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Ford hadn’t been paying much mind to Stan for the last hour after noticing him snoozing on the couch. Normally, he would try to get both of them up early, not wanting them to just sleep the day away, but for now, he figured he’d let his brother enjoy an undisturbed rest.
When he caught another glance at Stan, though, it looked like maybe his rest wasn’t as undisturbed as Ford had thought. His face was screwed into a grimace, rather than the peaceful expression Ford had expected to see, and he was shaking slightly, though Ford couldn’t tell whether he was cold, or if he was having some sort of nightmare.
Ford started to reach toward Stan’s shoulder to shake him awake, but he paused. Things like that… didn’t always go over well. If he was having a nightmare, the movement might only serve to dredge up more unpleasant memories.
(There had been a few times, earlier in their voyage, when Ford had to narrowly dodge Stan’s fists after shaking him awake from a nightmare, Stan thinking he was being attacked. Or Stan’s memory had lapsed again, and he had awoken not knowing where he was or whether he was in danger, and Ford would need to calm him down and assure him that he was away from anyone besides Ford who had hurt him in the past.)
Stumped as to how to help his brother without disturbing him, Ford’s eyes fell on the blanket hanging haphazardly over the back of the couch.
Maybe, hopefully, it would offer some semblance of comfort, or at the very least, some warmth.
He took the blanket and gently draped it over his brother’s sleeping form, feeling a smile tugging at his lips as he watched Stan relax and his expression soften into a small smile.
Sleep well, Stanley.
It certainly hadn’t been the worst weather they’d faced, but it was bad enough.
Stan had originally agreed to stay outside to keep the ship in check while Ford monitored the storm from inside, but it quickly became clear that the weather was worse than what they had anticipated, and soon Ford had joined his brother, both of their forms being pelted by icy rain as they worked together to keep the ship somewhat in control.
By the time the weather had calmed down enough for them to take a breather, they were both chilled to the bone, their clothes thoroughly soaked through. They wasted no time going inside to warm up and switching their wet clothes for warmer dry ones. (It was times like these they were thankful for the sweaters and other knitted items Mabel had gifted them before they set sail – staying warm on a ship in the middle of the Arctic Ocean wasn’t easy!)
They hadn’t thought Stan was outside for that long before Ford joined him, but by the time they got inside he seemed at least a little worse for wear than Ford, taking longer to warm up and still feeling a lingering chill well into the night – strange, since he was usually the one who ran warmer between the two of them.
They hadn’t thought much of it at the time, but really, it should have been no surprise that by the next day, Stan was clearly starting to get sick.
And then, of course, in classic Stanley Pines fashion, he tried to deny any possibility that he could be sick at all, brushing off Ford’s concerns and insisting he was perfectly fine to continue searching for monsters, treasure and babes. (The coughs and sneezes Ford had heard across the boat all morning told a different story.)
His facade was broken when Ford caught him leaning against a wall to keep himself upright after a wave of dizziness had suddenly washed over him. Ford already had his suspicions, but seeing his brother like this, and feeling the feverish heat practically radiating off of him, confirmed them without a doubt. At that point, he all but forced Stan to retreat to the couch while he got to work gathering any medicine and supplies they might need to have at the ready, and preparing tea for the two of them.
“You’re gonna end up sick too, y’know,” Stan warned as his brother sat down next to him, handing him a steaming mug of tea. It always happened since they were young – once one of them got sick, it wasn't much longer before the other was just as sick too. They’d joke that it was just another sign of their “twin bond”, but more likely it was just because they’d rarely leave each other’s side, even when one of them was sick. Apparently Ford hadn’t changed much in that respect, but Stan still thought he should try to save himself while he had the chance – this cold or whatever he had caught was shaping up to be a bad one, and it would be pretty inconvenient for both of them to be sick.
“Hmm. Probably,” Ford said nonchalantly, taking a sip of his own tea. “Not really concerned about that at the moment.”
“Uh-huh. And what are you concerned about?”
“All I’m concerned about right now is making sure my little brother,” he emphasized with a smirk, earning an eye-roll from Stan, “gets taken care of.”
“I should get you sick on purpose just for that,” Stan said, giving Ford a playful shove before a fit of coughing overtook him, Ford rubbing a soothing hand along Stan’s back. “Alright, alright,” he said once his coughing subsided. “You can’t blame me when you do get sick, though.”
“I accept my fate,” Ford declared lightheartedly.
(As both of them expected, within the next couple days Ford sounded about as bad as Stan felt, and didn’t look much better.)
“You have got to be more careful, Stanley!” Ford chastised, continuing to wrap the bandage around Stan’s arm.
Stan just rolled his eyes. “Yes, mom, I know.”
His indifference only fueled Ford’s frustration. “I’m serious, Stan!”
True, part of it was simple concern for his brother that left his patience running a little thin, but still, Ford was frustrated. Stan’s injury had been completely avoidable, and this wasn’t the first time something like this had happened.
Stan’s disregard for his well-being had been clear soon after Ford’s return to this dimension, between the stark differences in their physiques and the fridge hardly containing anything that could reasonably be called real food. But he had chalked that up to simple laziness and, still caught up in his grudges against Stan, didn’t pay much mind to it. It was only once they started their travels that Ford saw another side of it, a side that couldn’t be dismissed as just laziness or stubborn defiance. Ford couldn’t tell if it was just recklessness, or Stan just trying to show off, or something worse that he hadn’t wanted to consider
“What, you think I don’t know I did something stupid?” Stan shot back before looking away from his brother. “I know I screwed up. That’s one thing I don’t need you to tell me twice.”
“If you don’t need me to tell you, then why does this,” he gestured at Stan’s bandaged arm, “keep happening?”
“If you don’t like getting so worked up about it, then why do you keep acting like you’re my babysitter?”
Ford almost snapped back again before stopping to take a breath – letting his frustration boil over wouldn’t help anything.
“I’m not trying to act as your babysitter, I just–” he sighed, thinking of what he wanted to say. “I don’t like you needlessly throwing yourself in harm’s way. Regardless of whether or not you care about your own safety, I do, and I’d rather you didn’t get yourself killed for no reason.”
Stan still didn’t meet Ford’s eyes, but something in his expression softened.
“I know, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make ya worry.”
“If you don’t want me to worry, will you at least try to be a little more careful in the future?”
Stan hesitated for a moment before giving in.
“Yeah, fine, I’ll be more careful. Guess there’s no point in me dyin’ just yet. Besides, I can’t let you get all the treasure and babes,” he said with a smirk.
Now Ford was the one rolling his eyes, but this time it was from amusement rather than annoyance.
Ford was sure today was the day he would die of a heart attack.
He had also been sure, for a moment, that today was the day Stan was going to die. When he watched his twin tumble off the side of the ship, Ford’s mind jumped to the worst possibility – that that would be the last he ever saw of him. Soon, though, he saw his brother flailing in the water, rather than floating limply (or worse, nowhere to be seen at all), and as quickly as he thought he had lost him, he was scrambling to get him back on to the ship.
(It was a good thing, Ford thought, that he had been able to convince Stan to wear a life jacket, at least while they were on the water – when he had first proposed the idea, Stan laughed before seeing Ford’s grave expression and realizing that yes, he was being serious. Ford also learned then, among other things, that Stan didn’t even usually wear his seatbelt when driving. That had prompted Ford to give him quite the talking-to, to Stan’s chagrin.)
Once he managed to get Stan safely out of the water, Ford wanted nothing more than to just hold on to him so he couldn’t be taken away again. He knew, though, that they needed to get inside – Stan needed to get out of his soaked clothes and warm up as soon as possible, or he risked developing hypothermia.
“Are you feeling alright?” Ford asked once Stan was inside before removing his own, comparatively dry jacket and pulling it around Stan’s shoulders. He needed to assess Stan’s condition to make sure he didn’t need immediate medical attention – who knew how close they were to any land, let alone somewhere with a hospital? “You don’t feel lightheaded or like you’re going to pass out or–”
“Yeesh, quit your fussin’, Ford. I’m fine.” Stan cut off his brother’s flurry of questions, rolling his eyes, though his shivering didn’t help his attempt to appear unscathed.
“Stan, you fell off the ship!” Ford snapped, gripping Stan’s shoulders. How dare he treat the situation so casually, as though Ford was freaking out over nothing more than a paper cut – he could have been knocked unconscious and drowned, or swept away by the waves! “Do you have any idea how dangerous that is? How low the chances of survival are? You easily could have died!”
“Hey, Ford, look,” this time it was Stan placing his hands on Ford’s shoulders, both to ground him and to prompt him to look Stan in the eyes. “I’m right here, see? Not dead, not lost, not even hurt.”
“But you could have–”
“Nope, no buts.”
“But you were–”
“Ford.”
Ford let out a shaky breath before removing his hands from Stan’s shoulders and pulling him into a tight hug, his face buried in Stan’s shoulder. The cold water from Stan’s clothes soaked into his sweater, but he didn’t care about that right now.
“I thought I was going to lose you.”
Stan was caught off guard for a moment before he returned the hug.
“You didn’t, though. I’m right here.”
It was one of the worst nightmares he’d had since they set sail.
He jolted awake, covered in sweat, heart pounding and face wet with tears, and for a moment he could barely remember where he was or what was happening.
His memory hadn’t been the same since Weirdmageddon – things he used to know like the back of his hand came slower to him now, and the faces of those around him looked a little less familiar than they were supposed to, sometimes leaving him guessing what different people’s connection to him was even if they had been a part of his life longer than they hadn’t.
He could deal with those little hiccups, though. He figured if the memory gun hadn’t caused it, his age would have eventually.
The hard part was the more severe memory lapses, and the nightmares that tended to accompany them. Waking up and not recognizing his surroundings, not remembering what country he was in or what decade it was or which persona he was supposed to be acting as or whether anyone was out for his life. There were times he didn’t even recognize Ford, or thought he was just a hallucination created by his mind to cope with his absence during those years he was trapped between dimensions.
Logically, he knew Ford was on the boat with him – he had been since they set sail and there was no reason for him not to be. He tried to tell himself that nothing could reach them out here, nothing could slither its way onto the boat and take his brother away from him again. But he didn’t, couldn’t, trust his mind right now. He had to find him, had to see him and feel him and make sure he was really here and alive and not just a dream his brain had conjured up that he would soon wake up from to find himself cold and alone in the shack without his brother by his side.
Stan tried to keep quiet as he stood up – if Ford was really here, he would probably still be asleep.
But instead of seeing his brother sleeping on his bunk like he expected, Ford was nowhere to be seen.
Stan’s panic spiked. On an ordinary night, he would easily be able to tell himself that Ford had probably just gone to the bathroom or something. But his thoughts had already begun to spiral, and with his mind in this state, it was near impossible to stop that spiral from growing out of control, to stop himself from going over every possible worst-case scenario of why his brother would be anywhere other than right in front of him. Had he been kidnapped, or killed, or had he left of his own volition without a word just to get away from Stan, or had he somehow been spontaneously sucked into another dimension, or had he never really been here with him in the first place–
“Stanley?”
Stan’s thoughts screeched to a halt, and his head whipped around to the direction of the sound. Between the darkness of the night and not having his glasses, he could hardly see anything, but faintly, he could just barely make out his brother’s form a short distance away.
But Stan didn’t dare move or speak, as though doing anything to break the moment would make everything vanish into thin air, including his brother.
Eventually, Ford spoke again.
“Stan, is something wrong? Did I wake you up?”
Stan still didn’t speak, and after another moment of silence Ford began slowly walking towards him. There were times when Stan’s first reaction would be to back away, in case this was some kind of monster playing with his mind, but instead he found himself frozen on the spot, doing nothing but staring wide-eyed at his brother.
Ford looked like he was about to reach towards Stan before he stopped himself, simply letting his hand hover.
“Did you have another nightmare?”
Stan hesitated a moment before nodding. Ford frowned.
“Do you want to–”
Before Ford could finish his question, Stan practically lunged at Ford – it was a haphazard attempt at a hug, but more than that, it was Stan proving to his mind that the Ford in front of him was truly here and real and alive. He took in everything – his warmth, the six-fingered hand that had settled on his back, and, placing a hand on his brother’s chest, his heartbeat. It was a gesture Stan had done several times before, on nights like these, one that Ford recognized the meaning behind, and soon he placed his own hand over Stan’s.
“Don’t worry, I’m here,” he reassured. “And I’m not going to leave you. Not again.”