Chapter Text
Safety.
When the sun crests up over the horizon, and the beams of gentle light crawl into the house like little critters through the slats of the boards his brother had placed up against the window, when the sounds of the first were again nothing but gentle chirps and tweets: that was safety.
Nikola was not on his lap anymore, some time in the night he had migrated to the back of the couch, his ears flicking every once in a while with the sensation of growing warmth from the sunbeam that skittered down the wall, taking a deep breath and rolling onto his back with one paw stretched up and out lazily into Stan’s immediate view.
When was the last time he felt safe like this? Had it been that long since a roof over his head felt like it belonged there? When was the last time he’d woken up with the sun, under a warm blanket that wasn’t moth eaten in a bed that wasn’t roach infested? The fever had broken in the night, he no longer felt sweaty, his stomach no longer roiled, his shoulder ached but most of the burning had stopped. It wasn’t over by a long shot, he knew the infection needed to be fully treated before it ever had a chance to going away, and he needed to be alive to find his twin, so diligence it was.
He sat up and brought his eyes to the level of the cat, who was lazily upside down on the back of the couch and purring loud and smooth like the engine of his car on a full take of gas. Stan rested his chin right next to the cat’s head “Mornin’ kiddo.”
Nikola Tesla responded by pressing the lazily hanging paw to his lips as if to say “Shh. It is not morning. I am still asleep.”
He didn’t try to move the paw, simply speaking with his lips around the offending limb “Thanks for last ni-” The paw flexed claws into his lips Nick started to do air biscuits, but he took it as a sign to stop taking rather than outright malice. He relaxed as the paw relaxed, watching this gorgeous animal relax lazily in the sun, resting his head a little ways away just to watch. Nick was lean, thinner and smaller than he probably should have been at any age, but if he’d been the runt of a litter it would make sense. He didn’t seem weak in any sense of the word, a scrappy little guy, but he was exactly that: little.
Which incidentally is what made Stan reach up and slowly place his hand on the cat’s stomach, feeling that rumbling purr through the delicate, downy fur of it’s sensitive stomach, threading thick, rough fingers into the plush softness breathing beneath them. His shoulders relaxed, eyes fluttering closed in relaxation, stroking from sternum to stomach over and over again as the animal purred. What he was not expecting was for Nikola to suddenly realize that his most sensitive, top-secret area was being stroked by the large strange man that had kidnapped him out of the snow.
He froze, all four paws extended their weaponry, and descended up on his wrist with claws and teeth in tandem, making a little voiceless snarl as he latched onto Stan’s arm without mercy, like he was fully trying to maul him. Unlike when he was being given a bath, Stanley was not wearing the coat to protect himself, and hissed and flinging his arm back from the animal on instinct, effectively tossing it across the room.
Nick landed on the floor upright and hissed, diving for Stan’s ankles as he got up.
“OW! You damn ca- OUCH! WATCH IT!” The conman growled, dancing from one foot to the other as his minute friend turned against him and latched onto each leg as he placed it on the ground.
Stan reached down to shove him back, using his hand against the animal’s snout as a gentle defense, but found himself dancing towards the door with growled cries of pain, the animal only letting go when he all but fell into the door and opened it for him. Nick took off like a speeding bullet, using the human’s stomach as a springboard before Stanley could even fully hit the ground, forcing him down even harder onto his injured shoulder.
He gasped as he saw stars invade his vision, blinding white searing pain spreading throughout his body and into his skull like the sensation of succumbing to drowning. He rolled onto his left side to attempt to lessen the pain, but to no avail, laying in the doorway with nothing to do but to curl up into the fetal position and groan like he’d been kicked in the nads.
It took a few minutes for him to get up, but up he got, stretching his stiff body and trying to avoid the thought of the cat possibly being rabid that slid into the back of his mind without real cause. “That’s the last thing I need” He muttered to himself as he walked back into the room, found a clean change of underwear and another non-sweaty t-shirt, before he walked into the bathroom.
He made quick work of a shower, gently washing his new injuries as well as the older ones, scrubbing his face and even taking a moment to consider running out to his car to get his razor before deciding he could go another day or so with his current stubble. The long haired brunette patted himself dry, replaced the honey and the bandage that covered it, and slipped on the new shirt and boxers with the same sweatpants from the night before.
It was a little bit funny, the cat that had been so terrified of losing sight of him the day before had gotten so quickly acclimated to his presence, already taking the house for his own. He made a face as he realized that the poor thing needed certain necessities sooner, rather than later. A proper bed if for nowhere else than the lab downstairs while he was working on getting his brother back, a litter box— sweet Moses the damn thing had probably pissed or shat somewhere where he hadn’t noticed yet, or had he been so starving and thirsty that even the day and a half he’d been here, he hadn’t yet started up those processes again? He defiantly needed a litter box, even if it was a cardboard box with a garbage bag liner and dirt from the backyard until he could afford something more substantial.
He couldn’t go without certain necessities anymore, not with another life depending on him.
He would need to find another way to make money too, he knew the few Stan Co. products in his car wouldn’t sell- if they hadn’t sold yet, they wouldn’t sell now, and he groaned at the thought of having to complete a background check for any sort of standard employment.
Stanley wandered up the stairs as thunder rolled and he paused with furrowed brows. “That was… loud.” He murmured, taking a breath as he felt the sky churn in the vibrations beneath his feet. “Maybe this ol’ house needs some extra chink—” he whispered, marching up on feet that had thanked him for remaining bare since he’d taken off his boots, and made his way into the kitchen to reach for a can of tuna for his companion.
The lonely man smiled softly, wondering if the little guy would respond to his name even if he hadn’t really used it. What was it that made animals understand their names in the first place? “Nikola!” Stan cried across the house, finding it in himself to smile a little more genuinely as he imagined a little jingle of a collar as the feline ran down the stairs. “C’mon buddy, it’s food time!” He let his finger find the pull tab for the can and paused, listening for the scratch of claws on wooden floorboards, but nothing. He banged the can on the table so the cat would hear the sound “Nicky!”
Why was the rain so loud? It had just started, like a white noise machine had started up right behind him, or like a window was open letting it all in. He could still see snow on the ground outside from the past few days, but the atmosphere must have warmed up enough for the clouds to let down rain— it would be ice by tomorrow and he was not looking forward to scraping the windshield of the Stanmobile.
There was the sound of a door creaking, and slamming open against the wall as the wind blew.
Stanley jumped, grabbing a knife and exiting the kitchen in a rush, only to see the door had swung open and the rain was beginning to blow into the house. He’d passed the door on the way to the kitchen but— had it just opened? Or had he been too preoccupied to notice?
He closed the door quietly and began to sweep the house, listening for any sign of forced entry as the thunder rolled above him again. This…. no, that was much quieter than it had been downstairs, but the storm was closer now than it had been a moment ago… He- Had he walked past a door that had been open? Perhaps cracked?
His heart dropped into his stomach, lip quivering like it had the night before, whimpering “Nikola?” To what he knew would be an empty house.
The mrrp he was hoping for never came.
Stan didn’t bother to find an umbrella or a coat, he walked out into the snow and the rain in his bare feet and t-shirt, whistling and snapping, calling it’s name as if in the 2 days they’d known each other he was already Stan’s cat.
But nothing belonged to Stanley, did it?
Nothing good ever happened to Stanley Pines.
The second Stan:
Worth three bucks,
Should have been “Free to Good Home.”
Nobody wants you, you stupid little shit, not your parents, not your brother, not the cat.
He couldn’t breathe. Everything was freezing cold, the thunder vibrating him to his core, the wind pushing him in 6 different directions, whipping thin strands of hair around his face and stealing the tears from his eyes. He didn’t have the energy to fall to his knees, let alone cry with any sort of force, simply letting the wind and the rain do the work for him as he slowly began to freeze.
When the chill reached his bones, the fire in his gut lit brighter. There was one thing about pine, a strong sturdy tree, it was sappy as ever on the inside. The Pines family loved with a love that was more than love, devotion to their sappy cores, standing tall in the wind and shading their loved ones with thick fuzzy branches that kept them dry. But, pine sap ignites quick. It burns fast and hot, leaving smoke buildup that could ignite again over and over and over again. The sappier the tree, the quicker it lit. The sappier the man, the hotter he burned.
And Stanley burned hotter than the sun.
His lips twitched upwards into a snarl, bearing teeth like fangs that felt false in his mouth. “I don’t know why I even picked your sorry mess of fuzz out of the snow!” Stan screamed, the hollow feeling in his chest echoing among the trees like rage. “I should have let you freeze, fur-ball! I don’t need you. I don’t need anyone!” The tears were stolen before they could roll down his face, lightning striking somewhere behind him and cracking the sky like a whip. “I’ll find him on my own! You’ll see!”
Stan didn’t feel himself turn and walk into the house, nor did he remember slamming the door, shivering like a leaf, dripping cold and wet like a kicked pup in a film through the house and downstairs to the laboratory where he knew he needed to work. He’d make it work. He’d force all of his strength and focus into decoding all the stupid squares and triangles, figuring out how to fix what was broken— His brother’s journals spoke of a friend, someone who had come up with the idea, could he find them?
The storm was no quieter three floors down, or was it? Did rain storms ring now like glass about to shatter? Did they burn dully like embers in the wind, fed by the breeze but unable to burn from it’s force? Something was eating at him from the inside out and it wasn’t heartbreak: the tears were numbing the pain he had already begun to feel, his vision beginning to tunnel and wane.
Water wouldn’t help anymore, the hunger was all consuming. He could fill his gut with dirt and it would give him more nutrients to feed his body than the metallic shit he was getting from his brother’s stupid pipes.
His elbow hit the desk from where he had sat and he rubbed his face into the clammy flesh, knowing he was shaking, feeling his body eating itself away and not caring any more than he had the day before.
Eyes looked through the glass at the large hunk of machinery, listening to thunder crack and pound around him even so far under ground, the ringing in his ears paired with the imagined sound of acid sizzling through his gut.
“None of this would have happened if you hadn’t called me!” He finally snarled, standing so quickly that the chair was blasted back by the force of his knees, the clattering echoing in the room but barely reaching his ears over the rushing of hot blood in his ears.
At this point, Stan Pines was being kept alive by sheer fire— fuck force of will, fuck determination, he was burning from the inside out, a starving, hollow, dry husk of a man lit ablaze with rage, resentment, regret— and the burning was slowly but surely turning him to dust.
He couldn’t feel the sobs pouring out of him as he stumbled past the empty door frame and into the large, cavernous room that housed the horrific mechanism of steel and loathing. He picked up a hunk of something metallic and flung it as hard as he could at the machine, barely making it across the room. “If you hadn’t called me, you’d still be here!” He snarled, full of malice. “You stupid fuck, you should have known better than to trust me!”
Another hunk of metal flung, another and another as he screamed, his voice harsh, his core full of nothing but air and burning sap. “If you hadn’t called me, maybe we both could have died with some peace!” But the words were barley more than a stolen whisper from empty lungs. Stanley finally hit his knees and let his forehead press into the dirt, his voice nothing but a hoarse whisper “If you hadn’t called me, I could have let myself get killed thinking you were fine.”
He knew at his core that he just felt sorry for himself. He was Stanley Caryn Pines, selfish, stupid— a sorry sack of shit. He was curled up on the floor again as he had been a few days earlier, sobbing loud enough to down out the wrath of the sky above him. “You should have never let me see your sorry face again,” he sobbed to the void left behind by the screaming form of his twin.
As if he didn’t see that sorry mug every single time he saw his own reflection.
So cold, soaking wet, shaking like a leaf in the wind, his vision tunneling as he curled up on the ground, longing for the way family used to feel. He missed his brother, he missed his mother, he missed home.
“Stanley!” His mother’s voice called from up the stairs, and he knew he was losing himself. “Stanley, you need to eat!” Her voice was so kind to him, almost laughing. She’d always sounded like the happy bells from a wedding in an old movie, at least she had to him.
He felt like a boy again, a boy who had scraped his knees and was struggling to find his strength to walk again. He’d lost his will to do anything but cry and he couldn’t even feel like it was happening.
He needed to eat. Ma had always been his voice of reason, even when he was living at home it had always been her to tell remind him to eat, to shower, finish his homework, take care of his braces— and now even from half a world away he was hearing her voice kindly calling from the kitchen as it always did, keeping him on track, saving his life.
He struggled to his feet on shaking, exhausted limbs. He felt sick to his stomach, like the organ was going to secede from his body, crawl out of his throat and onto the floor, skittering off like one of those Ridley Scott creatures to wrap his esophagus around someone’s throat. Everything burned, bile rising into his mouth like he could spit it as weaponry, pooling on the back of his tongue and tempting him to gag. Every few steps, the feeling forced him into a fit of dry heaving as he stumbled muddily toward the door. He held the door frame and heaved, tripping over bare feet and heaving again into the elevator as he shakily guided it up the shaft.
“Stanley… oh baby, what have you done to yourself?” Her familiar, caring voice murmured, soft and concerned: his mother worried over him even without being present.
Stanley didn’t answer, he couldn’t bring himself to speak to the voice, already feeling insane. Staggering up the stairs and into the house again, shaky legs leading him across the house and to the kitchen, eyes on the large cans of nondescript brown meat on the higher shelves.
The starving man leaned in the empty doorway of the kitchen, leaving the lights out and taking the two steps to the counter, leaning on his hands more than his wobbly legs and staring at those cans, yet refusing to reach up.
This was Ford’s food. This was food he hadn’t earned, did not deserve, could not touch.
“Stanley-”
“Shut up-” He growled at the voice; it was not his mother, it was just a voice. He reached over to the radio on a lower shelf and turned it onto the last channel his brother had been listening to, but nothing really happened. The storm had killed the signal, giving him nothing but empty-headed static, even though the rain was beginning to wane. He groaned, smacking it once before giving up and sitting at the table with his back to the fridge.
He was so hungry. He couldn’t bring himself to fill a glass of water, he couldn’t fill himself with empty calories again. He couldn’t even find it in him to reach for the can of tuna still on the counter behind him from where he had been prepping to feed the stupid fucking cat. He felt weak, listening to the static and the thunder of a passing storm, his head swimming with malnutrition.
Stan pressed his forehead to the table and whimpered “Mommy, he’s gone-” As if the voice really had been his mother, sobbing emptily and wishing he could feel her thin fingered hands pressing against his shoulder blades, squeezing him softly like she did when he’d been like this back home.
He hadn’t called her mommy since they were small— at least not regularly. He had gown out of it far faster than Ford, who’d only started calling her Ma when he’d been bullied for it. They loved her more than life, they’d sworn as kids to be at her beck and call, to come whenever she felt she would cry, to save her from anything that hurt her. She had, in turn, promised to be with them even when she couldn’t be.
As a child, he had not understood what she meant. How could someone be somewhere where they couldn’t be? Where they weren’t? Now he understood perfectly. She was with him even all the way from New Jersey. Even though she was probably curled up beside his father or asleep on the couch with his younger brother, she was still with him when he needed her the most.
It hurt.
He was too empty to continue to cry, feeling nothing but the empty huffing of the dust of his soul onto the table as his flame died, his embers growing cold. He missed his twin. “He’s gone…. Mommy, I’m so lost-”
His flame finally died out with a breath, escaping his lungs one last time like a final puff of smoke.
“Rise and shine, sleepyhead” Ford’s voice came from the other side of the room, paired with the hound of sizzling like he was cooking something. Stan’s stomach churned as he noticed the smell of bacon, eggs— like smelling breakfast on a hangover.
“No…. No, go back to sleep-” He muttered into the table, his cheek pressed against the wood like it was the closest thing he could have found to a pillow, rather than him having just laid his head down.
“Yeah, no can do, bub” His brother explained with a chuckle, humming to himself as he cooked “A Kraken isn’t going to catch itself! We need protein! Sustenance!”
Stanley opened one eye with a scowl and then the other, his brother standing in front of the galley stove and dancing in place as he listened to the radio— so that’s what he was humming with. He felt this overwhelming sense of… agitation. Not the kind that ever went anywhere, mind you, but the kind that simmered in your chest around annoying activity by a loved one. Ford was a light sleeper, an early riser, and a grumpy bunk-mate— he’d known all of this from sleeping one bunk underneath the man for the entirety of their childhoods, but some mornings on this God-forsaken boat it felt like Ford’s demeanor would be the death of him.
He felt like death warmed over— why did he feel like he was dying? It was like a million hangovers at once and it was not pleasant, watching his brother’s dark brown curls bob to “Sweet Dreams are Made of This”.
Stan decided to take a playful jab at the much too cheery man “Finally got your radio extender working so you could hear your little girlfriend?”
Ford stopped dancing, his back ramrod straight. Target acquired. “I have no idea what you’re talking about, Stanley, you know I like music.”
“Yeah, but that little radio host in Oregon-”
“Is none of my concern.” he said simply, his back still to his twin as he plated up what seemed to be an omelet. “Besides— we make home port in New Jersey, why would I put so much effort into finding a radio station from--”
“—Was Sweet Dreams are Made of This, by the Eurythmics! An up and coming group from across the pond with some dreamy hits, some of which are on our top 40 list for today.” Came the smooth, low voice of the DJ crackling across his radio speakers. “We’re coming at you live from the tower here in Gravity Falls! My name is Adagio Hall, and we’ll be back after a word from our spon-”
Ford kicked the leg of the table, which knocked the radio over and turned it off, keeping his face stoic even though his ears were tipped pink.
Busted.
“You know we can stop in that town, you said there’s lots of mysteries around there-” but he was grinning ear to ear, knowing his brother was embarrassed to have his little crush on a voice.
“Maybe one day, right now I’m focused on being here. With you.” Ford explained, but it wasn’t a deflection, it was in earnest.
Stanley paused softly “Yeah?”
“Of course! I mean— this is what we always wanted, isn’t it?” Ford chuckled, handing him a fork and sliding his plate over. An omlette just as he liked it, surprising him with fresh veggies that his brother had probably spent far too much money on.
Fuck, Stan was starving. It was like he hadn’t eaten in days, maybe even a week, his stomach lining chewing itself up to try and appease his body and give nutrients to his brain. He was also… really sweaty, but that might be a normal thing at this point. “I mean yeah-”
Ford’s brows furrowed and he laughed. He looked so… Damn. He looked rested. His eyes were bright behind the thick lenses of his glasses, no sleeplessness or bloody crust to be seen. He was clean shaven, well dressed, washed (which was hilarious on a sailing ship) his hair was fluffy, his hands were unmarred— he looked healthy, not like he had when-
When-
When what, exactly? What was it that he was remembering?
It felt fake... it felt 100 years ago.
“Mmrrrp?” Came a noise from the floor and suddenly there was a ball of fluff in Stan’s lap, Ford admonishing it with a laugh.
“Nikola, that’s not yours!” The man reached across the table with a large hand, but Stan lightly smacked him away, one hand coming to hold the little tortico cat closer to his chest as it pawed for his eggs.
Nikola was here?
Of course he was, where else would he be? He was their cat, they’d gotten him as the ship’s mouser back in Jersey.
Stan waved off his brother “Let him have it, he ain’t no trouble.” And let go of the cat enough for it to reposition, one tiny back paw on each of his thighs, each of his front paws on the table as he tore into the scrambled eggs on the table. Scrambled? Hadn’t they been an omelette?
Stanford playfully gagged “You indulge that cat far too much.”
“You’re only mad because he loves me more than you.”
“Does not!” Ford gasped, appalled.
Stanley grinned wickedly “Does too!”
“If!” Ford cried, getting up to wash his now empty— didn’t he just start eating?— plate in the galley sink. “If he likes you better than me, it’s only because you’ve tempted him with FOOD!”
Stanley leaned back in the wooden chair, closing his eyes and feeling the slight rocking of their ship, the groans of the wood and the ropes as the water lapped up at the hull and the sail pulled taut. He could hear the crying of gulls above them in the early morning, the shuffling of his brother near the sink, the soft tapping as their empty hammocks hit the cabin wall, and the soft munching of a cat scarfing down eggs like he could be removed from the table at any point in time.
This was their lives. This had been their plan.
They’d wanted to take this little thing and explore the whole world— their run in with the Jersey Devil had been only a taste, only a fraction of what their potential had been, and he knew that they had so much more in them. He had his brother, they had their ship, their lil’ useless mouser, and a whole lot of time on their hands.
“If I give him food it’s because he earned it.” He responded, his eyes still closed.
Ford scoffed “Whatever you say, Stanley.”
They lapsed into companionable silence, Stan only opening his eyes when he felt Nick jump onto the table completely, moving to take him off and put him on the ground, but finding no cat to be found.
In fact, his food was gone too, and so was the plate— Had he let the cat eat everything? Damn, he was starving… No matter, he must have eaten, and Ford must have washed the plate because he was putting away the dishes now. Must be his turn for chores.
“Come onto deck, Stan, we’ve got to rig the sail and set course.” Ford reminded him, wiping large hands on a comically small dish towel.
He shrugged and stood, groaning as his stomach and back burned, a hand shooting up to his gut as he took a deep breath.
Ford scrambled over to him “Stanley, are you alright?”
His brows furrowed and as soon as the pain started, it stopped, leaving him blankly empty, like there was a feeling he was expecting but couldn’t identify. “Yeah… yeah Sixer, I’m fine. Just uh— just queasy, that’s all.”
His twin looked at him suspiciously, narrowing big brown eyes eyes behind his glasses and flicking them down his person for a moment, but letting it go. “Come on, we have a Kraken to catch.”
He watched his brother leave the cabin and glanced around the room at the small galley kitchen, the hammocks hanging from the ceiling, the small table, the wardrobe, the chairs— something felt very off. He shook his head and climbed the stairs onto deck, listening to Nikola chirp from between his ankles as he walked, smiling softly at their constant companion.
“There’s no way the Kraken is off the coast of the Pacific northwest.” He hummed, grabbing a rope to get to work rigging the sail in whatever direction his brother pointed him in.
Ford pointed north, using his compass as a guide to guarantee their direction. “You’re absolutely right, that’s why we’re making way towards the Arctic Circle.”
Stan planted his legs and started pulling the ropes, listening to the sound of the pulleys as he changed the direction of their sail, keeping them moving as Ford steered the rudder, then tying it off with a complicated knot he didn’t know he knew how to do. He groaned “The Arctic Circle?”
“Mhm,”
“Shit’s cold.”
“Freezing, actually. I wonder why,” His twin chuckled, dripping with both sarcasm and fondness.
Stanley groaned “And what if we freeze our asses off? C’mon.”
“We’re going to be fine, Stan. You worry too much.” Ford scoffed, tucking his compass into the pocket of his jeans, fixing the collar of his yellow, long sleeved polo.
This time it was Stanley’s turn for suspicion, but less suspicion and more blatant incredulity. Since when had his brother been so calm? Nikola forcibly nosed his head under Stan’s hand “You’re shockingly… erm… calm.” He looked up to watch his brother, who was leaning off the port bow just enough to really get the wind in his hair.
Nikola nipped at his hand and he jumped, looking down for the animal again, but he was gone.
Was he losing his ability to pay attention to things? He’d always considered himself to be slow, but had he slowed down to the point where he was losing things? Losing bits of time where food and plates would disappear? Again Ford scoffed, and Stanley rolled his eyes. He’d forgotten how his twin brother got when asked what he perceived to be a stupid question. But, he caught himself.
Forgot? How could he forget, they’d never been apart, right?
“Hanging out with you more often has done me a lot of good!” He chuckled “I’ve mellowed out since college.” If they had never separated, how would Ford have gone to college? He asked that question, his voice quiet, his tone level as he began to fall into realization. Ford responded with a laugh “College? Stan, you know I skipped that. We had a mission!” Contradicting himself again.
No… No, Ford had gone to college. He hadn’t ended up at that fancy schmancy one in California, but he had been able to leave New Jersey— Ma and Pa hadn’t been able to afford to send him to one of them Ivy league colleges, and the local community college still had one of those stupid quotas for admitting Jews, but that one college down south had jumped for his attendance. Backupsomething. Ma had called to tell him, so proud even if Ford had been ashamed.
He’d been proud. As a guy who’d had to drop out before he graduated high school, to know his brother got a bachelor’s, then a master’s, and on to multiple PhDs? He’d been the happiest man in the world!
Ford wouldn’t have skipped out on college, there was no way. He only-
Only chose him in his dreams.
“Ford,” He looked up and asked “When did we start doing this?”
His brother laughed “About- 4 years ago? Stan O’ War still needed a lot of repairs.. you feelin’ okay?”
Stan nodded “And— when-” he swallowed thickly “When was the last time you talked to Ma?”
Stanford turned around and leaned causally back on the railing, rolling his eyes like a child “I called her on a payphone while you were finishing up the groceries, Dad.” Then he laughed, a genuine and joyful sound “What is this? Mock interrogation?”
Stan was standing now, he was wondering why he hadn’t been feeling the rocking of the ship or the crashing of the waves against the hull. The world was somehow quieter. He’d lost the sound of the gentle creaking, of the gulls in the sky, of the wind and the waves. It was silent.
The world was silent and Ford was laughing but he couldn’t hear that either.
Was he dead?
“You’re not here, are you Ford?” His voice was barely anything above a whisper, his body starting to shake as the sounds and feelings and smells disappeared from him.
Ford’s eyes looked worried, but he continued to smile, pushing himself off the railing and laughing “Stanley, what do you mean? We’re always together.” Stan felt a lump form in his throat, his eyes welling with tears, almost flinching when Ford took a step towards him. “I’m— I’m always with you-” The voice sounded much more hesitant, anxious, like Stan was scaring him, but he didn’t really have a choice in the matter did he?
Hot tears rolled down his face and he felt so vividly when six fingered hands cupped his cheeks to hold him, to force him to look. “You know I’m always with you, right?”
Stanley swallowed and nodded, choking out “I know.” Squeezing his eyes shut. He was terrified. None of this was real, and fuck it hurt like hell. This had to be his hell. He didn’t even believe in hell, but having to live his dream, knowing it was something his brother would have never wanted-- it was a fate worth then death.
“Help me.” It was a terrified whisper, his brother’s voice cracking. Out of instinct, his eyes shot back open, but this time Ford was crying, sobbing in terror and frozen, holding Stanley’s face. “Please God, help me-”
“I- Sixer, I’ll help, what do you need?” The panic in his own voice was so desperate, he felt his brother slipping away, the sea behind him giving way to just a bright blue light, his body being pulled back.
“Stanley- Stanley- help me-”
His brother was being pulled away from him. He was dead and his punishment was to watch Ford die over and over and over. He reached up desperately, stumbling forwards. “Oh- n-no… What do I do?”
His twin’s twelve fingers slid off his face as he was pulled backwards and there was nothing but light and the crackling of electricity. “Stanley— Stanley do something-”
Another recreation. He had no control. “Hey- Hey- STANFORD-” He stumbled forward, chasing him as he was taken, running and never getting any closer than he was, losing distance as Ford was pulled faster than he could manage.
He looked so tired suddenly. His healthy happy brother was haggard and half dead again, looking to him with panicked eyes.
This man had seen hell and knew exactly where he was going.
“STANLEY— STANLEY, DO SOMETHING! STANLE-”
He woke with a gasp to a sharp bite on his nose, his eyes crusted over with tears, his throat tight with the same scream he had choked on as his brother had disappeared.
“Watch how the mad man flies! That was Flight of Icarus by one of my father’s favorites: Iron Maiden! Coming in at number 39, it’s first week on our top 40 countdown and probably another chart climber! We’ve got a quite a few new hits for you coming up today, up next at number 38 is Rock the Boat by Forrest. Spinning these records on, I’m Adagio Hall and this W-GRV, The Falls.” Came the smooth alto from the radio playing in the corner of the kitchen as he wiped the tears from his eyes. The radio was playing. The storm had stopped.
Nikola had jumped down from the table, looking up at him expectantly from where he was now sitting on the floor, half a dead rat’s carcass at his feet.
“I-” He began, trying to swallow the tears and focus on anger. Rage. He’d been abandoned again, made to feel worthless, by a cat of all things. “Why are you back, huh? How’d you even get in?” He sneered “Give me one good reason why I shoul-”
Half a rat.
The words died in his throat. He turned his head to the table to see the head and top half of the rat had been placed in front of where his head had been resting on the table. Of course his brain immediately went to The Godfather, waking up with a horses head in his bed, his nose scrunching up in disgust. But… But, cat’s don’t have a concept of shit like that? I mean— his father would have told anyone who would listen that Munch left mice in their beds because he hated them, but his mother had explained it differently.
“No, Honey, he isn’t trying to poison you.” She’d chuckle, peeling the mouse off his pillow and petting Munch gently as she’d walked the thing toward the trash can.
Ford had spoken up while Stan pantomimed getting mauled by a cat behind him “But then why leave mice in our beds? He does it for Dad too, but he doesn’t do it for you.”
Caryn chuckled softly “Because according to him, I’m the best hunter out of all of us.”
Stanley barked a laugh and spoke up from where he’d collapsed on the couch. “A hunter? You, Ma?”
“That’s right.” She’d always been so wonderfully patient. Her two boys, the genius and the goof, thick as thieves. She’d never thought that Stan was worth any less or more than Ford, and the same the other way around. She loved her boys from the bottom of her heart, and damn it, he knew she always would. No matter what happened or how the treated each other. “Who makes dinner every day?”
“You,” He responded thoughtfully.
“And packs everyone lunch?”
“You,” Ford echoed this time, both boys about a foot apart from each other and cocking their heads slightly.
“And who feeds the cat?” She chuckled, watching both boys faces pull back in disgust.
“You.”
“But, what’s that got to do with anything?” Stan had asked, leaning forward to rest his chin on the back of the couch, stood up on the cushion on his knees, Ford to his other side in a mirrored position.
“Well, you, Ford, and your father never bring food, so he thinks you guys must be really bad at hunting! He’s trying to provide you a decent meal so you don’t starve.” She’d been facing away from them when both boys popped up with looks of determination.
Stan had turned to Ford with a look on his face like their lives depended on this. “We can hunt mice too!”
“Yeah! We don’t need Munch to do it for us!” His twin had cried back in determination, and they’d sped off to prove to their big ol’ fluffy cat that they too could provide mice if needed. They hadn’t been able to, but they’d only stopped when Filbrick had caught them trying to get their child-hands broken in industrial grade rat traps.
Nikola had broken out of the house to hunt and bring him food.
He was only feeding Nick, he had avoided eating himself since he’d been given the option and had substituted those missing calories for water and pieces of moldy bread when he’d needed something desperately. The cat had decided it was hit turn to be taken care of.
He turned in his seat and looked up at the shelf, looking at the cans of pre-cooked ‘brown meat’ his brother had probably stocked up for emergencies. His lip quivered as his stomach burned, his eyes closing as he tried to rationalize why he didn’t need to indulge in food.
“Mmrrrp” Nick chirped from his feet, jumping onto the table and pawing the rat’s head towards him, eyes wide and concerned as to why this much larger cat with magic door knob paws was not eating, even when given food he didn’t have to hunt for.
It broke his heart and he finally willed himself to get up, nearly doubling over from the sharp pain of hunger in his gut. He scrounged in the drawer for a clean spoon and snatched a can off the shelf, almost moaning in delight when he realized the can had a pull tab and he didn’t have to scrounge through the house for a can opener.
He didn’t even bother heating it, shoveling a spoonful of cold food into his mouth and nearly swallowing before he could chew, watching the room blur as tears welled in his eyes.
Plain brown meat had never tasted so good, the screaming in his stomach intensifying and begging him to down can after can. He couldn’t stop himself from scarfing down the first, but he knew he would have to pace himself with anything else, letting the spoon clatter to the floor and stumbling back into the chair when he was finished, feeling nauseated and desperate.
His body felt so weak, and it was so eager to consume, why did he feel like he was going to vomit up everything that he ate? Why did he feel like his body was going to shut off in spite of him finally giving in to it’s demands?
His head fell back and his hands moved up to his stomach to cradle it, as if convincing it to keep what it had been so forcefully given, his face still crusted lightly in mud.
He was still so cold, it had been long enough that his body had mostly dried from the rain, but he still felt damp and crusted from laying in the dirt in the basement. Was the fever back? Was he succumbing to it? His stupid, no good, fat, useless body was failing him and it was his fucking fault, wasn’t it? Dad was right, he was nothing more than—
“Mrrp?’ The cat quietly asked, and it brought him back to the forefront of his mind, realizing where he was and why he was there. Stanley let his head fall slightly to the right to look over at the feline, who again pushed the rat’s head towards him, concerned for him like no one had been in a very long time.
He could hear the echo from his dream in his mind, the gulls, the waves— it had all felt so real and so wonderful. He had finally a taste of what was supposed to be, not two men struggling to get by, but brothers thriving on the open seas.
The sound of Stanford’s panicked cries, an echo from when he’d first arrived at this God-forsaken place, had torn little slash marks into the meat of his heart.
He took the chance of raising his hand. The cat that had only given him affection when he was asleep had no concept of allowing himself to be pet. He tended to skitter away, hissing like a human being would curse at someone who had almost hit them with a car. To be touched by human hands was to be violated.
Nikola pressed a worried nose under Stan’s hand and into his palm, wet nose bumping up twice to try and urge the hand to follow a path down his head. His eyes blinked open as Stan listened to silent instructions, petting again from his head down to his tail, listening to the soft engine in the animal’s chest rev and purr. After yesterday’s bath, his coat had lightened slightly in the white bits, the orange mottling showing so much more vividly through the dark of black fur, no longer matted or crusted together but forced smooth by the soap and the attention that Nikola had been able to give it when he’d sat in front of the fire to meticulously re-clean himself.
It was surprising that, even with this… offering on the table, he was not covered in blood in any way, in fact he seemed to be pretty meticulous in general, lapping his chops and stopping to clean long whiskers whenever they were touched. He was so soft, such a delicate little thing underneath Stanley’s large, calloused hands. He felt an ache in his heart for having to manhandle the thing the night before, but seeing him happy and healthy like this made it all worth it. Nikola nosed into his hand and continued to purr, walking the three little steps closer to him to bunt his head against Stan’s strong, stubbled jaw.
This is what was real.
Ford was gone, the cat was here, and he-
His lip quivered and he felt Nick rub against it, the purring loudly and looking for any form of contact.
Ford was gone, Nikola was still here, and he was alone and starving in the snow all over again.
Acceptance.
He closed his eyes to pull himself together. He was a Pines, and God damn-it, Pines boys didn’t cry. Pa had said that over and over again. He got hit? “Don’t cry, get back up and swing back.” He got bullied? “Stop that, you’re giving them a reason, go back and get mean: bully them for a change.” He got smacked? “Yeah well you deserved it, and it hurts me more than it hurts you. Stop crying and go play with your brother.”
Ma had told them it was okay, held Ford to her chest when Crampelter decided to be particularly rough that day, held his own cheeks and kissed his head and whispered little songs to soothe his worried heart after he’d taken one in the eye for his twin, but Pa had always put a stop to it when he had noticed.
“They’re not boys anymore, Care. They’re men. You’ve gotta treat ‘em like men. Ain’t gonna grow up if you treat ‘em like boys.” His father had said, gruff and unimpressed as per usual.
A scratchy tongue started to clean up his face, starting at his nostrils and working up to the bridge of his nose over and over like it was a very specific pattern. Nikola sat on the edge of the table, one paw on Stan’s shoulder for leverage, all 10 lbs of him balancing on that little focal point so that he could reach further up than his little neck would allow. His tongue was so scratchy and his breath— oh God his breath STANK. It was explained away by the fact that the little guy had basically dragged in a rat half his size into the house, he had to have bitten in to something dead, but it was like death took a shit.
That did it. That was the final thing that brought him forwards into the present moment. His breath hitched and he started to cry, hot tears leaking down his face as he tried to hard to hold himself together for the sake of the creature that was trying harder than any human had in years to care for him. When was the last time a human being had coaxed him to eat, to make sure he was clean, to soothe the nightmares when they came?
Nikola had broken out into the rain and the snow to hunt for another incompetent two legged cat. He’d decided that instead of saving himself and leaving to find better shelter or another human, that it was easier to brave the snow, the rain, the barbed wire fence and other starving predators to find this stupid, starving cat some food.
Someone did come back.
Someone thought he was worth a damn.
He sobbed like a babe and let Nikola scratchily wipe his tears with his tongue.
In the end the top 40 countdown had gone from 38 to 28 by the time he found the strength to stand again, Nikola having curled up beside him on the table while he worked out his issues. Stan had peeled open the can of tuna he had been prepared to discard as a thank you, watching the tortico’s head shoot up at the sound and begin screaming greedily like he hadn’t hunted for himself and left a rat carcass half eaten on the floor. He resisted giving the animal the entire can out of gratitude, placing the other half in the fridge for later in the day.
He’d walked to the front door, closed and locked it, then sleepily trudged down back into the basement to hopefully wash off the mud and cat saliva from his person. He hoped his brother had been wealthy enough for an in-unit laundry, otherwise he was going to have to tear up the couch for spare change and go into town, and even then it wasn’t a priority.
He could always go to his car and get his own clothes, but there was something about wearing Ford’s shitty t-shirts that made him feel a little closer than purgatory was.
Showering took everything out of him again, hot water leeching all of his strength and almost making him skip treating and re-bandaging his shoulder. He shoved open the medicine cabinet behind the mirror and scanned the bottles for anything useful, coming on what looked like a very old bottle of anti-biotics and a tube of anti-bacterial ointment. The honey hadn’t been necessary anyways, but he was glad he’d thought of it instead of letting the injury fester til now.
He finished his bandaging and took one of the pills, deciding that he’d take them either for a week or until they made him sick, whichever came first.
Stan went without a shirt or trousers this time, struggling to find boxers if only because laying naked in his brother’s bed was weird when it wasn’t on purpose to bug him and gross him out, stumbling into bed and pulling the blankets up to his throat so that he didn’t feel like he would freeze.
Nikola trotted across the bedroom floor and jumped up on the side of the couch, walking delicately to the spot Stan had seen him in earlier that morning and curling up like it was his new spot to sleep every night.
Maybe he would one day feel safe enough to sleep on Stan’s chest on a regular basis.
For now, at least he knew someone was there when the nightmares got bad, and he drifted off into a blissfully dreamless sleep.
Coexistence became so easy for the feline and the fool.
Stan finally let himself eat, waking up after what felt like 16 hours of straight slumber to down another can of meat— this time pulling out a pan to heat it up and salting it, eating it slowly so that he didn’t feel like he needed to throw it all back up the moment he hit his stomach. It caused cramps, but it was better than starving again.
There was so much work to do, including finally getting through the journal and finding sheets of paper from a stack of dot matrix paper refills to write down the code his brother had used to encrypt half of his words— he knew better than to rush into something before he knew all the information. As bullheaded as he could be, there was no second chance to risk fucking this up— if he broke this more than he could fix it, he was done for.
Nikola initially acted as a book stand, sleeping with the book resting on his side as Stan fiddled and tore at the perforated edges on the dot matrix paper, looking to write down anything that might lead him to the clues he was looking for, jotting down anything cipher or science related that he might be able to ask someone at the library to help him find. Libraries were free, right?
The feline was still standoffish, only wanting to be touched when he asked for it first, but also never straying too far from Stanley’s side. Nikola started as book stand and was eventually promoted to assistant, slowly but surely earning a nest in the extra office chair (so that if Stan moved, he could wheel his sleepy assistant about), an extra plate and bowl of water, and a second litter box in the basement separate from the one he’d created upstairs in the house proper.
They’d have to go into town soon. He’d have to find a way to make money— there was a lot going on here he needed to figure out. His brother had things that couldn’t be paused, right? Couldn’t screw up Ford’s name while he wasn’t here… He had a mortgage, probably. He had a house, that’s the kinda stuff that went with a house, right? He even wanted to clean up, but he was hesitant about screwing with things he knew where his brother’s. “Look at this place, Nicky,” he groaned “I feel like a museum guide in here.”
He shoved a few machines to the side, wincing when they made little clattering noises as they pushed themselves together. It would be incredibly difficult to coexist with his brother’s energy, but he could manage it for the sake of getting him back. He needed to keep going, to figure shit out, to make this happen come hell or high water. He knew he wouldn’t stay forever, but he was staying for now, and that was enough.
Otherwise, Stan began to make himself at home at the shack, albeit begrudgingly. He was letting himself eat food like a normal person, he’d allowed himself to shower every night before bed, he’d even had the audacity do to laundry in the washer and dryer his brother kept in one of the rooms in his basement.
He eventually moved his own things inside, a duffel bag and some photos— a few things he couldn’t have parted with if he’d begged himself. He couldn’t be bothered to really put anything away just yet though, leaving his excess shit on the floor of the front room and looking at what should have been the TV room with a sigh.
“Like,” he called to the cat, gesturing through the house at a dining room table that was just a horizontal bookshelf at this point, a shitty wooden chair where they could have been a nice recliner, the large dot matrix printer having shoved the phone into a corner to the point where he wouldn’t have even known where to look if it rang.“What am I gonna do with this place? I’d wanna make it nice for him to come back to, but I barely wanna touch anything.”
He was talking much more often, his voice still rough but his heart wearing smooth, playing with the cat more than was probably productive. He’d found some sort of ball shaped thing in one of the lab rooms and found himself rolling it across the hardwood floor for the cat to chase.
“What the hell is this?” He gestured to the siren corpse in a mostly empty fish tank, the formaldehyde already half evaporated and letting it begin to rot from the scalp down. “It looks like if the Creature from the Black Lagoon and Fay Wray had an awful alien lovechild.” The cat cocked it’s head as Stanley posed next to a skeleton in the same room “Why does he need these things? Fuckin’ weirdo,” but he was laughing, fondly.
The long haired man picked up a gaudy purple Hawaiian shirt peppered with pineapples “This can NOT be his. He’s always been thinner than me but this? This is stinkbug thin.” Nick sat again and looked up at him, confused. “Him?” He read the cat’s expression— whether he was assuming or projecting at this point, he didn’t care— and smiled softly “Oh— my brother. Name’s Ford. He’s-… he’s weird like all the other stuff in here.” Stan smiled softly “He’s the one we’re gonna get back.”
When he started back down the stairs to the lab, there was no hesitation. Nikola followed him eagerly, sitting beside him in wait for the elevator. They were going to get Ford back. They had no choice in the matter. No matter if it took days, weeks, months, years— he’d give up the rest of his life to know his brother was still breathing.
He looked down at the body of his companion. His lab assistant, HAH! Maybe he could be just as much as a scientist as the dork had been, just needed to remember his buddy here had paws where hands should be.
He couldn’t afford to neglect himself now. He couldn’t afford to starve. He needed all the brainpower he could muster to make sure he learned everything in every book he could find. Stanley was sure of himself, he could make this happen if he put his mind to it. He’d done it before, he could do it again.
He always survived.
“Raa” Nikola announced confidently from his feet, following him at a trot as they got to the third floor again and found their respective chairs “Mrrp?”
“Yeah, you’re right. Library trip is defiantly gonna have to happen… groceries too, but I’m bled dry. You wouldn’t happen to have any ideas, would you?” He spun in his chair to look at his assistant in his own seat.
Nicky was staring at him with two wide eyes, one clouded, one clear, Stan’s red jacket in his mouth as he slowly made biscuits in the fabric. His busted ear flicked as he processed the human’s words, but otherwise he was silent, dedicated in his work like a good assistant should be. Stanley found himself hoping the feline didn’t put any more holes into the damn thing than it already had, but he had decided the cat could use it until he needed to go into town.
“Well, at least one of us has an idea where to start.” Stan chuckled, watching the animal with a relaxed fondness. Dumb cat had taught him a lot more than he bargained for.
He’d have to mention it when Ford got back, that he was saved not only by his twin brother, but by a cat named Nikola Tesla.