Chapter Text
Two months was a long time to spend alone on a boat with your estranged brother who, the last time you had properly spoken to him, had accidentally pushed you into the interdimensional wormhole you were tricked into building.
Unfortunately, that’s exactly where Stanford Pines was.
Well, he wouldn’t quite define it as unfortunate. That would be rude, considering how much Stanley had given up for him over the last thirty years. Learning all of the physics required to rebuild a broken portal, running a successful enough business to pay off a mortgage, faking his death, and masquerading as his twin for three decades had to take a lot of effort, not to mention sacrificing his entire mind to fix Ford’s mistakes.
All things considered, he was the luckiest man in Dimension 46’/.
After a few months of preparation, he and his brother sailed away just as they’d planned. The first few days were strictly business-only, both of them afraid of causing any kind of conflict lest they destroy the bonds they had just begun to rebuild. Around a week in, they were talking casually again, but Ford couldn’t help but notice that Stan only spoke to him about the work they were doing or about his time with the kids, and not anything that happened before that. Of course, it would be hypocritical for Ford to pry; he hadn’t exactly found a good time to bring up his own interdimensional travels either.
It was the twelfth day out from their last port in Washington, as Ford was just waking up from what might’ve been the best night of sleep he’d ever had. Stanley was outside on the deck, in a camping chair with a bowl of cereal in one hand and the other hovering over a fishing rod, which had already been cast. Pulling on his trench coat, Ford silently stood at the ship’s railing next to him, looking out at the gray clouds over the horizon. He glanced over at his brother, who briefly made eye contact with him before they both pulled away from each other.
Stanley cleared his throat after a few moments. “Hey, Sixer, what’s up? You done lookin’ all cool and mysterious yet? Decided it’s time to talk to your twin brother now?”
Ford decided to brush off the rudeness of the statement, even if it had been said jokingly. “I’m…” He exhaled slowly, trying to get himself to look at his brother.
He couldn’t.
“I’m sorry, Stanley. I know I haven’t been the greatest conversational partner as of late.” He took his hands out of his pockets, crossing his arms and leaning them on the railing.
Stan merely shrugged. “I get you. Conversation’s hard if it isn’t what you do for a living.” He looked up at Ford. “What did you even do for a living when you were in… space or whatever?”
Ford sighed. “I was mostly on the run, trying not to get myself thrown into interdimensional jail. Either that, or I was developing a weapon to finally end Bill and his reign of terror.”
“Yikes.” He leaned back, taking another bite of cereal. “Reminds me a little of my own travels, minus the badass sci-fi demon-killing part.”
It surprised him that his brother was opening up about his life this early in the morning, or even at all. When it came to the subject of his past, especially the time between when he was kicked out and when Ford was thrown into the portal, Stanley tended to change the subject, either by smoothly segueing into another topic or by yelling “non-specific excuse” and speed-walking out of the room.
Stanley must’ve caught on to his brother’s shock, as he grinned a bit too casually and leaned back in his chair. “What, you want to hear about it?”
Ford knew it would hurt to hear about, judging from the state he saw Stanley in before the incident thirty years ago. He nodded anyway, for reasons he couldn’t really name.
It was Stanley’s turn to sigh and stare out at the horizon with a troubled look on his face. “I did some minor jobs for some very questionable people. Went to prison a few times, in a couple different countries. Mostly minor crimes, nothing I couldn’t bribe my way out of. ‘Course, that left me strapped for cash and living out of the Stanleymobile for a lot of it. But it wasn’t too big of a deal.”
From the way he said that last sentence, even Ford, with his limited social skills, could tell that it was definitely a big deal. “You were basically homeless the whole time?” He gripped the railing tightly with both hands, ashamed.
“Let’s talk about something else.” The joking tone in Stan’s voice was absent now, giving way to something with a lot more bitterness. Resentfulness. He sighed again. “What’d you think of that diner from our last day on land?”
Stan was stubborn; Ford knew that well after growing up with him. Trying to press any further wouldn’t help anything. “It was good,” he replied after a moment. “I haven’t had Mexican food that good since that one place between dimensions, around eight years ago.”
He was relieved to see his brother laugh at the comment, and even happier to watch his face fall when he realized it wasn’t a joke. There was a certain kind of satisfaction in recounting the absurdness of those thirty years to someone who lied for a living, and seeing him realize he couldn’t even begin to imagine what Ford had seen.
“You mean to tell me-” Stan laughed again. “that there was a random Mexican place out there in the multiverse?”
“It was a drive-through, so not a real restaurant. If that helps.”
That only made Stanley laugh even more, much to Ford’s satisfaction. “Was the food even good?”
Ford smiled. “They discontinued their, uh… infinite empanadas before I went there. But I got a pretty good burrito. Sadly, I didn’t get to finish it.”
Stanley stood up, leaning one arm on the rail, completely hooked “Why?”
“There was a wanted poster there with my face on it, so I had to run before they noticed me.” There it was again, a fun story soured by the unfortunate truth of his multiverse-hopping journey.
“So, how’d you get out? Hotwiring a space car or something like that?”
Ford shook his head. He wished it was that simple. “No. I had to leave the dimension. The second someone recognized my face in any world like that, it was too dangerous to be there any longer.”
“And how’d you get anywhere?” Stan frowned, trying to figure out how exactly interdimensional travel worked.
“It’s quite fascinating, actually- see, there’s two different types of-” He slowed down, noticing Stanley’s look of concern, rather than scientific interest. “There are certain… rips between dimensions. A lot of worlds have them, for whatever reason.”
“And how’d you know where you were going?” Stan’s hands shook, and his frown deepened.
Ford shrugged, unable to keep the eye contact with Stanley that he’d been maintaining for so long. “I didn’t. Every time, it was a gamble. Eventually, in a certain world… I managed to figure out the pattern behind it all. According to a certain theory- or rather, hypothesis- dimension-hopping could either be random, or, depending on the world, it would respond to the thoughts, the feelings, the desires of whoever was traveling.”
“Where’d you find that?” Stan was understandably skeptical. If he hadn’t lived it himself and done extensive testing, Ford would’ve also brushed it off as a cheap explanation to cut a path through the weirdness and unpredictability of the multiverse.
“I penned it myself. Or rather, another Stanford Pines did.” He sighed, clasping his hands together as a cold breeze blew between him and his brother. "I never did get to meet him, though."
"How sad." Obviously tense, Stan forced a small laugh. Imagine what it would've been like if there were two of you when I reopened that damn machine." He moved in a little closer, keeping an eye out for any monsters or a bite on the fishing rod. Multitasking came naturally to him at this point, especially when it came to awareness of his surroundings.
"Do you… want to know why I never met any alternate versions of myself?" Ford's voice was quiet now, as he stared at the sea below him, feeling like it was about to swallow him whole. He took Stan's silence as a yes, and continued. "They were usually dead, or missing. Only a few versions of me actually survive."
Another nervous chuckle. "Come on, Sixer." He put an arm around him, patting his shoulder lightly. "If there's infinity universes, parallel dimensions, whatever, doesn't that mean that there's an endless amount of living Fords?" Stan thought for a moment, then grimaced. "'Course, that means there's an infinite amount of dead ones."
"Yes. I- yes, you're right." The thought eased his tension slightly. "But, well, a lot of these places sure were… interesting, to say the least."
"You told me about that gambling dimension. And the two-dimensional one. And the weird geometry-hellscape-place you tried to defeat Bill in before I pulled you back." Stan shook him slightly, removing his arm from his brother's shoulders. "Are those all parallel universes, or-?"
Ford cut him off. "Close. Those are what would be considered perpendicular universes to ours, at least in the context of transdimensional travel. There's…" He pushed his glasses back up the bridge of his nose, where they were starting to slip down slightly from watching the boat's wake ripple out into open ocean. "There has to be a better way to say it, but unfortunately, our language doesn't have the right terminology for technology we haven't acknowledged."
”Parallel universes," he added, "are ones that are extremely close to ours. They branch away from each other based on decisions, often in the recent past. For example, if I had chosen to take this journey solo, there would be another universe in which I am on the Stan-O-War alone."
Stan didn't point out that Ford wouldn't be commandeering the boat since he wasn't the one who was paying for it. "And are perpendicular universes… not based on that?"
Ford nodded. "They're different places in space than where we are now, like all of the dimensions I've told you about. But they aren't born from people's decisions, they just kind of exist, like our world does."
He contemplated for a moment. "So, why'd you only tell me about those? And were all the parallel places from your decisions, or something else? There's a lot I don't really get here."
"There's a lot of this I don't understand either. When I received the other me's thesis on transdimensional relocation through metavortexes, I could… barely understand half of it. Some of the words were newly coined- he'd started an entirely new branch of science that I knew nothing about." It was said like an admission of guilt, and it may as well have been, from a man who was so used to knowing everything.
Stan shrugged. "Now you know how any conversation with you feels."
Ford grinned, lightly punching him in the arm. "Don't pass yourself up as the dumb twin when you spent the last thirty years studying physics."
"Yeah, whatever." The sarcasm thinly veiled his pride, and he rolled his eyes with a smug smile. "How'd you even find the other version of you, anyways?"
His voice dropped again into something quieter, more urgent. "After a couple of years, I was practically on death's door when I took the gamble and leapt into a rift between dimensions while I was on the run from some of Bill's allies. It took me to Gravity Falls, but there was a research institute in my name." He fiddled awkwardly with his sleeves, eventually settling on keeping his hands clenched into tight fists. "I- I was a prominent scientist in the study of anomalies in that world. It was Fiddleford who found me first, actually. He was the one who gave me that paper on the mechanics of interdimensional travel and parallel universes."
"Don't people, like, explode if they touch their other self?" Stan leaned in to hear his brother better, trying to hide his concern. "How'd you avoid that?"
"Surprisingly, that is what happens. And I avoided it by sheer luck. The other me was off accepting some award at a conference across the country, so Fiddleford kindly helped me get back on my feet while I learned everything I could."
He remembered the shock, the awe on Fiddleford's face, but mostly the shock when he saw his best friend in such a terrible state, and as he'd been taken into the building he'd remembered just how much he missed him. Later that night, while reading the first few pages of the hypothesis, he wondered if the decision to push Fiddleford to his limits led him into the inferior world that he once called home.
But that was a story for another time, and by that, of course, he meant never.
Stan nervously cleared his throat, the sound bringing Ford back into the present. "All that work you read- was it absolute truth? Do we know for sure that it works that way?"
Silently, Ford shook his head.
"Huh. I guess it's easier not to think about it too hard, then." Stan pulled his brother closer to his side once again. "But I know that isn't your strong suit. Anyways, if all the decision stuff is weighing on you after so long, just- just remember that it's not all certain. If it helps," he added quickly.
Ford nodded halfheartedly, wishing he could finally take his brother's words as the truth.