Work Text:
Growing up, you never put much stock in the concept of twin telepathy. Your classmates were always so curious about you and Stanley, always so sure that you two had to have some kind of twin connection, but you rarely gave them a second thought. Your own earlier experiments to test it—which had mainly consisted of you and Stanley trying to guess what number the other was thinking of and pinching a body part to see if the other felt pain—had, disappointingly, produced no positive results. Eventually, as the two of you grew up and more visible differences between you started developing, kids stopped asking about it as much, which was for the best. You were called a freak often enough as it was, you didn't need to add any more fuel to that fire.
Maybe it was seeing behind the scenes of your mother's business that also played a part in fostering that skepticism of psychic powers in general. Though your studies in Gravity Falls and the multiverse beyond eventually proved you wrong there, you still remain of the opinion that no one in your family possessed any real psychic ability or sixth sense.
At the very least, you know you're not a mind reader. You've never known what Stanley was thinking, what he was feeling, what he was planning to do at any moment.
You didn't know he broke your project until after you found it cold and motionless and picked up the bag of his favorite brand of toffee peanuts from the floor. You didn't know where he was or what he was doing during the years he spent homeless until you started arguing and he brought up the horrible things he'd been through. You didn't know he'd spent 30 years trying to bring you home until you stepped out of the portal and saw the toll aging had taken on him.
After over 40 years separated, you thought for sure you'd grown too far apart to be able to predict him with any certainty.
And yet, as you stand by his side imprisoned in the Fearamid, with the question of "what other choice do we have?" hanging heavy in the air between you, you can recognize the look of an idea forming in his mind—eyes narrowing, jaw setting, fingers clenching around the bars of the cage—and it takes you a mere fraction of a second to figure out where that idea is headed.
You both break the silence in the same instant.
"Gimme your clothes, quick—"
"No, we are not doing this—"
"Why not?" he says, cutting both you and himself off. "Wouldn't be the first time we've done it."
"Yes, but we—that was when we were kids," you splutter, as you try to ignore the cold dread creeping down your spine and pooling in your gut. "This isn't as simple as you taking my place in gym class or me taking a history test for you, where the worst consequence was us getting detention if we got caught. This is life or death, Stanley, we can't risk everything on a bluff."
"Hey, do you wanna save the kids here or not?" he snaps.
The ice in your veins turns hot as frustration flares. "Of course I do! I just..." You take a breath and try to rein your emotions in. The whole reason you're in this mess is because you and Stanley started fighting; you don't need another argument to break out now. "I just want to think things through before we put them in danger again."
"Look, you said it yourself," Stanley says, already unbuttoning his shirt, "you can't erase Bill from your own mind because of that metal plate thing—absolutely crazy thing you did to yourself, by the way—and it's your mind he wants, not mine. So the logical solution here is we just gotta make him think I'm you so he goes into my mind instead. You're still big on all that logic junk, right?"
"I—Well, yes, but—" You pause, attempting to sort out your thoughts and figure out how to express why this idea sets your nerves on edge, why the mere thought of it makes your throat feel dry and your pulse quicken. "It is a logical solution, but it's... it's not one I want to use," you finish, lamely.
"You got any better ideas?" he shoots back as he slips off his shoes. You've barely opened your mouth to reply when he adds: "Ones that don't involve you offering yourself up to that demon on a silver platter?"
You don't, and your mouth closes again into a tense grimace. You hate how stubborn he's being about this, but you've been wracking your brain this whole time trying to think of something else—anything else—but you've come up empty. Stanley looks entirely too satisfied that he got you to shut up, and tosses his clothes at you. You scramble to catch them, one of his shoes bouncing past you instead.
"Then strip down and suit up."
Reluctantly, you shed your boots, trench coat, and sweater, holding them out to him with one hand. Your skin crawls, suddenly too vulnerable and overexposed, hunching in on yourself, and when Stanley takes your clothes you can feel his eyes on you, seeing for the first time every mark that's been left on you by the past 40 years.
"Nice tattoo, All-Star," he snickers, turning away to hide a smile.
"Can it, Stanley," you fire back, though there's no real bite behind it. Despite the embarrassment heating your face, you're more than a little relieved that your unfortunate tattoo choice was the only thing he commented on.
Immensely disliking the absence of the weight on your shoulders—especially the gun you kept slung across your back—you hurry to pull on Stanley's shirt and jacket and slip into his shoes. Your fingers fumble with the shirt buttons, managing to secure the bottom two, but slipping on the third. The next couple attempts also fail, your hands seeming to tremble harder with each passing second.
You drop your hands and take a deep breath, trying to calm and center yourself. Your eyes land on Stanley on the other side of the cage, already shrugging on your coat. It's a little snug on him, but it works decently at hiding his larger shoulders. You watch as he rubs dirt into his hair in an dual attempt to both make it match your darker shade more closely and muss it up to look similarly to your own hairstyle. Even without a mirror, he does a pretty good job of it. Once he has your glasses and gloves on, it should be hard for Bill to tell him apart from you at a quick glance.
You hope.
The tremors in your hands start up again, worse this time, and a lump forms in your throat as the reality of the situation starts to truly sink in. You're doing this, you're really doing this, and suddenly all you can think of is all the ways it could go horribly wrong. If you or Stanley make the smallest slip-up, if Bill looks just a little too closely, the whole plan goes up in smoke, and you can only imagine how much worse Bill's torture will be if it does.
There's a particularly loud crash in the distance and panic seizes your heart, worried thoughts flicking back to the kids. Have they gotten away? Has Bill already caught them? Will he bring them back to you dead or alive?
"Stanley," you start, voice creaking like a rusted door hinge. Your brother's head snaps up immediately, concern drawing his eyebrows together and his lips into a frown. You clear your throat before continuing. "Um. Could you—?" You gesture shakily at the shirt buttons. "I can't, my—my hands..."
"Oh." For a second, his expression turns pained, sorrowful, but he recovers quickly. "Sure, no problem." He steps over to you and starts doing up the buttons with a quiet focus, and doesn't comment on the various scars littered across your chest and abdomen, or how violently you're trembling, or your shallow, unsteady breathing. You watch his hands work to avoid having to look at his face, and desperately try to keep your thoughts on anything other than the current circumstances.
Don't think about Bill capturing the kids. Don't think about what lengths he would go to to get that equation if he sees through your plan. Don't think about what you'd agree to do in order to keep the kids safe.
Stanley finishes doing the buttons, fixes the collar, and slips the tie around your neck.
Don't think about how you're letting Stanley offer himself up to a demon. Don't think about how much trust he's putting in you to be able to pull the trigger. Don't think about how you're minutes away from losing your twin again, this time by your own hand, this time forever.
He tilts your head up to look at him as he pulls the bow tight—
And all you can see is yourself tying a noose around your brother's neck.
You grab him by the lapels, knees buckling beneath you in the same instant. Stanley staggers under the sudden weight, but grips your elbows and clumsily guides you both to the hard brick floor, where you immediately slump backwards against the bars of the cage.
"Stanley," you gasp, voice little more than a whisper, almost inaudible over the blood rushing in your ears. "Stan I can't—I can't breathe, I..."
It feels like the room is running out of oxygen, like someone dropped an anvil on your chest, flattening your lungs and preventing you from breathing what precious air is left. Your head is spinning, and for a moment you wonder if this is that fatal heart attack Bill had predicted, just 30 years early. He'd probably find that funny.
"Shit," you hear Stanley say, and he sounds a mile away instead of ten inches from your face. "Shit, Ford, we don't have time for this, just—just stay with me, okay?"
"I—I can't, I can't do this, Stan—"
"Yes you can," he says, "c'mon, here, lemme—" And in the blurry edges of your vision you see him reach towards your neck, and you flinch back, slamming your head against the bars with a clang that echoes harshly through your skull. You hiss in pain and Stanley swears and apologizes but, undeterred, grabs the tie and pulls it loose to let you breathe freely again.
You gulp down air like you've just come up from being held underwater, breaths still coming too hard and too fast. Stanley next tries to pry away your white-knuckled clasp on the lapels, but your fingers feel locked in place, like you're still being electrocuted, like you couldn't relax your muscles even if you tried.
His hands move to your wrists next, rough grasp unknowingly landing right on top of the raw and burned bands of skin hiding under your sleeves, and that does it. Pain lances up both your arms and you cry out, both of you releasing your grips immediately.
"Fuck," he swears again, "sorry, I'm sorry, I didn't mean—here, hold on—" You feel more than see him interlace his fingers with yours, your sight whited out from the pain.
"Squeeze my hands," Stanley says, and you do.
And it helps. It gives you something to focus on. A distraction from the pain and panic. Stanley squeezes back, and the pressure is grounding, comforting in a way you haven't felt in decades.
The ringing in your ears finally fades and the worst of the pain subsides. Your breathing starts to even out as well, still hitching somewhat but steady enough for the moment. Your head lolls forward as you try to force your muscles to relax, and close your eyes tight to stop the static swimming at the edges of your vision.
"You good?" Stanley asks.
You make a strange sort of sound in the back of your throat, not even knowing yourself what you wanted to express there, but Stanley seems to get the idea.
"Alright, fair enough."
He loosens his hold but doesn't let go, rubbing his thumbs over the backs of your hands.
"Are you good?" you ask softly. You'd been so caught up in your own thoughts and fears you hadn't even thought about how Stanley must be feeling. "Can you do this?"
He huffs out a laugh. "Of course I can. I've been pretending to be you for the past 30 years," he says, and slips seamlessly into an impression of you, "I'm quite certain I'm capable of keeping up the act for a few more minutes."
You're caught off guard by how easily it comes to him, unable to hold back a sheepish smile. "Geez," you say, putting on your rusty imitation of his voice, "I don't sound that stuffy, do I?"
"You kiddin'?" He drops the impression and grins. "This is me toning it down."
A bark of a laugh escapes you, but vanishes as quickly as it came, leaving a bitter aftertaste in your mouth and a hollow ache in your chest as the gravity of the situation settles in once again, pulling you back down with it. Stanley appears to feel it too, the smile slipping from his face.
You're running out of time.
Your next words come out as a choked whisper, barely above your breath. "I'm scared, Stanley."
"I know," he says. "It's gonna be okay, Ford."
"How?" you wheeze, tears prickling at your eyes. "How is any of this going to be okay? Even if this works, erasing your mind is... it's everything, Stan. It's barely a step away from asking me to end your life, and I don't—I don't know if I can—"
"It's our only chance."
"No it's not. I just—I'll think of something else."
"There's no time."
As if on cue, the distant thunderous footfalls grow closer, the ground beneath you vibrating with each booming step. Your eyes fly open and your head jolts up, every nerve in your body instantly on edge again.
Stanley quickly reties the bow around your neck, much looser this time, and settles his fez atop your head, taking care to make sure it sits right. Finally, he removes your glasses and gently puts his own pair in their place. His prescription is a little stronger than yours, and you tell yourself that's the only reason your eyes are watering.
"Stan," you start, thickly, but he cuts you off, seemingly already able to tell where you're headed.
"Ford, we got one shot at this," he says, hands on your shoulders. "You can cry all you want in five minutes, but right now you gotta hold it together. Just do that for m—for the kids, okay?"
You nod, swallowing back your tears. "For the kids."
He stands up first, then offers you a hand and pulls you up onto wobbling legs. The next moments are spent side by side, shoulder to shoulder, holding each other's hand as you wait for Bill to come crashing back into the room.
This is it, you think, with great sinking despair. The point of no return. The last moments you'll have with your brother, before everything is stripped away.
There's so many things you want to say, things you need to say before it's too late.
Thank you. For not giving up, for bringing you home, for saving you.
I'm sorry. For causing nothing but problems, for blaming him for so many years, for having him clean up your mess.
I love you. For all the years you couldn't say it, for all the times you wanted to say it but didn't, for all the moments you wish you had.
Above all, you wish you could say please don't do this. But when you meet his eyes again there's a fierce determination burning within them, like your mind is an open book and he already knows how it ends, and for once you already know his reply as well.
I have to.