing its way up his throat. When it finally passed he didn't dare hope it was gone for good. This wasn't the first time – just a couple weeks ago it had happened on and off for three hours, until he'd been scared enough to go two doors down to Deanna, who'd told him it was just false labor.
She'd told him how to tell the difference, too, though just right then his mind was blank of everything but the terror that it was happening, it was now , while he was in the middle of the fucking woods with half a tank of gas and not a cent to his name, and he couldn't remember a thing she'd said.
Minutes slid by without pain and he managed to calm down enough to think and remember. Real contractions were regular, that was it, and the fake ones just came and went and didn't tend to get any worse than they already were. And it took hours, anyway, so even if it was happening – and it wasn't, it couldn't, it wasn't – he'd have time to get somewhere. He'd be fine. A little voice in the back of his head whispered that that wasn't his luck, that had never been his luck and he knew it, but he shoved it away.
He peeled one hand off the wheel and placed it, shaking, on his stomach, fingers digging in. “Stop it, okay? It's – it's a bad fucking time right now. Just – you just stay there a while longer. Few hours. Please.”
Half an hour later it finally stopped. He sped up, speedometer jittering up past 80, car shaking underneath him. Anything to shave some time off. Just gotta get there , he told himself. Just get there first and it'll all be fine.
He did 90 dropping down to 80 on the curves near the whole way to Seneca. Just south of the city, though, the grey sky finally opened up and dumped the snow it’d been threatening to all afternoon. Big fat flakes drifted down, slow but relentless, frosting the trees and grass and sticking to the road. He kept on speeding until the road got slick enough the car started fishtailing through its turns, and even then he only grudgingly dropped his speed. For a time he hoped he would be able to drive through the storm, but it followed him north, blowing harder all the way.
The directions he got in Seneca were of the 'turn left past Old Jimmy's mailbox, it's the one that's shaped like a fish, then take the second road to your right and if you see the lake you've gone too far' breed, always a dicey proposition, but it only took two trips down the wrong unmarked dirt logging road before he finally got it right. The third road narrowed steadily until he was almost sure it was going to be a dead end too, but then it opened up and there was a sign, and Stan was so happy he could've cried.
Gravity Falls - Nothing To See Here, Folks! the sign proclaimed proudly, which was a slogan Stan could get behind. A few minutes past it he saw the giant wooden lumberjack he'd been told to look out for looming above the trees, all lantern-jaw and weather-faded plaid, drifts of snow piled on his head and shoulders. He marked a gas station, apparently, and sure enough, once Stan got close enough there was the building, a tiny wooden shack sagging in Paul Bunyan's mighty shadow.
'Shack' might have been too generous, he saw when he pulled up. There was a single ancient fuel pump outside, every part of the building creaked ominously in the wind, and when he opened the door its hinges squealed like a dying pig. The woman behind the counter inside looked like she'd been hired sometime just before the Civil War. Stan meandered around as much as it was possible to in thirty square feet of space, trying to look interested in the shelves of dusty candy and canned goods, and made his way around to the counter.
“Afternoon, ma'am,” he said, leaning one elbow on the counter and trying to modulate his voice to 'charmingly lost'. “Think you could give me some directions real quick?”
“Sure,” the woman said in a voice as thin and cobwebby as she herself was. “Just passing through, right?” Her tone suggested the correct answer was to agree with her.
“Nope! Visiting family.” Her fearsome aspect softened somewhat, only to harden up even further when he gave her Stanford's address.
“Oh. That place.” Her wrinkled mouth puckered up like she was trying to juice a lemon with her tongue.
“Yep, that's the place! Glad you know it, I've had a hell of a time getting here!” Stan grinned at her with manic desperation. Good ol' Sixer, always such a social butterfly. What the hell have you been doing out here, Stanford?
“Yes,” she creaked, “we don't get many visitors. Quiet little place. We like it that way.”
“Quiet! Quiet's good, yeah, I love quiet. I come from a pretty quiet place myself, I know how it is. You just point me the right way and I'll be out of your hair, ma'am.” His face was starting to ache from the effort of holding his fixed smile in place.
“Mm,” she said, and noisily sucked her few remaining teeth. Frustration bubbled up hot and sour in his chest, but he just stayed quiet, waiting. Finally, after an eon, she spoke again. “Just take the main road through town 'til you get out in the woods. Gopher Road's the second right.” Duty fulfilled, she fell silent again, staring at him balefully until he left.
“You sure know how to pick 'em, Stanford,” he muttered to himself out in the parking lot.
Stanford's house, to Stan's utter lack of surprise, was about as far away as you could go and still be in the town. The El Diablo bumped and slid down a 'road' that was nothing more than a glorified deer path for long enough he began to wonder if the gas station crypt keeper hadn't sent him out into the forest to die.
It sure seemed like the kind of place a person could disappear forever into. The farther out he drove the thicker the trees got, crowding in so close he could've reached out the window and grabbed a handful of pine needles. Nothing moved out there between them save the blowing wind, and the perpetual gloom swallowed up all sound, so even with the snow crunching under his tires it was quieter than any other point on his drive.
Finally the little road spat him out into a round clearing with a wooden cabin huddled in the middle of it. There wasn't a house number that Stan could see, but he only had to look at the place to know it was his brother's. It hunched suspiciously in a ring of barbed wire and NO TRESPASSING signs, boxed in by the skulking pines.
It wasn't like he hadn't worried before. Every time he looked at the postcard, at those jagged, crooked words so unlike Stanford's usual flowing, rounded script, he couldn't help but wonder just what kind of mess his brother had gotten into.
Sitting there looking at that dark and sealed house hidden out in the middle of the woods, though, he felt the first flutters of real fear. This was not a good place for Ford to be. Stan could feel the oppressive atmosphere, the sense of something old and cold watching from the woods. Even at his best Ford tended towards paranoia, and a place like this could only make it worse.
Almost unconsciously, he settled a hand on his stomach. “Your uncle Ford's a little cuckoo-clock, you know?” Maybe that was all it was. Maybe this was like the fits Ford used to have when they were kids, when his overactive brain wouldn't stop convincing him the world was out to get him. Back then he'd always had Stan around to pull him out of it, but who knew how deep down the rabbit hole he'd been able to go out here by himself.
Stan took a deep breath, turned the car off, and climbed out. Silence rang through the clearing. The air was crisp and sharp and thick with the green smell of pines. Nothing moved save for Stanley, trudging his way through calf-deep snow up to the porch. That the snow was all unbroken was clear evidence Ford hadn't been out here in some time, another bad sign.
The back of his neck itched like someone was behind him. The closer he came to the house, the more his bad feeling intensified, until it was a nest of snakes writhing in his gut. He stepped up onto the porch, the creak of the stairs unnaturally loud, and froze before the door.
“You haven't seen your brother in over ten years. It's okay,” he told himself, trying to keep his voice steady, trying not to sound as worried as he felt. “He's family, he won't bite.” He needs me. He asked me here. Still, he stood in front of the door with his fist upraised to knock for an embarrassing amount of time before he could finally make himself do it.
Immediately the door jerked open. “Who is it?” Ford demanded through the gap, a rough and wild edge to his voice. “ Have you come to steal my eyes? ” There was a click, and before Stan could respond or even get a good look at Ford, he found himself staring down the business end of a crossbow.
He took a startled step backwards, curling a protective arm around his stomach on instinct, ridiculous though the impulse was. Nothing would protect him from an arrow to the face, not at that range, and for one taut moment there was no doubt in him that Ford would shoot. He'd heard that kind of raw, animal terror before, seen what it drove people to do. He couldn't stop imagining the iron arrow tip punching through his face, tearing skin and splintering bone, splattering his brains out the back of his head. Would he die instantly or would he fall back to bleed out in the snow? Would he live ?
Then he found his voice and said, “Well, I can always count on you for a warm welcome,” and the tension broke. The crossbow wavered, then lowered.
“...Stanley?” Ford asked, brows furrowed. He still held the crossbow at his side, tense in a way Stan knew meant he was ready to swing it back up and shoot with a moment's notice.
“You expecting anyone else?” For the first time in over a decade, Stan got a look at his brother. What he saw more than convinced him he'd made the right choice in coming out. Ford looked like a man well past the edge, bloodshot eyes sunken in bruised sockets and fever-bright, darting suspiciously around, hair and clothes nearly as ragged and dirty as Stan's. His jaw was shaggy with stubble, his movements jerky. He looked like someone old ladies would cross the street to avoid.
“I – you look...” Ford looked him up and down, mouth working silently for a moment, and then he managed, “Different.”
The gulf of the last ten years and all the changes they had brought yawned impossibly wide between them. He looked like Ford now, square jaw and stubble and all, finally the mirror image he'd spent his entire life knowing he should've been. In his mind it was the Stan of ten years ago who didn't look the way he was supposed to, and the face he wore now as correct and natural as breathing, new as it must be to his brother. Somewhere between his head and his mouth, though, that thought turned itself into dust instead of words.
All he could do was shrug and mutter, “Been a while.”
After another tense silence, Ford accepted that, or at least decided he didn't care enough to keep asking. He finally put the crossbow down inside the house, then went immediately back to scanning the empty landscape, pressed up against his door like he didn't dare step over the threshold.“Did anyone follow you, anyone at all?”
“Yeah, hello to you too, pal.” Annoyance was beginning to war with concern for his dominant emotion. With every passing second it became more obvious that Ford really was in a bad way, but somehow over the years Stan had managed to forget just how obnoxious he could be when he got like this. Or maybe it was just that Stan had always been the one person he always trusted.
Without further preamble, Ford grabbed him by the collar and yanked him inside. Stan made a strangled startled sound, too taken aback to resist as Ford held him in place and shined a penlight in first one, then the other eye.
Annoyance won. “ Hey ,” he snapped, grabbing at Ford's wrists and pushing the damn penlight out of his face. “What is this?”
Ford let go and backed away, hands raised apologetically. “Sorry, I just had to make sure you weren't -” he fell silent, gaze flicking nervously to the side, and his expression became closed off - “uh, it's nothing. Come in, come in.” He turned, waving jerkily for Stan to follow as he strode into the dark recesses of the house.
That's not concerning at all, nope... Stan pushed the door shut behind himself and followed more slowly, gazing around. By now his earlier fear was a blaring klaxon, screaming out that something was very, deeply wrong here. Hell, from where he was standing it would be easier to figure out what wasn't wrong.
“Look,” Stan said as he followed Ford into the front room, “are you gonna explain what's going on here? You're acting like Ma after her tenth cup of coffee.”
Ford had clearly taken a flying swan-dive off the deep end. That was obvious just from the way he looked, the way his words tripped off his tongue like his thoughts were racing too fast for his mouth to keep up, the way he moved like a marionette with a couple of random strings cut, but worst of all was seeing the inside of his house.
The air was stale and rank the same way Stan's motel room had been, ripe with the smell of an unwashed body and a total lack of air circulation. Drifts of paper and uneven piles of books spilled over every available surface and mounded up against the walls. The furnishings were more suited to some kind of mad scientist's laboratory than a home, all snaking pipes and wires and strange things – that couldn't really be a dinosaur skull, right? - in tanks and glowing consoles spilling eerie light out into the gloomy room. A very human skeleton stood against one wall, skull cocked and grinning at the doorway.
“Listen,” Ford said, rifling through the papers on the overflowing desk at the end of the room, “there isn't much time.” When he whirled back around he was cradling a fat leather-bound book close against his chest, like it was something very precious or very dangerous or maybe both. “I've made huge mistakes, and I don't know who I can trust anymore.” His free hand fluttered through the air as he spoke, punctuating the rapid flow of his speech. With a sidelong glance he reached out and twisted the head of the hopefully-a-model skeleton so its empty sockets faced the wall.
“Hey,” Stan said, a nervous chuckle slipping out. “Take it easy, okay? Let's talk this through.” When Ford passed within reach he put a comforting hand on his shoulder. Something squeezed up tight and hurt in his chest when Ford flinched at the touch, shoulders hunching up around his ears. Once upon a time the weight of his hands had been able to pull Ford back onto solid ground when nothing else could.
Ford turned to face him, shrugging his hand off, and said urgently, “I have something to show you. Something you won't believe.”
Stan couldn't help rolling his eyes at that. That it would be unbelievable – literally unbelievable, on account of only existing inside of Ford's messed up head – he didn't doubt, but the casual way Ford always assumed he knew things no one else could even begin to comprehend grated, even when Stan was trying to be patient.
“Look,” he said, trying and failing to keep the irritation from bleeding into his voice, “I've been around the world, okay? Whatever it is, I'll understand.”
It wasn't entirely a lie. Maybe he wouldn't buy whatever nonsense Ford was about to try and feed him, but he understood everything he needed to already. Being cooped up by himself for who knew how long in this spooky cabin had driven Ford batty, some small spark of sanity had driven him to call for help before he completely lost touch with reality, and now that Stan was here all they had to do was ride it out. He'd keep Ford from doing anything stupid until he came back to himself and later they would laugh about how ridiculous it all had been. Easy-peasy, just like old times.
Ford just looked at him, face lined and weary and impossibly old, like he'd aged thirty years in the last ten. Stan's hands ached with the desire to reach out and take hold of him and tell him he was safe and everything was okay until the uproar in his head quieted down enough for him to believe it.
For a second Ford looked like he wanted to say something. He opened his mouth, closed it, licked his lips, his hands clenching and unclenching all the while – but in the end he just turned and strode off deeper into the house, wordlessly gesturing for Stan to follow.
“See?” Stan muttered under his breath as he followed, shoving his hands into his jacket pockets. “What'd I tell you? Completely cuckoo-clock.” The little freeloader had nothing to say to that. Had Ford even noticed yet? Stan hadn't gone to any pains to hide it, but Ford could be oblivious at the best of times, and when he got like this...
“What was that?” Ford craned to look back over his shoulder, face pale under his dirty mop of dark hair, eyes hunted. “Who are you talking to, Stanley?”
“Nothing,” Stan said. “No one here but us, Poindexter. C'mon, you got something to show me, right?”
They went too fast for him to get much of a good look, but from what Stan could see, the rest of the house was every bit as much a shitshow as the front room. Every available surface was covered in paper and precariously piled books, every corner stuffed full of more science fictional weirdness, all of it jumbled carelessly together.
Ford finally came to a stop in front of a solid metal door that wouldn't have looked out of place in a fallout shelter. He glanced over his shoulder once again, then punched a code into the keypad set in the front of it, angling his body to shield it from Stan's sight.
Stan rolled his eyes again. A tetchy comment about having zero interest in Ford's weirdo nerd secrets was on the tip of his tongue when the door swung silently open to reveal a dark staircase. Cool air flowed out from the opening, bringing with it the dark and earthy smell of a cellar.
“Uh, Sixer?” he asked as they descended the creaking stairs, the tiniest hint of a quaver in his voice. “What is this? Some kinda secret bunker? You gettin' ready for the end of the world down here?” He'd meant it as a joke, but the words hung in the air between them for an uncomfortable length of time.
“Ha,” Ford intoned. “Come on. You'll see.”
Bunker wasn't the right word. Stan tried out a couple of others, basement or cellar maybe, normal words for things normal people had under their houses, but other words kept crowding them out. Words like cave and lair and secret underground science lab . Apparently Ford couldn't even go crazy like a normal person.
“What the hell have you been doing out here, Stanford?”
“Oh, Stanley -” for the first time since he'd come Stan heard something other than fear in his brother's tone and when Ford turned to him the look on his face was rapturous and that was more frightening than anything - “it's been amazing . I've seen so much, things I never could have imagined, things -” his face fell, his tone growing low and dark - “things I shouldn't have. Things – no, there's not – it doesn't matter anymore.” He dragged a hand down his face, rasping over his stubble, then flapped it out towards the far end of the – room. “This is what's important now.”
“Is it?” Stan said doubtfully. This was an enormous metal triangle with a hole punched through the middle, balanced improbably on its tip, engraved with what looked to be all manner of arcane gibberish. Stan's first thought was that it looked like a giant planchette.
Ford tried to explain. He did so thoroughly and at length, using words like quantum and space-time and trans-universal and paradigm, and dimensional at least five times. He summarized multiverse theory, mentioned cross-dimensional contamination, and briefly sketched out the equation that underpinned the whole thing, pacing back and forth and waving his hands wildly around as he spoke. His voice rose and rose the longer he talked, echoing off the high rocky ceiling.
Stan tried to understand. Half the words his brother said didn't sound real and the rest of them didn't make any sense in the order they'd been put in, but that was how Ford's science babble had always sounded to him. What few bits of it he'd managed to process sounded impossible, but Ford's explanation had been so thorough Stan couldn't help but consider that it might not be.
While he mulled it over, Ford just stood there, arms folded behind his back, watching. Slowly, his gaze traveled down Stan's body, then back up, then down again. He frowned, a wrinkle appearing between his furrowed brows.
With a jolt, Stan realized he'd been absently rubbing his stomach – the little freeloader had started kickboxing his bladder halfway through Ford's explanation of his quantum meta-dimensional triangle vortex, or whatever it was, and didn't seem eager to stop anytime soon – and hastily stuffed both hands back into his pockets.
“Stanley -”
“There is nothing about this I understand,” Stan cut him off, more than a little desperately. It worked, just like he'd known it would, just like it always had. If there was one thing Ford couldn't resist, it was an opportunity to talk even more about how smart he was.
He started pacing again, sweeping one hand out towards the machine, and Stan could just imagine him imagining himself up in front of a lecture hall. “It's a trans-universal gateway,” he said in the very same tone he'd always used when he was trying to dumb down their homework enough for Stan to understand it, “a – a punched hole through a weak spot in our dimension. I created it to unlock the mysteries of the universe, but it could just as easily be harnessed for terrible destruction!”
Trust Ford to think putting holes in the fabric of reality could be a good idea , Stan thought sourly, and had to bite back a humorless chuckle. Among the many things Ford was oblivious to, his own flair for melodrama was near the top of the list, and he'd never taken kindly to being laughed at.
“That's why I shut it down,” Ford continued, reaching into his coat to pull out the leather-bound book he'd picked up earlier, “and hid my journals, which explain how to operate it. There's only one journal left, and you are the only person I can trust to take it.” So saying, he held it out, eyes fixed with frightening intensity on Stan's face.
Stan took the battered thing, surprised at the sheer weight of it. He was no expert book appraiser, but this thing was clearly a work of love, hand-bound and sturdy. Ford gave it into his hands like an offering, letting go only reluctantly.
“I have something to ask of you.” The sheer raw urgency in Ford's voice pulled Stan's attention back to him, away from the book. “Remember our plans to sail around the world on a boat?”
Hope roared to life inside of Stan, as hot and sudden as a forest fire. Every moment of the last ten years, all the lean months, all the years spent one step ahead and sometimes one step behind the law, every night spent scared and lonely in his car, Colombia – none of it mattered against the weight of Ford remembering, Ford needing him.
“Take this book, get on a boat, and sail as far away as you can!” Ford turned and stalked away from him, coming to a stop in front of his damned machine, arms folded behind his back. “To the edge of the earth! Bury it where no one can find it.” He stood there, so confident that he'd be obeyed, not even bothering to look back. If he had, he might have seen the look of devastation on Stan's face.
The pain was a physical thing, so huge it crushed the breath out of him, so huge he didn't think his body had room for it. Then the bottom dropped out of his stomach and all the pain drained away and fury rushed in to fill him up, all nice and hot and numb.
“That's it ?” he burst out, voice so jagged it hurt his throat coming up. “You finally want to see me after ten years, and it's to tell me to get as far away from you as possible?”
“Stanley!” Ford cried, frustrated, throwing his hands up. He finally turned back, only to shoulder his way past Stan, barely even bothering to look at him. “You don't understand what I'm up against! What I've been through!”
The fury overflowed him, pouring bitterly from his mouth. “No, no, you don't understand what I've been through!” He advanced on his brother, getting even angrier at the way Ford just stood there, looking taken aback. As if he had no idea where this outburst was coming from. “I've been to prison in three different countries! I once had to chew my way out of the trunk of a car! You think you've got problems?” Ford's eyes flicked down to his stomach, and the pity in them was unbearable. With minimal input from his brain, his mouth flapped open again to try and defuse the situation. “I've got a mullet , Stanford!”
But Ford just kept giving him that look , all bewilderment and pity. All Stan wanted in that moment was to make his brother hurt even half as much as he did. “And meanwhile, where have you been? Livin' it up in your fancy house in the woods, selfishly hoarding your college money, because you only care about yourself!” He jabbed his finger into Ford's chest for emphasis, snarling up in his face.
For just a moment, it worked. The barbed words hit home and Ford flinched back, uncertain. Then the moment passed and Ford's face twisted angrily. “I'm selfish? I'm selfish, Stanley?” He threw his arms out and Stan braced himself for the blow, expectant, exultant, but it never came. Instead Ford stepped back away from him, tone full of scornful disbelief as he spoke. “How can you say that after costing me my dream school? I'm giving you the chance to do the first worthwhile thing in your life, and you won't even listen!” His voice rose with every word until he was practically shouting, arms waving furiously.
Stan hadn't thought that anything else Ford might say could hurt. There it was, though, the truth of what his brother thought of him laid out bare between them, and oh, did it hurt. Some idiot part of him had quietly hoped that maybe he'd suffered enough, that naybe he'd finally atoned for his mistake all those years ago. It was obvious now that he never would. He'd never be anything but a worthless fuckup, not to Ford or anybody else.
“Well, listen to this - you want me to get rid of this book? Fine!” He dug in his pocket, fumbling out his lighter. “I'll get rid of it right now!” He lit the lighter with a flick of his thumb and held it under the book, gratified by the look of utter horror on Ford's face.
“No!” Ford cried. He lunged forward, grabbing the book with both hands. “You don't understand -”
If Stan never heard those words again in his life, it would be too soon. “You said you wanted me to have it, so I'll do what I want with it!” He yanked the book out of Ford's hands and put it back over the flame. A tendril of smoke curled up past his face, sweet with the smell of burning paper.
“My research!” Ford tackled him.
Pop would be proud, Stan thought inanely as his brother's body slammed into him. It was a textbook tackle with nothing held back. Ungainly and unbalanced as he was, he went staggering across the room under Ford's weight. The journal and lighter both flew out of his hands. He got them under him as he fell, but then Ford's weight came down on his back and he collapsed, belly smacking into the ground.
A thrill of hot terror shot through him. As soon as Ford's weight lifted he rolled over and kicked his brother's feet out from underneath him. Now it was Ford's turn to fall flat on his face. Stan didn't even have time to feel smug about that as he heaved himself onto his hands and knees. Grabbing onto the huge lever sticking out of the floor, he dragged himself upright. He stumbled past Ford and went heavily to his knees to grab the journal.
“Stanley!” Ford yelled out from behind him. “Give it back!”
He turned just in time. Ford bulled into him, pushing him up against the control room door. It fell inwards under their combined weight. Taking advantage of the momentum, Ford grappled Stan across the room and into a bank of instruments. Hard metal switches dug painfully into his back, but Stan hardly felt it. All he felt was his pulse roaring in his ears and the sheer savage joy of knowing he could finally, finally hurt his brother.
“You want it back, you're gonna have to try harder than that!” he snarled, and threw himself forward. They both toppled to the floor again, but this time Stan was the one on top. Ford didn't even try to break his fall, just held onto the journal with grim determination. Stan reared back on his knees, trying to yank the book away. “You left me behind, you jerk!” To his horror, his voice cracked. He couldn't stop the words from spilling out. “It was supposed to be us forever! You ruined my life!”
“You ruined your own life,” Ford spat. He drew a leg back and kicked out, foot catching Stan in the solar plexus, heel digging into his belly. The force of it flung Stan back against the console behind him and pinned him there.
Pain burst across his right shoulder. A scream ripped out of his throat, not loud enough to cover up the noise of his flesh sizzling. The reek of burnt meat filled the air. Belatedly, Ford pulled his foot away, scrambling back across the floor.
Stan curled forward, arms wrapped protectively around his aching stomach, trying to breathe. Distantly, he could hear Ford babbling apologies - “Stanley! Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry, are you alright?” - but they were just noise. The burn on his back throbbed in time with his heartbeat.
“Stanley -”
He looked up finally, saw Ford standing above him and hunched up tighter, ignoring the way it made his shoulder scream. “You – you're a fucking lunatic !” Ford flinched as if slapped. “You could've – do you have any idea -”
“I'm sorry! I didn't mean to – are you – is it – are you really – how did you end up -?” Red-faced, he flapped a hand vaguely in Stan's direction.
“The usual way, Poindexter, what do you fucking think? I'm sure you've read about it in a book somewhere,” he added nastily. Slowly, cautiously, he uncurled. Every inch of his body hurt, all the individual bruises clamoring for attention, but the pain radiating from his shoulder overwhelmed them all. Other than that, and being winded, he seemed to be fine. Nothing was broken or sprained or bleeding, and his little freeloader was still kicking – literally. Stan could sympathize. He hadn't liked being jostled around like that much either, and he had the benefit of at least knowing what was happening.
Ford held out his hand. Stan eyed it suspiciously, then reached up, clasped Ford's wrist, and allowed himself to be hoisted to his feet. They both let go as soon as he was up, Ford taking a hesitant step back, journal clutched against his chest. Stan dusted himself theatrically off, then spent an unnecessary amount of time straightening his clothes just to stave off the inevitable conversation.
Finally, he couldn't take the way Ford stared anymore. “Take a picture,” he snapped, “it'll last longer.”
“Sorry,” Ford muttered, having the grace to sound somewhat chastised, and looked away. “I just – uh, you look, um, fairly far along. How long until – you know?”
Without thinking, Stan shrugged, and immediately let out a pained hiss. “I don't know. Not long.”
“You don't know ?”
“Yeah, it ain't like the thing comes with a damn timer!” Nettled, he went on, just because he knew it would make Ford uncomfortable, “And besides, it ain't like I keep a time table of who I fuck and when, either.”
“Oh,” Ford said faintly. “And you're – you're really keeping it?”
Stan had begun simmering down, but Ford's tone cranked the dial on his anger right back up. “Yes, obviously I am. Why? You got a problem with that?”
The look Ford gave him was a familiar one. It said, quite eloquently, that he was being obtuse and he knew very well what the problem was. “Well, I mean, do you really think that's the responsible thing to do?”
“ You're gonna tell me about being responsible? Ten years I've been living on my own! No Ma, no Pop, no brother, no fancy scholarships, just me! Made it this far, didn't I? You think I'll be a bad parent, huh?” He shoved Ford through the open doorway. “You think I'm gonna end up like our old man, huh? Fuck you!” He shoved Ford again, then turned to stomp back through the door. Before he got more than a step, Ford grabbed his shoulder.
“Stanley! Don't – please don't go. I'm sorry, alright? You're in no condition to – well, anything, I suppose.”
“Fuck you,” Stan said again, no less heated, but he stopped.
“You know what I mean. Just – just stay here, alright? At least until, you know.” He waved a hand vaguely at Stan's middle. “It's not like you could take the journal anyway. Maybe – no, I'll just have to take care of it myself.” He heaved a weary sigh. “It would have been nice if you'd told me about this before you came out.”
“Well, excuse me for thinking it was urgent! You didn't exactly give me a lot to go on, you know! Believe me, though, if I'd known what you wanted me here for, I wouldn't have come.”
Ford barely seemed to hear that. “You could have called, you know. If I'd known, I could have asked someone else, but now -”
Stan wheeled around, furious all over again. “Now what? Now you have to actually see me instead of sending me off to – to fucking Australia? Oh, what a fucking nightmare! I'm so sorry I didn't consult you before I got knocked up, it was real rude of me!”
“Stop it!” Ford reached up and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Could you just – just stop and listen to me for five seconds? This is important.”
“Yeah, I can tell. More important than anything I've got going on, right? 'Course it is, because nothing is as important as Stanford's plans ! You care more about your dumb mysteries than your family? Then you can have 'em!” He punctuated each sentence with a shove. Ford gave ground steadily, opting to protect his journal rather than fight back, until finally he tripped over the lever.
The portal flickered to life behind him, filling the room with an eerie blue light. Ford looked over his shoulder, eyes wide, and tried to scramble forwards, back across the yellow-black safety line. He floated off the ground, hands scrabbling at nothing but air.
A spasm of terror went through Stan, mirrored perfectly on his twin's face. He rushed forward to grab at Ford and pull him back. “Whoa, whoa, hey, what's going on?” His reaching hand caught briefly at Ford's pant leg, but whatever gravity was pulling him was stronger, and he slipped away. “Hey, Stanford -”
“Stanley, help me!” Ford twisted in the air, kicking and clawing like he could swim through it, drawn inexorably back towards the glowing portal. “Stanley!”
“What do I do?” Never, not as a child facing down a group of playground bullies or his father's anger, not when he'd been thrown out on his ass on the sidewalk, not even during the hours he'd spent locked in that car trunk, had Stan ever felt so helpless. He stood rooted in place, full of dumb uncomprehending fear.
“Stanley! Do something!” What he was supposed to do, Ford either didn't know or couldn't say. He just called for his brother, increasingly frantic as more of his body disappeared into the blue light. Just before it sucked him in completely, he hurled the journal – the fucking journal – down into Stan's hands.
And then he was gone. A burst of light and force exploded outwards, knocking Stan onto his back and blinding him. When it died down, he sat up and said his brother's name, dull and quiet and shocked. The only sound that answered him was a clink as Ford's glasses fell to the ground in front of him.
He stared at them for a long moment, then surged to his feet and ran at the portal. “Stanford! Come back, I didn't mean it!” He beat frantically on the metal, heedless of the pain, but the portal stayed stubbornly inert. “I just got him back, I can't lose him again!” He threw himself at the lever, yanked with all his strength and then, as a final effort, hung all of his not inconsiderable weight off of it. “Come on!” It refused to budge an inch. He cupped his hands around his mouth and screamed his brother's name, as if that could somehow summon him back. Only the echo answered him.
He turned to look back at the control room, now as dark and dead as the portal itself. A sick, shaky kind of determination filled him. He'd fix the machine. He had his brother's notes and more than a little working knowledge of mechanics – he'd fix the damn machine, pull Stanford back out of it with his own bare hands if need be, and finish telling him off properly. He would . He had to.