Chapter Text
Stan could believe a great many truths, he’d bet, that most people didn’t believe in. Sure, he was now a self-converted atheist, and most people believed in at least some spiritual stuff, but nonetheless—ever since he was a kid, the weird and the unnatural had been part of his life. The Jersey Devil, for example, whose only proof of existence was the shoddy memory of two ten-year-old twins, and all the little things attracted by Ford’s own fascination with anything mysterious or unexplainable.
He believed Ford’s little tale with ease, the unholy union of complex and absurd in a package deal. A transuniversal gateway portal punching a hole in the fabric of reality? Okay, sure, why not? That hadn’t hit his tolerance threshold, nor had it ever gotten close to, despite the tough-as-cinderblock common sense ingrained by his upbringing.
He still didn’t understand 85% of it, but he believed it. He did. For reasons outside his control, maybe—it was just so, so painfully Ford, six fingerprints all over it, almost obvious for anyone who knew the guy. Even in his fuck ups his brother had to surpass him.
And yet.
Yet even Stan had his limits.
Because the one thing Stan just couldn’t believe… was his brother’s extraordinary audacity.
What did Ford think he was, exactly? A sad clown? An errand boy? A starved pigeon feasting on crumbs?
Did Ford think he could make Stan cross the country amid a harsh winter because of two scribbled words in a postcard after a full decade of bad blood and… what? Just dump a brand new responsibility on him? Tell him to fuck off without so much a goodbye hug?
Yes. Yes, apparently, he did.
Hold on to that anger, he told himself. Hold on to it.
Good ol’ reliable anger, his friend of many years. Anger was easier than hurt, and he could almost hear young Ford’s voice in his head classifying it as a quote-unquote “secondary emotion,” back when he was still nice and not an entitled asshole. Anger brought motivation. A good distraction. A little bit of healthy spite. Just enough to be useful, just short of—
“Ouch!”
He hit a pebble, because of course he did, and the pain traveled up his stupid toes to his whole stupid foot because his stupid boot was too tight and worn to protect it, and for a torturous moment of approximately ten seconds he wanted nothing more than to sit down and maybe roll over and cry like a baby.
“Damn it all to hell!” he roared, throwing the stupid journal on the muddy snow with all his remaining strength…
… And bending down to pick it back up with all his care. It was a little wet now, a little cold to the touch, but not that damaged. Thankfully.
Man.
What did it say about Stan that he had accepted? That he had swallowed down the sheer indignity of the task—as if you have any dignity to begin with, said a voice in his head that this time sounded an awful lot like Pa—to do what Stanford F. Pines, PhD, wanted him to?
Maybe he was an errand boy, after all. Or worse than that.
I’m giving you a chance to do the first worthwhile thing in your life and you won’t even listen!
Alright, alright. An incompetent errand boy. Maybe the worst errand boy of the errand boy agency, the one errand boy no one wanted to hire, and the very last option left to his chronically friendless twin.
So. Back to anger.
Anger definitely was a better feeling than whatever dark emotion awaited at the edges of his consciousness, if emptiness could be called an emotion proper, more than ready to swallow whatever pitiful scrap of hope that Stan still clung to in his heart of hearts. Anger had gotten him this far, anger had made him a survivor, and anger could still get him out of—
“Huh.”
He remembered locking the Stanmobile. Was his memory really that shitty?
Not as if that made any difference. There was no living soul in a ten mile ratio. If his brother wanted isolation, he had managed it successfully. The lone cabin looming dark against the barren white background, surrounded by barbed wire and threatening signs more suitable to radioactive sites, made for a decent mad scientist’s lair in, say, a campy horror movie from the 30s destined to revolutionize its genre forever. The Murder Hut. Maybe Ford’s sense of drama had only increased with time.
Not as if the Stanmobile is a particularly stealable car either, whispered Cynical Stan in his head, silenced in a flash for the sheer disrespect. No one talked shit about his girl, not even himself.
The stuffy warmth as he entered was an immediate and welcome embrace to his bones, faint mold scent non-withstanding. He was in his late twenties, for fuck’s sake, he shouldn’t be feeling like an old man with arthritis.
He was still hungry, though, and there were only crumbs in the family-sized chips bag he had politely borrowed from a highway convenience store. The three-day leftover of a greasy McCheap’s burger in the glove compartment didn’t smell particularly inviting, and his traitorous stomach churned in protest at the sight as if they still had the luxury of fucking choosing.
Eh, he could just not eat anything. It was not like it would make any difference, anyway, if he eventually dropped dead from hunger, since the only thing that had kept him going for years had been now dashed to pieces, and his own twin wouldn’t even hear about it, would he, neck-deep as he was in problems that useless incompetent Stan wasn’t invited to share in because he was that useless and incompetent.
Anger. Anger. Focus on anger. How dare Ford.
In that very moment, though, he must have exceeded his limits of pitiableness, and the universe must have decided enough was enough—if Stanley Pines wanted so badly to feel something other than lukewarm depression, he could always go back to his even older, even better friend.
At first, shock—
A piece of fabric shoved against his nose and mouth, cotton-like and deceptively soft. A pungent smell.
Not chloroform. Stan knew chloroform. Chloroform, despite what movies showed you, wasn’t that quick.
The unpleasant tingling of his skin—the anesthesia-like sensation of a trip to the dentist—his increasingly numbed sense of smell and taste—they all told him that whatever it was, it was way, way worse.
Then, fear—
“Don’t struggle,” rumbled a deep voice against his ear, firm and roughened with age. A middle-aged man, at the very least, and a dangerous one. Stan also knew what such men sounded like.
An opening for the grand finale—
Panic.
The offending hand was dressed in a thick black glove protecting it from Stan’s teeth and nails, and the drug must have been hitting his brain even faster than he thought because it somehow had more fingers than normal, and it was strong, bigger than any he had seen except his brother’s—so damn strong—
“Good try.”
Now a second one was joining it, effectively immobilizing the arm Stan had swung back in an attempt to strike their owner, twisting it with ease in a way that would certainly have hurt had his senses not been leaving him faster than he could think of a single coherent sentence.
The dangerous man was a dangerous fighter. Just his luck.
“Hush, Stanley. Trust me.”
It occurred to him that the voice sounded as familiar as old sweet panic before the world faded to black.
Not even five meters from there, Ford Pines asked himself why his brother was taking so long.
Stanley had listened at last, which was good, but apparently he hadn’t grasped the urgency of his task, which was not so good.
He could still see the familiar red car, the true protagonist of their adolescence, from behind the curtains. He had spied on Stan entering it, intent on watching him leave, but nothing happened afterwards. Stan hadn’t exited either, and both doors remained closed, which meant he was still inside.
After a few minutes of distant observation, debating with himself if he should intervene or not, snow started falling. At first gentle, soft like sugar sprinkled over a cake. Then a bit, then considerably, then alarmingly stronger.
Perhaps that had been the reason why Stan didn’t leave yet. It wasn’t safe to drive in such conditions, with the lowered visibility and the treacherous slipperiness, nor did Ford want his reckless twin to attempt it. Perhaps he had been too harsh in his initial judgement of the situation.
Perhaps he had been too harsh about a great many things.
No matter. Why hadn’t Stan returned to Ford’s cabin yet, if that was the case? Surely the knucklehead knew that he had this option, right? Ford himself didn’t know if he desired that outcome, given the enormous threat Bill posed—the greater the distance between the demon and his twin, given how easily Stan could and would be used against him, the better—but returning was still the natural course of action of an average person. At least one unburdened by petty grudges.
Stan couldn’t possibly be that prideful. Or stubborn. That would be ridiculous.
Three hours later, Ford just couldn’t believe the man.
Frankly. Stanley Pines.
A hysterical part of Ford, bigger than he would like—anger was, after all, an unpleasant emotion—wondered how old his brother was, again. Stan must be twenty-eight, of course, because they were twins, and Ford was an exact fifteen minutes and zero-point-two seconds older than him, but the sheer immaturity of his behavior was nothing short of astounding.
(The things about twins, identical or not, he had learned, was that whether or not one’s status as the older twin mattered depended on who you were asking. To him, as the older twin in question, it always had, and now, as he questioned the extent of Stan’s foolishness and subsequently his age, it did more than ever.)
After more than half an hour later, Ford had enough.
If he had any doubt whether scolding his brother was the right choice, it vanished the second he put his feet outside. The temperature seemed to have dropped further, if possible, since the time he had last exited the house. To his distaste, the unwelcome flashback of Bill leaving him to freeze on the snowy roof was what finally made him shudder. (He hated that Bill could have any effect on him at all, even if it was only natural, but he would soon enough learn to control his emotions.)
He distantly wondered, as he approached the car, if Stan had fallen asleep inside. It would be just like Stan, wouldn’t it—a typical thoughtless choice, the casual disregard of his own safety. Sleep in such conditions left one vulnerable to predators (Ford would bet even the forest gnomes knew how to break in) and hypothermia sneaking in like a thief at night. Did his brother at least have blankets? A working heater? “Paranoia” was just what rash suckers liked to call prudence.
Indeed, as he pulled the car door wide open, he was already doubting the fact Stan had survived a decade without him and half-convinced he should have given more specific instructions regarding the journal.
“Stanley,” he started, exasperatedly, instinctively—
Except there was no sign of Stanley.
There was, instead, a folded piece of white paper on the driver’s seat. Right where Stanley should have been seated.
To Doctor Stanford Filbrick Pines, PhD, it read, in a disturbingly familiar handwriting.
Greetings from a promising future.
I know that your first thought upon realizing what you have just allowed to happen is that I am somehow connected to Bill Cipher. A fact probably solidifying in your panicking mind as you read this very letter is that Stanley’s “kidnapping” (however you might choose to perceive it) was an underhanded tactic to exploit your poorly hidden weakness. Your thoughts are terribly predictable, and no wonder that lunatic saw in you easy prey, but believe me—for once in your miserable life, this has nothing to do with you.
I’ll grant your soul this one comfort: you may rest assured that I am the last being in the multiverse you’d find collaborating with Bill. In fact, Stanley is safer than ever before, in hands infinitely more capable than yours, and if you ever wish to see your brother again, I suggest you put a little more effort into your relationship. You don’t want to find out what ensues otherwise.
Yours sincerely,
Guess!
Anger.
Anger was the dominant emotion as he finished reading, hands trembling, fingers bending and crumbling the paper into the smallest ball he could manage, banishing all other thoughts to the faraway shadows of his consciousness. Anger was easier than the fear threatening to overwhelm him, taking shape in the pit forming in his stomach, the nausea crawling up his throat, the too rapid thumping of his heart.
(Adrenaline, he recognized distantly, a potent fuel of both emotions.)
And it was anger that was going to get his Stanley back—
Once, of course, he managed to put together what the fuck had just happened.