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Ford was achingly familiar with the crippling sensation of hopelessness from his time in countless voids. He was beginning to really feel the weight of it for the first time since the long, brutal weeks after the portal incident. The depth of it was practically crushing his lungs as he clutched the bars of a blue energy cage, shaking with the (slowly fading) thundering footsteps of Bill Cipher.
“There’s no other way out of this,” Ford practically sighed, interrupting Stanley from a long-winded and furious outburst that had resulted after Ford told his brother about his plan. The younger twin had been pacing ever since the dream demon grew a few extra sets of arms and followed Dipper and Mabel into whatever hell the rest of the demon’s palace was.
“You can’t, okay? What’s your guarantee that all this is gonna work?” Stan waved his hands in the air, staring his brother down. “What if you let him in and he doesn’t go through with his end of the deal? Which, y’know, is probably going to happen!”
“It’s the only chance we have of keeping the kids safe,” Ford bit out, twelve fingers tight and pale around the bars. “He wants my mind, and he can have it if he’ll spare you three. We don’t have many other options right now.” There’s no escape now, Stanford Pines!
“He’s not just gonna let us go free. You know that. There must be some other way-“
“There is no other way!” Ford snapped, turning to face his twin. His skin was burning under his turtleneck with a raw ache around his neck and wrists from Bill’s creative use of electricity. You like that, Sixer? How about we double the voltage? He let out the breath he’d been holding and smoothed out his hands, feeling them shaking slightly as he removed his glasses to rub at his eyes.
“I…I have to end this,” he began, but Stan was focused on something else entirely.
“Ford, I’m gonna need you to do something for me,” Stan interrupted slowly, and Ford blinked at him. Do something for me, Six-fingers. Let me use your mind. There’s so much I can show you—
“Yes?”
“I need your clothes. All of them. Well, ah, just the outside stuff. Right now.”
Ford must have appeared pretty startled because Stan actually looked like he might have grinned under different circumstances.
“What? What are you—”
“C’mon, Poindexter, we’re kinda short on time,” Stan said, and he was already stripping off his jacket and shirt, the fez residing upright on the ground beside him. “Bill wants your mind, right? So we’ll give it to him. Or, at least he’ll think we have.”
It took a moment for Ford to realize what Stan meant. Some genius you are, IQ! “That… that is madness, Stanley! Are you crazy? There’s no—there’s no way it could work. Bill is the most powerful being I have ever encountered. It’s not possible that he would be fooled by such a simple trick,” Ford spluttered as Stan was left in his underwear, holding a heap of clothing on one arm.
“Yeah, that’s what he thinks, too. That’s what’ll make it work,” Stan said. “You can wipe my mind or whatever and he’ll be destroyed too. I mean, I’m not exactly doing much with it right now anyways, so maybe it could use a little remodeling,” he added with a shaky half-smile.
“Stan, it’s not—it’s not like that. We’d have to erase everything you know about yourself, and the kids, and... It would be different for me to do it if I could, but you have a life to go back to. You have them and this would kill you, Stanley,” Ford swallowed, fingering the worn edge of his trench coat. Stan’s eyes widened a little at the part about Dipper and Mabel, but his shoulders tensed up almost immediately after.
“A life to go back to? And you don’t?” Stan growled. “This might be the best chance that we have to defeat this guy,” he said, pointing a finger accusingly at his brother, “and you want to play that card? Well, this is the end of the world, Stanford, and you can’t be the lone sacrifice every time. Of course you have something. You have me!”
*
Ford was having one of Those Nights again.
He hadn’t come up to eat or talk or anything in what seemed like (or could have actually been) days, and it was two in the morning when Stan finally saw his brother emerging from the basement. He watched his twin drag himself upstairs and slip into the kitchen from where he sat in the adjoining room. Stan sighed a little louder than necessary as he heard the tell-tale creaking from the squeaky hinge on his—their alcohol cabinet, and the movement in the kitchen abruptly stopped.
“What are you doing awake at this hour?” Ford said gruffly, and Stan let out a quiet scoff.
“I should be askin’ you that right now,” Stan responded, and there was a soft thud as Ford closed the cabinet. The sound of his footsteps began again in the direction of the vending machine and Stan was up like a flash.
“Woah, woah, not so fast, Sixer,” he protested, following his twin, who stopped in his tracks and winced visibly.
“What do you want?”
Stan stopped himself before he could roll his eyes. He almost sighed again. “C’mon, this is hardly good for you.” He gestured vaguely in the direction of the clock. “Any chance you’d wanna talk about…stuff? Or something?” He looked his brother up and down, his eyes narrowing in concern as he saw Ford’s hands trembling. “Hey—”
Ford turned to him slowly, reaching out to steady himself against a wall. “I am perfectly alright, Stanley,” he bit out in a hushed tone. “Just…just a bit tired,” he added, with less venom.
“You should be. Looks like you haven’t slept decently in weeks, judging by the color of your eyes.”
Ford straightened immediately at this, and with a panicked expression he suddenly lunged past Stanley to practically slam his head into the window.
“Ford! The hell--?” Stan whispered fiercely, rubbing his arm where Ford had smacked one of his elbows into it. He watched as his brother frantically checked his reflection in the mirror. He slouched perceptibly and ran a hand through his hair, leaning his forehead against the cool, foggy glass. His glasses clicked against it with his breathing, and Stanley cautiously inched his way over to Ford’s side.
“Color. You said…’the color of your eyes,’” Ford breathed in explanation as Stanley came into hearing range. He sounded so thoroughly tired, as if the sudden movements alone had been too much for him.
“Yeah? I meant that they were red. As in, bloodshot. From you not taking care of yourself. And…?” Stan prompted slowly, staring at his brother in frightened apprehension.
Ford shook his head. “Nothing. I was just…making sure they weren’t yellow,” he mumbled, and his face slid a little ways down the glass.
“Look, I—I don’t know what exactly is going on in your head, but you look exhausted. You can’t fight Bill if you’re working yourself to death with no sleep,” Stan reasoned, tentatively setting his hand on Ford’s shoulder. As expected, his brother shrugged it off—albeit with a bit less force than he would have used if he was fully functioning—and rose from his slumped position.
“Fine. Goodnight, Stanley,” his brother muttered, and he was gone before Stan could fully process the situation. He stood in the otherwise empty kitchen listening tiredly as his brother’s surprisingly fast footsteps faded into the walls of the Shack. Even now he can’t wait to get away from me, Stan thought bitterly, wincing as he stretched his back. He made his way into the living room in search of his armchair and groaned as he sank into it. Snatching up a magazine, he settled down and prepared himself for a long night. Ford needed sleep, but Stan could go without some if it meant checking on his brother later. Hopefully he’d actually be getting some rest.
*
“That’s not what I meant!” Ford’s voice rose, but Stan matched it.
“Of course it is! You got us into this mess, you get to take us out, huh? That’s not how it works this time, Sixer.” Ford flinched at the nickname but Stan kept right on going. The finger was now pressing painfully into one of Ford’s ribs that was most likely bruised or burned in some way, judging by the state of the rest of his body. “We have a real shot at this, and I’m willing, so take off your damn clothes!”
“I am just saying that…that as far as I know, it is permanent. And you would be gone, for real and forever,” Ford said in a strained voice. His fingers had unwillingly clenched up again and his burned wrists were rubbing painfully against the sleeves of his coat. He shifted the fabric anxiously and added, “I did bring Bill into this dimension so it should be me to take him out—“
“At this point, I don’t really care,” Stan barked, and both twins paused in an electrically charged silence as the sounds of Bill’s footsteps began again in the distance. A rising panic was thrumming through Ford’s battered body and his skin was on fire and it looks like you can’t escape me now, huh, Fordsie?
“Listen, Ford.” Ford snapped out of his daze and focused on Stan as his brother ran a hand through his hair. “If there’s any way at all this could work, then it needs to happen. The kids, and you—you’re what I have left, and if I can stop this stupid triangle for sure…” Stan clenched his fists. Ford could clearly see ten fingers tightening despite the oncoming tunnel vision he was getting. He counted the fingers, counted the little white crescents on Stanley’s palms and the breaths his brother took. Counting was stabilizing. “That’s much safer than a ‘maybe.’ Okay?”
Ford looked at him in resigned silence. Bill was his problem; he had been for over thirty years now. It was hopeless—there, hopelessness again—to even imagine that things could be changed that way. It was too easy but so, so hard at the same time. There was so much he could do, so much he deserved to do after the apocalypse he had caused, but he was hit with a sudden realization that the man in front of him had the same expression on his face as the Stan when they were young—the Stan that would catch him a minute before stumbling into some pit in a new cave they found, the Stan that would hold him tight after the kids at school were through with him, the Stan that said Sixer, do you trust me?
Bill’s voice began to fade from his head until only his own frantic thoughts scrambled around in his mind.
I trust you, Stanley. I haven’t in so long and—I know, I know that I said I could never trust anyone again. I still hate you a bit for what you cost me but I do trust you. I trust you so sososomuch—
After a moment, Ford let out a breath and shed his coat. “Okay.”
Stan seemed as though he was about to breathe out a sigh of relief or let out a whoop of joy as he handed over his pile of outerwear. However, his face quickly lost any expression of peace as Ford lifted his sweater over his head and awkwardly pressed it into his brother’s hands, simultaneously trying to hide at least a little bit of the damage.
“Did he…did Bill…” Stan ground out, scanning every injury, every scar, every burn mark on Ford’s upper body. The newly raw skin on his neck and wrists were very visibly caused by chains, Stan detected immediately. Thanks to his experience in some… undesirable situations, he was familiar with the chafing pattern, but this was Ford and it was so wrong. He was practically covered with purples and blacks and reds of every shade, not to mention the faded, almost-gone lines all over his arms and chest that looked like...
Stan felt the very real urge to throw up what little brown meat he’d eaten earlier as he looked closer and realized that they did spell out words, some of them backwards like they could be read in a mirror, like he first thought. You’re mine, you’re mine, you’re mine, you’remineyou’remineyou’remine over and over and over—
Ford was turning a shade of red Stan hadn’t seen in so long, from—shame? “Ah…Bill tends to rely on force rather than words when he wants to have things done quickly,” Ford stammered, rushing to put on the Mister Mystery suit. He jumped as Stan’s hand flew out to stop him, catching Ford’s wrist by mistake. Ford pulled back, making a pitifully wounded noise as though he’d been shocked—nice one IQ, you love torturing yourself, too—and Stan’s hands flew up in instant apology.
“Woah, Sixer, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—How did he do this to you?”
Ford shrugged, pulling on the shirt gingerly. “Electricity, mostly, some drops from high places…” he trailed off, averting his eyes from his brother and pulling on the pair of pants he had been given.
“What about…the words?”
*
“You can’t kick me out now, Six-fingers,” Bill had sneered to the screaming Ford who was trapped within his own head. Bill laughed as he rolled up Ford’s white sleeves, having discarded the coat a moment before.
“Remember, this is a partnership, and I can’t have my partner trying to get rid of me,” Bill continued, dragging the knife against Ford’s forearm with just enough force to leave an angry red line behind. He giggled a little, the noise sounding so strange coming from Ford’s throat. All Ford could numbly think about was the pain and the blooming stains on his shirtsleeves and the high-pitched cackle of Bill’s laughter surrounding him.
Ford woke up the next morning with fresh white bandages covering his torso and both of his arms. He shakily undid them, only to retch dryly with his face pressed to the cold wall after seeing what Bill had done.
“Just enough to leave some scars, show you who’s really in charge. Wouldn’t want to damage the packaging beyond repair!”
*
Ford swallowed, twice. “That was from…long ago. When I first let Bill into my head. I started to become nosy, and…well…he tried to show me who was in control,” he finished bitterly. “I am surprised they’ve visibly lasted so long, but… Bill always had his methods.”
Stan could feel that slippery feeling in his throat again and he swallowed fiercely, turning before anything could resurface fully. He tugged on his brother’s clothes without feeling. All he could picture at the moment was Stanford, young and so, so fucking gullible when it came to Bill. He didn’t know half the story of their past thanks to his twin’s less-than-efficient communication methods and semi-relevant hatred towards him, but he knew enough about the whole thing that the imagery was far too vivid.
*
Maybe it wasn’t Stan’s best idea to venture down into the depths of the basement to check on Ford. His twin had worried him pretty thoroughly though, so it was justified, right? Definitely.
His stay in the pit of tangible despair was filled with “I’m fine, Stanley,” and “You can go, Stanley,” and the not-so-subtly-implied “I don’t need a screw-up like you trying to fix me when all you do is break things.” Ford was sweaty and breathing in short, starved gasps as he sat, hunched over, at his desk, but his eyes were narrowed and Stan could only feel the burning feelings of protectiveness and pain having at each other in his gut.
“You obviously ain’t fine,” he’d growled, but Ford had just given him the Look again for the billionth time since Stan had found him crying out in pain in his sleep.
“Go back to bed, Stan,” the man had said. His voice was almost darker and more terrifying than the deep shadows under his eyes or the bottles that littered the room, Stan noticed. He couldn’t tell which thing he hated more. “You shouldn’t have come down here.”
“Look, I—I know you really don’t care for my presence anymore, you made that very clear earlier, but if you want to I’ll—”
“I told you to leave!” Ford barked, and Stanley was up like a shot, clenching his fists.
“Fine! You wanna deal with these dreams alone? Fine! You’re not the only one in the universe with problems, Poindexter, but I guess you’re just too self-centered to see that!” Stanley’s voice matched Ford’s in both tone and volume. “I’m done trying. I’ve had thirty years of nightmares, and believe me, I would have done anything to have you there to wake me up from them,” he hissed.
With that, he’d left his brother at his desk, fuming. It was a surprise and a blessing that their heated argument hadn’t woken the kids, but Stan checked on them just to make sure. His chest ached a bit as he looked at the peacefully sleeping twins. Closing the door behind him as he left, he wished deep in his heart that they would never hurt each other like Ford and he continued to do.
Stan hadn’t gotten much sleep after that. If anything, he’d half-dreamt of Ford tossing and turning and burning and crying on his knees, saying, “Please don’t, Bill, you can’t, not anymore, please-”
He’d watched in horror as Ford had turned to look at him, twelve fingers smoldering black and burnt like coals, and his brother’s eyes had been glowing yellow.
*
“I swear, no matter what happens I’m gonna kill that pointy monster,” Stan growled. For what he’s done to you, he didn’t say. Instead, he plucked the fez off of the ground and affectionately ruffled Ford’s hair before he set the fez upon his head, tilting it at just the right angle. He offered his brother a small-but-genuine grin, and he was visibly relieved when Ford made an attempt at smiling back.
*
Ford had caught his eye the next day when the genius recluse came upstairs in one of his rare moments of sanity, and to Stan he’d looked almost apologetic. Stan had chalked it up to his mind playing tricks on him after three hours of sleep and a regretful cloud hovering over him, though, and he busied himself with making coffee and avoiding the growing blankness of his twin’s face.
*
“I believe that,” Ford said in that resigned tone again. But if you’re gone then…what is left to matter? He didn’t finish the thought. With Ford’s clothes on, Stan looked almost identical to him. There were some minor differences, of course, but if the plan worked in their favor then Bill would be too giddy and power-hungry to notice. Ford passed over his glasses and slipped Stan’s on, and he let the sad smile on his face grow.
*
He hadn’t wanted things to end up like that, but Ford could barely keep his emotions in check whilst running on caffeine and seldom-caught naps. Especially when he’d been having the same gruesome (and apparently loud) dream over and over since he’d gotten back through the portal, every time he closed his damn eyes. At least that’s what he told himself. He pretended as if he still felt the rage, the heat of pure betrayal and pain and longing for something that would never come, but in reality he could barely feel anything anymore. He was completely and utterly consumed with the prospect of killing Bill whilst not getting Stan or the kids killed in the process. Agitation was just a product of his restless nature. Yes. That was it.
When Stan woke him up from one of those night terrors, he’d been thoroughly embarrassed but also petrified, as though Stan’s touch against his shoulder could allow his brother to absorb some of the dream. His vision was blurry and his head was screaming with a week-long headache as he shouted at his twin, not fully processing anything he said.
He only really caught Stanley’s parting words, and they were smoldering guiltily in his mind all night as he tried to do anything but fall back asleep. Ford knew he deserved the angry stare Stan fixed him with the next morning. Absolutely. Always.
*
Stan gave him a long look with damp eyes (although he would never admit it) and opened his mouth to say something, but it was at that moment that Bill decided to grace them with his glorious triangular appearance. Both brothers lunged forward at the sight of the kids trapped within Bill’s grasp, and as Ford felt his twin’s conscious presence at his side for what might be the last time, his hopelessness began to slowly dissipate.
He would never forgive himself for hurting his brother, even to save the world, but if Stan came back whole, this injury would definitely be the last one he ever caused his twin.
They would finish this fight together.