Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“ FINE !” Stan shouted up at the darkened window above him, eyes red with tears he wouldn’t let himself shed.  “I don’t need you!  I don’t need anyone !”

He’d meant to immediately get into his car and drive away into the night after he finished yelling his defiance, but as he grabbed at the door his hands trembled too much for him to get a solid grip.  It was definitely with rage, not fear at the sinking-in realization that he didn’t have a home anymore.

Not guilt at knowing that this was all his fault.

He stood there for a moment, trying to work up the courage to just get in already and stop shaking like a coward, before with a curse of frustration he yanked his keys out of his pocket and flung them onto the windshield.  Then he slung his duffle bag up onto his shoulder and stomped off in a completely different direction.

The beach was even more empty than usual at this time of night; all was quiet save for the waves crashing against the shore, and dark save for the moon dappling everything in pale blue-white light.  The thing that stood out most to Stan was the shadowed form of the boat sitting on the shore.

He only hesitated for a second before tossing the duffle bag up into it, and then he got started pushing it out into the shallows.

They’d never actually taken the time to test her on the open water; Ford had wanted to take a few more precautions before he deemed her seaworthy, make sure she wouldn’t sink by reinforcing the bottom and stuff.

...Unless, of course, that was just the excuse he used to hide how he didn’t care about the boat anymore.

Well, screw him.  Stan was going to finally take that trip, and the traitor could go to West Coast Tech or to Harvard or to hell for all he cared.

He tried to ignore the stinging in his eyes, as well as the dampness on his cheeks, as he climbed aboard and let the waves start carrying him out to sea.

Almost two days later, Stan admitted to himself that he might have made a mistake.

It turned out that the only contents of the duffle bag were a few extra clothes, a large pocket knife, a lighter, and (he suspected it came from Ma) a photo of him and Ford at the boxing ring.

Pa hadn’t even bothered to pack a bottle of water for him, and he knew that you weren’t supposed to drink sea water, even when it was all around you for miles and you were becoming thirstier by the second.

Heh, there was a...poem about that or something that they’d talked about in English class, wasn’t there?  Water, water everywhere, nor any drop to drink.  About a guy who killed an albatross, and got punished by having it tied around his neck and then he was stuck out in the ocean forever and ever and ever…

Stan’s chest heaved, and a dry sob squirmed its way out from between his cracked lips.

He knew there was a way you could filter water, but he had no idea how that worked, and his attempt at fishing had resulted first in nearly setting the boat on fire (and ruining one of his shirts in the process), and then in making himself sick from trying to eat raw fish.

He didn’t even have a blanket to protect him from how cold it got at night.

Currently he was lying at the bottom of the boat, curled around the duffle and covering his face with one arm to try and keep it from getting more sunburned.  He barely had the energy to do anything else.

He tried not to have the thought, but it came anyway: I’m gonna die out here.  I’m gonna die and no one’s ever gonna know what happened to me.

...Well, so what?  It’s not like there’s anyone who would care anyway…

Stan drifted in and out of sleep for a while, until he was awakened by a sound.

He forced his eyes open, pulling himself into a woozy sitting position, and found that the boat was surrounded by a thick, cloying fog that, despite being creepy, was a welcome relief from the sun.

And somewhere in the middle of it, coming closer and closer, was the sound of drums.

Chapter Text

Stanford Pines, PhD (x 3, with the goal of eventually working his way up to x 12, if not more) heaved up a bucket and examined the slimy green substance inside, giving a little grimace of displeasure when some of it slopped over the rim and splattered on his shirt.

“Step it up, Pines!” a voice bellowed behind him, “We haven’t got all day!”

“Yes, captain,” Ford muttered as he turned around to lug the bucket belowdecks.

Not for the first time, he wondered if he shouldn’t have looked for a more fulfilling course of work than researching plankton and algae aboard the S.S. Essex (not least because he questioned the captain’s logic in choosing that for a name; presumably he had cared more about whether it sounded impressive than about any negative connotation it might hold).  Anything else.

No, no, he had nothing to complain about, this was perfectly good, solid work, and he was making valuable contributions to the world of marine biology.  It didn’t matter if it wasn’t the work he’d wanted to study, that a little part of him hoped to someday get another chance to study.  He had a good, steady job that was profitable enough for Pa to not be breathing down his neck, even if it wasn’t anything close to earning him “millions,” and he got plenty of fresh air and sunshine out on the open sea, and sure, maybe he didn’t have any friends here but that wasn’t exactly new, so he was used to it.  He was perfectly hap- content with his lot in life.

There were no new or unusual specimens in the sample he’d collected.  Just as there hadn’t been in the last three weeks.

Ford recorded the different types of phytoplankton and zooplankton in his logbook, trying not to sigh from boredom and get another lecture from the captain about his “bad attitude,” reminding himself again that he was making valuable contributions to the world of marine biology by looking for anom- discrepancies in the types of plankton in the Atlantic Ocean.  It didn’t have to be interesting to be fulfilling.

Finally, mercifully, dinner time arrived.

Ford was late because he spent a few minutes trying to clean his shirt, and by the time he got there the rest of the crew was already clustered together at their table, combining dinner with the nightly card game.

Nobody even noticed that he’d come in.

Ford just quietly grabbed his tray and filled it with whatever was left, and then slipped out onto the deck.

For about twenty minutes he picked at his food, before he leaned against the railing with a sigh.

Down below, he could hear people laughing and pounding their fists on the table; it sounded like they were having a good time.

Ford just looked up at the sky, planning to stargaze until they were finished and then go to bed.  Hopefully he could get there before his roommate, who snored like a freight train-

His ears picked up a noise from off in the distance.

Curious, Ford sat up straight and tilted his head.

There it was again, louder now-or maybe closer.

And now he could see something too, off in the distance but becoming rapidly more visible.  Sort of, anyway, since it was a thick blanket of fog, rolling across the waves.

Ford stood and leaned forward, trying to get a better look at the first interesting thing he’d seen in weeks.

…Is that drums?

…And then the rusty railing he was leaning on gave way, and Stanford Pines was pitched forward into the ocean.

For a few moments he was unable to do anything but tumble helplessly through the water, struggling to find his way to the surface and not lose his glasses.

A third of his thoughts were wordless terror; another third was things I don’t feel comfortable printing.  The final third was reminding him frantically of how to avoid going into shock, and to keep his mouth shut so he didn’t accidentally inhale water and drown himself.

Then, finally, his head burst above the water and he was able to gasp for air.

There was no sign of the Essex .  Ford turned around frantically, but all he could see was fog and water.

“Hello?!” he called as loudly as he could, trying to avoid getting water in his mouth.  “Can anyone hear me?  Help!  Man overboard!”

No answer.  Not even a light shone through the fog.

A strangled whimper rose from between his teeth as he did another desperate circle in the water.  He couldn’t have been left behind this suddenly, someone had to have heard something-

And then he saw a massive dark shape, over to his left.

With a sigh of relief Ford began doing the breaststroke towards it; Chiswick never remembered to tie up properly, there’d be a loose line he could grab onto and pull himself back onboard.  Heh, maybe if he mentioned that he’d nearly drowned they’d want to hear about what happened, and he could spin this into a little adventure that might actually draw their attention to him for longer than a few minutes-

It wasn’t the boat.

It was far too big to be the boat.

It was an island.

Chapter Text

When he finally flopped face-first onto the dark shore, Ford had only meant to lie down and rest for a minute or two, just to help him regain his bearings after being nearly battered to pieces by the waves.

What ended up happening instead was that he collapsed into the sand, closed his eyes...and the next thing he knew it was morning, and he was being awakened by a combination of the sunlight shining on his face and the chill of seawater lapping at his legs.

For a disoriented moment Ford just lay there and tried to remember what had happened; had the crew gone on shore leave or something?

Then recollection returned with a vengeance, and he sat up with a gasp-followed by a woozy groan from sitting up too fast, and having to hold his head in his hands as he waited for everything in there to settle down.

Much to his relief, his glasses were still on his face, and intact, albeit smeared with sand.  Once the dizziness had left he cleaned them on his shirt, and took a look around.

Ahead of where he’d been facing there lay a massive green jungle, looking exactly like the kind that you saw on the covers of those pulp fiction magazines, all trees and vines and various thickly clustered greenery.  Ford could hear occasional noises echoing from it, like animals crashing around and uttering mating calls and so forth, but nothing he recognized-and despite what the movies portray, none of them sounded even remotely like a kookaburra.

He turned around to examine the view behind him.

The sun was shining overhead, and the fog from last night was gone...but there was no sign of land, either.

Just sparkling, sunlit ocean as far as the eye could see.

I don’t remember this island being on any of the maps I looked at...very peculiar.  You might even say-weird!

Ford felt a small thrill of excitement in his chest at the realization.  A strange uncharted island, out in the middle of the Atlantic!  Definitely something worth exploring before he got started looking for a way to get off it, see if he could find anything interesting!

...He should probably do that anyway, come to think of it-his mouth was feeling a little dry, and a place this green had to have fresh water somewhere, right?

Ford clambered, somewhat unsteadily, to his feet, turned-and froze.

Lying on the beach up ahead of him, not quite in the jungle but at least out of the surf, lay an old, shipwrecked sailboat.

A very familiar -looking sailboat that made his heart clench and heat rush up his spine.

No.

It can’t be.

Despite how angry and bitter he’d been, Ford was confused the morning after the Incident when he went out, and saw that Stan’s car was still parked in the street outside their house.

He’d fully expected him to have driven away in it-and a stupid sentimental part of him had actually made him go up and peer into the back to see if Stan was sleeping inside; perhaps this was a cockeyed plan of his to stay there until Pa relented and let him back inside the house.  He didn’t think that would actually work, but maybe, if Ma pushed hard enough-

The back had been empty, and he’d turned away in disgust at himself.

It wasn’t until he saw the keys resting on the windshield that a small shred of worry had wormed its way into his chest.

Even then, though, he’d still tried to come up with excuses.  Stan was in hiding, he was working on a get-rich-quick scheme to try and get those millions Pa said he couldn’t come home without, the knucklehead had left the car as a gift for Ford to try and make up for what he’d done-it wasn’t working, but he kind-of-sort-of-maybe appreciated the effort.

Those excuses had all shriveled up and died when a week later, he’d unintentionally wandered down to that part of the beach, and saw that the Stan O’ War was gone.

For weeks after that Ford scanned the news with frantic eyes for anything about shipwrecks or unidentified persons washed up onshore; every time the phone rang he was sure it was the Coast Guard, calling to tell them that they’d found the boat (he didn’t know how they’d be able to identify it as belonging to the Pines family, but in his fantasies they always did), with or without his brother.

When he was feeling optimistic he’d imagine that Stan was perfectly fine, perhaps having sailed safely to a tropical island where beautiful women served him exotic drinks in half a coconut shell with a little umbrella in it, and where he could dig up buried treasure to his heart’s content.

Other times, though…

Other times nightmarish images assaulted his imagination, images of his twin washing up on some remote shore, his face blue and swollen and empty; or of his withered corpse found lying in the boat, in the process of being ripped apart by seagulls and crabs.

It wasn’t until Pa sold the car, however, stating that it was a waste for it to be sitting out in front of the pawnshop like that and that it was still in good enough condition to bring in some money, that Ford broke.

He’d wanted to protest, to say that he wanted to keep the car for when he went away to whatever college would still be willing to take him...but he’d lost his nerve.  Instead he’d gone to school, white-faced and silent, and skipped class under his own steam for the first time in his life; then he’d locked himself in a bathroom stall, curled up on the floor, and cried himself hoarse, until he was reduced to pitiful shudders and his eyes were red and exhausted.  Then he’d finally gone to class, half an hour late, and didn’t say two words the entire period even when the teacher scolded him for his absence.

After that, for the last eight years Ford had resigned himself to the fact that his brother was...lost.  Lost at sea.  And he would probably never know what had become of him.

Except that now here was the boat, or at least one that looked very much like it, lying there with a gaping hole in the side and partially buried in the sand.

Without meaning to, Ford rushed towards it, staggering a little until he was able to lean a hand on the prow.

It was..smaller than he remembered.  Of course, that might have been because the first time he saw it was when he was ten, and the last time he saw it was when he was seventeen; age and experience would definitely have altered his perception of it.

Assuming, that is, that this was the Stan O’ War , and not just some product of his exhausted, dehydrated mind seeing what he wanted to see .

If there ever had been a name written on the side in black paint, it had been washed away by now; he could see no traces of it.  So the odds of this being the Stan O’ War were probably one in a million, and he was just being a sentimental fool for thinking it.

Shaking his head at himself, Ford turned away from the boat-and then looked back.  As old and decrepit as it was, perhaps it could be useful in helping him get off this island when he was done exploring it.  He made a mental note to remember where it was...and see if he could find any tools to fix it with...and see if he could remember how to use the kind of tools that would be needed to fix it, having done nothing of the kind for quite some time.

It also occurred to him that for the boat to be up that far from the water, odds were high that someone had pulled it up.  Which therefore meant that it was possible someone else was, or had been, here on the island.  He didn’t know why they wouldn’t have tried to fix it by now, and if there was one thing that Stanford Pines hated, it was having unanswered questions.

So, with the determined glare of a man who is about to do something very brave and/or very stupid, he set off into the jungle.

Chapter Text

Even though he knew the jungle was supposed to be hot, Ford hadn’t realized just how humid it would get.

Within minutes his shirt and bangs were plastered to his skin, they were both so soaked through with sweat; as if this wasn’t difficult enough to deal with, he found himself being regularly ambushed by swarms of hungry insects, so before long he was spending more time swatting at the air than paying attention to where he was going, with painful consequences.

Ford grumbled to himself as he took a break to sit down and rub at his throbbing forehead, cursing that stupid branch that had shown up out of nowhere.  He swatted more of the vermin away from his arm, and comforted himself with the knowledge that their presence probably meant there was a water supply somewhere nearby.

Of course, he currently didn’t possess the means to boil and ensure it was germ-free before drinking it, but right now he was too thirsty to care.

All right, Stanford, focus.  What’s a good way to find a source of water in the jungle?

...If I remember correctly, the books on wilderness survival say to look for animal tracks that will lead you to it.

Perfect!

Wiping more sweat from his brow, Ford pushed himself up into a standing position and began examining the jungle floor.

It took another hour, and he nearly ran into a few more trees due to his focusing on the ground, but eventually he discovered what looked like a set of hoofprints.  Several sets, actually; and the ground was all trampled flat, meaning that they probably went this way.

With a pleased grin Ford straightened and began half-jogging down the trail.

Come to think of it, he noticed that the tracks were rather peculiar; yes, their general shape reminded him of hooves-too wide to be a deer, so perhaps some kind of wild pig?-but they also seemed to possess toes that were attached to the hooves, toes that were long and clawed at the ends.

“Very strange,” Ford murmured aloud.

Just saying the words caused a small thrill to rise in his gut, a thrill that had long been dormant from lack of proper use.

Perhaps he’d discovered an entirely new kind of animal!  Like a mutated species, or something that was supposedly extinct!  If he could figure out a way to capture one alive, then he could take it to Backupsmore and show that narrow-minded thesis board that anomalies were a legitimate field of study!  He could get a grant to come back and study this island in greater detail, see if there were any other-

A rumbling, trickling sound from about five feet ahead reached his ears, and Ford quickened his speed eagerly.

He just had to push through this one opening between the trees, and he would reach the-

Crunch!

Zwip!

Zing-zing-zing!

“AAAAUUUUGGGGHHHH!!!!”

It took Ford a moment, as he dangled helplessly between the trees, to fully understand what had just happened.

As he had stepped into the opening, his foot had landed on a vine that was stretched between the two trees, causing it to snap.  This, in turn, had caused a series of vines, tied and woven together until they formed a crude yet effective net, to all rise into the air and bunch together at the top, so that he was now tangled in the center of them and swinging about seven feet off the ground.

In layman’s terms, he was caught in a trap.

Once Ford worked his way through the shock and indignation of being strung up like this, he was honestly a little elated.

This had to mean that there were people on the island!  Perhaps a primitive culture of some kind, entirely undiscovered by American civilization, and he could ingratiate himself into their society, using his knowledge and abilities to eventually become their king-no, no, maybe that was too colonialistic of an attitude to have.  Of course, he wouldn’t necessarily object if they gave him some kind of special position in their society…

It occurred to Ford that he should probably try to get out of this net.

He began searching for knots he could untie, wishing that he’d had his jackknife in his pocket when he fell off the boat.

Unfortunately, this was a very well-made net; it had been designed so that the only way to break out of it was by loosening the spot at the top where all the pieces had been drawn together.

Ford began trying to climb up so he could reach it, poking the toes of his shoes through the gaps and gripping to maintain his balance with one hand, while using the other to try and pull the edges apart.

He was still trying to spring the trap when he heard a noise, and looked down in time to see a creature come waddling down the trail; immediately Ford forgot everything else.

At first glance, it resembled your average wild pig: short, bristly brown fur, a set of curved tusks poking out of either side of its mouth, making little grunting noises as it walked.

There were, however, some crucial differences.

Instead of the short, stubby tail associated with wild pigs, or even the curly one associated with the domesticated variety, it had a long segmented tail that waved from side to side as it trotted along.  The nose was longer and pointier than any pig’s, and possessed a set of long whiskers interspersed with the tusks.  And something about the way it moved, and the way it was shaped, made it seem less porcine, and more...well, more like some kind of giant rodent.  It was like a pig and a rat fused together to create an entirely new chimera of a beast.

“Fascinating,” Ford muttered; he lowered himself and peered through the holes of the net to get a better look as it passed right underneath him; now he wished that he had a journal or something that he could sketch it in.

There was a very faint, barely discernible rustle in the trees off to one side of the trail.

Immediately the pig-rat jerked its head around in that direction, nose twitching once, before it took off running, far faster than Ford had been expecting, and disappeared among the trees.

It had not gone far, though, when something burst out of the trees and came rushing after it.  Ford barely caught a glimpse of dark green and brown, and what looked like a spear gripped in their hand, before they vanished as well.

Seconds later, a high, sharp squeal rose up from the direction they’d run in-and was just as quickly cut off; Ford flinched.

The person reappeared so quickly that they seemed to have teleported onto the path, with the dead pig-rat slung over their shoulder and twirling their spear in a very satisfied manner.

From what he could see, they appeared to be wearing clothes that had been dyed to blend with the surroundings; not only that, but the few pieces of bare skin that he could make out had been given the same treatment, so that it was difficult to see the figure at all unless they were in motion, or you looked at the face.

Or rather, at the mask that concealed it.

It was long, and black, and pointed to resemble a beak; honestly, Ford was reminded of a plague doctor from the Middle Ages, save that there was no glass covering the eyeholes.  The mask was surrounded by a thick mane of unkempt dark hair, and what looked like a beard protruded from underneath it.  Presumably that meant that this was a male.

The figure stepped up to where the trap had been set, and looked up.  And upon seeing him there, he made an alarmed noise, and reached over to a nearby tree in order to grab a vine and start adjusting it; seconds later, Ford found himself being lowered to the ground.

“Thank you,” he said as his feet touched the jungle floor again and the figure set about loosening the net, “I’m sorry for spoiling your trap, but I was trying to find water and thought this trail was the best place to start.  Do you speak English?”

The figure hesitated-no, he didn’t just hesitate, he froze , and took a step back, forcing Ford to finish extricating himself on his own.

And as soon as he got a good look at his face, the figure snatched up his kill and his spear, and then took off running.

Chapter Text

“No, wait!”

Ford tried to chase after the masked man, but within seconds he had vanished into the greenery, pig-rat and all.

After a minute or two he finally realized that he wasn’t being followed, and stumbled to a halt, bending over with his hands on his knees and taking in deep, gasping breaths.

He was fully aware that it was dangerous to stop out in the trees like this, to be this vulnerable, especially this far inland and away from shelter-it wasn’t as close to the center as it could be, but there were still things here that would definitely love the opportunity to get the drop on him at last.  He didn’t care, because he was still trying to process what- who -he had just seen.

It can’t be.

It can’t be.

He can’t be here, that makes no sense, he doesn’t belong here.

After a second he straightened and lifted his mask, pushing the hair back out of his eyes.

As so many of you have probably guessed by this point, had he been clean-shaven and wearing glasses he could have been a dead ringer for Stanford Pines.

“Maybe I’ve finally lost it,” Stan said aloud.  “That’s it, I was probably-probably just hallucinating, and that wasn’t actually him .  It was...just someone else who washed up here, and looked enough like him ta throw me off for a sec.  Or even just one of the kangarabbits, they can look pretty human sometimes, right?”

He shot an irritable glance at the carcass whose head was still draped over his shoulder.  “Who asked you?!”

Grumpily he pulled the mask back down, and started to head for home; he had dinner to make, and the smell of blood was bound to attract something if he stayed out here too long.

After only a few steps he skidded to a halt.  “I am not runnin’ away!” he snapped at the dead pig-rat.  “I’m just-it ain’t right ta welcome a newcomer if you don’t have a meal ready for ‘em, y’know?  That’s probably part of what went wrong last time-”

No, don’t think about last time.

Stan shook his head, rubbing absently at his arm.  “He’ll be fine for a few minutes alone-”

Just then his ears picked up the sound of crashing, plus a voice yelling at the top of its lungs, “Hello?!  Hello, are you out there?!  Can you hear me?!  Please, I just want to talk!”

Stan groaned into his hand.

At the same time, a finger of ice ran down his spine; it definitely sounded like his voice.  Or like his voice might sound by now, since it probably would’ve gotten deeper over the years, right?  It couldn’t possibly be him , but...whoever he was, he was gonna get himself killed if he didn’t keep the noise down.

With a sigh, Stan turned and went padding off the way he’d come to find his br-whoever this was before something else did.

Carefully slipping through the trees, he found the newcomer about half a mile from where he’d left him, wandering around like a dang fool and apparently feeling the need to crush every single twig in his path under his big clumsy feet; how the heck was this guy still alive?

Stan watched him from the shadows, with spear in hand, as he continued looking around, occasionally calling out again.

He wore a long-sleeved yellow shirt-looked like the button-up kind-and dark slacks with a pair of sneakers that probably weren’t going to last long here; definitely a familiar nerdy look, so it made sense why he would remind him of him .

The hair, brown and floofy as it was, also looked pretty similar to his , especially with the way it stuck up in the back like he’d been running his hand through it-

His hands.

Had Stan taken a good look at them?

That was perfect!  He just needed to see his hands up close, see that they had the perfectly normal amount of fingers instead of any special extra ones, and that would confirm that this was a complete stranger and not a ghost from his past showed up to haunt him.

Noiselessly Stan stepped out of hiding.  The stranger’s back was to him, and Stan could hear him inhaling in a way that probably meant he was about to yell again; quickly he gave him a light jab in the back with the tip of his spear.

“Wha-!”

Immediately the newcomer whirled around, putting his fists up in a clumsy imitation of a boxer-and again Stan was taken aback when he saw his face.

It still looked a lot like his .  Granted, the jaw was firmer-looking, without the baby fat from his memory and from the Picture...but the eyes were similar, especially with the big nerd glasses, and the schnozz was big enough to be his too-

“There you are!  Sorry if I alarmed you earlier-it feels odd that I’m the one saying that, since you’re the one who trapped me ...but I don’t suppose that was your intention, was it?”  The newcomer gave a little awkward laugh that petered off when Stan didn’t respond.

Stan looked down; to his irritation, the newcomer’s hands had been lowered to his sides, and were now partially obscured from view.

Well, there was nothing else for it: he moved the spear to his left hand, and offered the other one.

The newcomer blinked.

“Oh-you have that ritual here?  It must be more universal than I thought.”  He started to bring his own hand into view-and then hesitated.  “Um-this might seem a little odd to you, but I assure you it doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with me, per se.”

Stan felt cold all over.

“It’s a rare genetic anomaly, but I’m not a demon or monster or whatever your culture might believe blah blah blah blah…”

Stan had stopped listening to what he was saying properly; he was too busy trying to maintain his ground as Ford put his six-fingered hand into his and gave it a quick shake.

Somehow, Stan didn’t run away screaming like he wanted to.  He just stayed put and finished the handshake, before abruptly turning and setting off for home.

As he’d half-expected, Ford came jogging after him.  “Do you speak?  I thought I heard a voice saying something earlier, but it was hard to tell-oh, have you taken a vow of silence, or does your culture not permit you to speak to outsiders or something like that?”

Are you kidding me?  You are such a nerd , Poindexter.

Stan quickly used the tip of his spear to slice a vine connecting to a particularly lustrous purple flower that he saw pointing in Ford’s direction; the poison darts on those things could be pretty nasty.  Ford stepped over it obliviously.

“Are there more of you here?  Why do you have that mask-is it another cultural thing?  Does it signify you as a hunter among your people?  I’m presuming that’s your job.”  He looked to the corpse on Stan’s shoulder, who Stan could see was starting to smirk at him; he gritted his teeth and tried to ignore it, in favor of using his spear to steer Ford away from a tree before he could smack into it.  The ones here weren’t as touchy as those towards the center, but they still didn’t like it if you damaged them too much.

Even though none of his questions or comments were being answered, Ford continued to ask and theorize and talk and talk and talk all the way to Stan’s home.  Sure, he’d always loved talking, but Stan didn’t remember him being this gabby.  Sheesh, didn’t he have enough people to talk to at whatever high-powered science-related fancy PhD job he’d ended up getting?

Finally, they climbed over a particularly large tree trunk, and entered the clearing where Stan’s home was.

The ‘house’ itself was a cave that was partially made out of an old hollow tree, with the entrance concealed by a collection of vines that formed a kind of curtain, and only a few feet away from the stream where Stan got most of his drinking (and occasionally bathing) water.  Aside from the fire pit in the center of the clearing, though, you would probably have no idea that anyone lived here at all; which was, in fact, the idea.

Stan turned around abruptly, enough that Ford nearly smacked into him, and held up a hand in the universal gesture for ‘stay here.’  To his relief, Ford obediently stopped, and waited demurely as he dropped the dead pig-rat down next to the fire pit, and then slipped inside to get his tools so he could start cooking.

He started by checking the pit; the coals were still pretty warm, so at least he wouldn’t have to start it up again.  That was good.  After stirring them a little bit and adding an extra log, he went back in to grab his knives and a few sharpened sticks for the less pleasant part of this job.  He was kind of desensitized to it by now, but even now he could acknowledge that it wouldn’t have been his first choice of how to get food.

Ford finally stopped talking and asking questions when Stan began to skin and butcher the pig-rat.  In fact, he looked like he was trying very hard not to be sick as he continued to watch the process, and Stan found himself smirking behind his mask.  While he didn’t remember Ford necessarily being overly squeamish as a kid, he hadn’t been that fond of blood back then either.  But, of course, he no doubt felt the need to watch to process For Science, because that was the only thing that mattered to him in the long run-

Focus on dinner, Stanley.

When he had the meat all ready, Stan put it on the crude spit he’d created, and since this was kind of a special occasion, after he washed his hands and knives in the stream he got out one of his more precious commodities: two things of salt and pepper that had washed up on the shore back when Adele was here.  There was still plenty left, and he was careful to distribute it evenly across the meat before finally putting the spit over the fire.

Ford looked confused at the sight of the spice canisters, before realization visibly rose on his face.

“Oh, those must have washed up here at some point, didn’t they?  I can tell by how faded and washed-out the labels are.  Very clever of you to figure out their purpose.”

Wow, ya think ya could be a little more condescending?

Stan just turned the meat quietly, watching to make sure the sides were being evenly cooked and doing his best to ignore him.

He realized too late the flaw in bringing Ford here and allowing him to take part in his meal: in order to eat, Stan was going to have to take off his mask.

Chapter Text

Stan distracted himself by focusing on slicing off a chunk of the meat; he speared it onto the tip of another knife, and offered it to Ford.

His brother was taken aback for a moment, before carefully accepting the knife with a small nod and taking a tentative bite.  Followed soon after by a bigger, hungrier bite that ended with half his cheek being stuffed like a hamster’s; Stan actually had to stifle a snort.

Ford smiled sheepishly at him.  “Mmmph...I’m a little hungrier than I realized,” he murmured through a full mouth before swallowing.  Stan took the canteen he’d been wearing over his shoulder and offered it to him; he gulped from it thirstily, wiped his mouth on his sleeve and then went back to taking ravenous bites of the meat.

It’s a good thing Ma’s not here ta have a conniption about your table manners.  ...Course, mine probably aren’t much better.

Yeah, ‘probably,’ the pig-rat’s head muttered from where it lay resting on a nearby stump.

Stan glared at it.  Not in front of Ford!

What’s the big deal?  He can’t hear me.  Oh, that’s it, isn’t it?  You’re ashamed of how crazy you look talking to a dead animal, and you don’t want him to know about your little habit.  I don’t blame you, sonny, even I think it’s kinda creepy.

I don’t give a [ CENSORED ] what he thinks!  Him or anyone else!  You’re just making it hard for me ta focus and figure out what-

“Um, excuse me?”

Stan startled, and whipped his head around to face Ford.  His brother held up the empty knife with a hesitant, apologetic smile.

“...May I have some more, please?”

Sheesh, he’s a little greedy.  Hope he’s enjoying feasting on what used to be my flesh.

Stan ignored the pig-rat, and silently carved a fresh slice for Ford.  He was definitely gonna make the jerk into Filbrick Five the first chance he got.

“Are the other animals on the island two different types mixed together like that one?” Ford finally asked, once the worst of his appetite appeared to have been sated.  Then he added hesitantly, “...In hindsight, if you’ve lived here all your life they’re probably quite normal to you and you don’t know what I’m talking about.”

Oh, don’t worry, Poindexter, when I first got here I was freaking out every time I turned around and saw some new blended-up thing walking around.  Nowadays I just freak out if I ever go too far into the deep part of the jungle.  Or when I think too long about what my life is like.  Or when I see the baboon hyenas and remember what happened to Thayne-don’t think about that, not thinking about that.

Outwardly he just shrugged, while turning the spit so that the meat wouldn’t burn.

While it was a little risky to leave Ford unattended, he eventually decided to just eat in the cave.  So, after carving a few slices for himself and spearing them onto another knife, he turned to look at Ford, pointing at the ground in a way that he hoped adequately conveyed “stay here,” before making his way inside.

You know you can’t hide from him forever, Carla pointed out as he passed her.

“Watch me,” he muttered, pulling off his mask and sinking his teeth into the meat.

You’re not even going to try talking to Stanford?   Adele watched him with a concerned frown.  But you told us how much you’ve missed him, and now he’s finally here, cher!

“Doesn’t mean he’s missed me.”  Stan sat down on the pile of animal skins that served as his bed (it had taken him ages to learn how to make those properly) with a sigh, and continued eating.

Do we even know how he got here?   Kit’s head was starting to slide a little to the left; Stan reached over and straightened it for him.  You’d think this is the last place where he’d turn up.

“That’s what I’m tryna figure out, okay kid?  Keep your hair on.”  Stan picked up a handful of grass off the floor and stuck it back in place.  “Seriously.”

Kit blew a raspberry at him.  Your puns really haven’t gotten any better since I left.

“Shut it.”

Honey, you should talk to your brother , Ma scolded.  You know how curious he is, how much he hates unanswered questions.  You gotta just rip the bandaid off.

“Why?!  He made his choice about whether he wants me in his life-and he doesn’t!  He.  Doesn’t.  Want.  Me!  Otherwise I coulda left ages ago!”  Stan threw up his hands in frustration, before lowering them with a sigh.  He knew if he let her, she’d keep this argument going forever; better to nip it in the bud right away.  “I’ll just keep an eye on him for now, let him think I’m part of an undiscovered civilization or whatever, until we drift close to land somewhere and he leaves.”  He tried to ignore how something in his chest shriveled up and died at the thought.

You’re assumin’, of course, that he can leave if he tries.

“It’s just a mistake, that’s all!  He probably just wound up here cuz he’s attracted to weirdness or something, if that’s gonna happen to anyone it’s gonna happen to him!”

He’s got a point , Hunter said from his corner.  Stanford is pretty much a weird magnet.  If there’s anyone who’d get stuck here without bein’ like us, it’s him.

“See?  This guy gets it.”  Stan pointed a thumb at him happily, before taking another bite of his food.  He nearly choked, though, when he heard a familiar scoff from the far end of the room.

Might’ve known you’d be this much of a coward, boy.

Lying on the floor, instead of neatly put together like the others, were the remains of Filbrick Four.  The skull that represented his head had been thrown at the wall, partly caved in by a big rock, and drop-kicked several times, but apparently his jaw was still put together enough to talk.

You don’t wanna be reminded of what you cost our family, that’s why you’re hiding from him.

“Yeah, cuz it’s not like I ever get reminders of it from anyone else,” Stan muttered.

Don’t you talk back to me, you dumb waste of space!  You know you got no one to blame for bein’ here but yourself, cuz you had to go and ruin everything!  Cuz I was right before: all you do is lie, and cheat, and ride-

The expertly-thrown spear that got him in the eye was the final amount of damage needed to shut him up once and for all.

For a moment Stan just stood there, chest heaving with rage and trying to bring himself back under control.  The others sat there in silence (for once); Ma had given up trying to make peace between them long ago, and while he felt bad about scaring Kit and Angie, it was for the best.  If they drew Filbrick’s attention he’d probably start treating them like that too, and they didn’t deserve that.

And then his chest tightened up for a completely different reason: because of a sound he hadn’t been listening for like he should’ve.

A tiny, shocked gasp, coming from the doorway.

Chapter Text

All Ford had wanted was to ask if the strange native had a specific place designated as a bathroom.

Well, that’s only half-true.  He was also more than a little curious about the inside of the cave, and he’d wondered if he could catch a glimpse of what his companion was like under his mask if he crept in unannounced.  Arguably this might violate some kind of sacred ritual of his people not to allow outsiders to see their face or something, but for the cause of Science and Anthropology some rules were just made to be broken.

As he’d approached the entrance, he overheard the gravelly rumble of a voice speaking; it wasn’t loud enough for him to make out the words, and he thrilled at the possibility that it was some kind of tribal chant.  Ford wondered if it would be similar to other languages, like Tagalog or Samoan-oh, curse it all, he knew he should have branched out a little more in school, then maybe he could have been prepared for a situation like this!  While his companion appeared to understand at least a little of his language, maybe it could establish a higher level of trust between them if he were able to communicate more, and he could learn more about this island in the process!

Ford was still grumbling inwardly to himself as he pushed his way through the vines and entered the cave.

The first thing he noticed was that despite being indoors (so to speak), there was a decent amount of light inside; further investigation made him realize that there were a few holes in the sides that allowed sunlight to shine through.  There was also another fire pit in the center of the room, of around the same size and shape as the one outside.

Very handy .

Ford’s gaze rose towards the other side of the pit, in search of his companion-

And he stopped short, as every synapse in his brain seemingly froze at once at the sight before him.

Set in a semicircle around a large pile of animal skins were a set of...well, I suppose you could call them sculptures.  They were piles of rocks, or bones, or seemingly whatever else had been at hand, built up until they were at about human height.  The items had then been decorated with more skins, or pieces of plants, or flowers, with an item on top that apparently represented a head.  Especially because some of them were actual heads: animal skulls that had been cleaned of skin and meat, and now sat white and gleaming on top of their unconventional bodies.  The heads had then been decorated with some form of hair, and on the wall behind them…

...on the wall behind them their names had been written.  In English.  In some kind of dark substance to make them clear and legible.

The one closest to Ford, with a small, dainty skull and a little pink flower tucked in its “hair,” had CARLA written behind it; if he looked closely, Ford thought the bottom area appeared to have been colored in an approximation of purple.  His stomach lurched, as a giggling teenager in purple hotpants danced before his mind’s eye.

Next to it was a smaller one, with the label KIT, and who was draped in blue.

The other statues were similarly decorated, and had different names assigned to them that Ford didn’t recognize: Adele, Angie, Hunter, Yoo Sun-Hwa, Dante.

And before he could see the last one, Ford’s gaze landed on the presumed creator of them all, standing in the center and looking quite a bit like a statue himself as he stared back at Ford.

His mask was finally off, allowing Ford to see that he was far paler than he’d been expecting; also that his hair and beard looked like they were occasionally hacked at with a knife whenever their owner felt like they’d become too long, making him look like even more of a deranged, unkempt wild man.

Also, he was Stan.

Even through the tangled mess of hair that surrounded his face, Ford recognized him.

All the puzzle pieces came together at once: the boat, the sculptures, the way he’d come to Ford’s rescue the way he always had, and put up with his rambling the way he always had.

The alarmed, familiar brown eyes that were staring into his own as he stepped closer now, drinking in everything about him and trying to see how much consisted of the brother he remembered...before abruptly he lunged at him, fists clenched.

(Oh, don’t give me that look, people.  This is Ford we’re talking about here.)

He wasn’t sure at what point he’d decided that he wanted to hit Stan; it was probably somewhere between the realizations of he’s been alive all this time and he had no intention of telling me who he was .  Regardless of when it occurred, his vision was suddenly suffused with red, and he charged at him with a vengeance-only for Stan to dodge the attack with no apparent effort, and then grab him by the back of his shirt before he could smash into Dante, throwing him onto the pile of skins.

“Your left hook needs work,” he deadpanned, in a voice deeper and a little more gravelly than he remembered.

“HOW COULD YOU?!” Ford yelled, surging to his feet again and ignoring the slight throb in the back of his head.  He charged at Stan and started throwing punches, too angry to register how they were all being effortlessly dodged or blocked.  “You’ve been here all this time , in this godforsaken place-”

“It’s not like I had a choice !” Stan snapped back as he dodged another strike.

“Of course you had a choice!  You could have tried to repair the boat, or at least try building a raft or something, rather than keep hiding out here like some kind of-”

“THE ISLAND WON’T LET ME, OKAY?!”

The words caught Ford off guard enough for Stan to shove him away again, and he landed hard on the skins.  He sat up and stared up at his brother, blinking owlishly.

“...What do you mean, it ‘won’t let you’?  Is it...alive?  Sentient?”

Stan threw up his hands.  “I guess?  All I know is if I try, the waves push me back, or an octo-shark grabs me and throws me back ta shore, or this big sharp pain starts up all over and only stops when I quit tryna leave.”

The burn of rage in Ford’s chest was rapidly replaced by shock and horror.  “...You’re a prisoner.”

Looking satisfied that Ford wasn’t going to try to attack him again, Stan sat down on the other end of the skins and drew a knife, which he twisted and spun around in his fingers with far more dexterity than he remembered.  “I guess I am.  It’s kinda like Gilligan’s Island except it sucks more.”

Ford struggled to choose which question he wanted to ask next, and decided to go with, “How long have you been here?”

“What year is it?”

“...1980.”

Stan startled, and for a moment his hand tightened around his knife...before he relaxed.  “About eight years, then.”  He glanced over at the statue labelled KIT, and shook his head a tiny bit.

“Eight years ?!”  Then that meant-that meant he’d been here since-  “...And you’ve been living here by yourself all this time?”  The thought made his stomach squirm; as accustomed as he was to solitude, the idea of eight years in complete isolation was...sickening, to say the least.

“Not always.  People show up sometimes.  Just...never for long.”  He looked around at the rows of statues with an expression Ford realized was identifiable as melancholy.

“So they could leave?”

“Only when their name gets called.”

Honestly, getting answers out of Stan was starting to feel like pulling teeth; he never used to be this reticent.  “Explain, please.”

Stan sighed.  “When people come here, they’re stuck until they hear a voice call their name from the shore, and there’s a place close by they can swim to, usually a beach or something.”

“ Fascinating .”  Ford rubbed his chin thoughtfully.  “And why is their name called?”

“I dunno.  Kinda seems to depend on the person.”

“You didn’t try to find out?”  Didn’t he want to get off this island?

Stan just shrugged.  Again.

Ford made a frustrated noise, but then took a deep breath.  “Well, I’m going to figure it out.  If something here is keeping you prisoner, there has to be some kind of source somewhere that we can undo or stop to break you free.”

Stan shot him a confused glance.  “It’s not like I got anything to go back to.  Worry about getting yourself off.”  And he looked away and started toying with one of the statues, adjusting its ‘clothes’ and ‘hair’ like his personal freedom meant nothing to him at all.

Chapter Text

That was a little harsh, honey, Ma scolded after a moment.

Stan just shrugged and kept fidgeting with her hair, trying to get it back into its bun shape; he was going to have to replace it soon if she didn’t want it to get all dried out.

He was startled out of his work by a shuffling noise, and glanced over to see Ford get to his feet and turn towards the entrance.

“Where ya going?”  He was irritated by the twist of panic that immediately rose in his gut.

“To see if the same thing that prevents you from leaving will work on me,” Ford answered tersely.  And he pushed aside the curtain of vines to go outside.

Stan had no choice but to follow and make sure the knucklehead didn’t get himself killed.

The cave was just uphill from shore, with a small path Stan had created for when he got tired of pork and decided to get fish or crab-lobsters (no, that’s not a typo) or something else out of the ocean.  Ford started striding down that path, and Stan had to hurry after him.

He realized too late that he’d forgotten his mask, and his heart immediately began racing with panic; it had been awhile since he’d gone this far from home with his face exposed, and while things by the shore were a little safer than nearer to the center…he felt more secure when he was hidden as much as possible.

However, there was no time to go back for it; he just had to hope nothing saw him.  Especially not the baboon hyenas.

With a small shudder Stan picked up the pace.

In less than a minute they reached the shore-and the spot where the Stan O’War rested despondently.

It had been a long time since Stan had even gone near the boat, let alone taken a good look at it.  He flinched as he realized how much it looked like it had the first time he’d seen it: falling apart, sails torn to shreds, a big hole in the bottom...in his defense, that octo-shark had been pretty relentless in not letting him leave.  Stan still looked away as soon as he could-in time to see Ford taking off his shoes, rolling up his pant legs and wading into the ocean.

“What’re ya doin’?!” Stan demanded.  “We’re surrounded by nuthin’ but water-there’s nowhere for you ta go!”

“Well, if I really am trapped here like you then that shouldn’t be a problem, should it?” Ford shot back over his shoulder, and then kept wading.

Stan uttered a small growl of frustration...but then just stabbed the tip of his spear into the sand and leaned on it as he watched him go deeper and deeper into the water.

He couldn’t tell if Ford was managing to get farther than he had; before long, all he could see was Ford’s head poking out of the water, and the occasional flash of yellow when he lifted one of his arms.

Knew it.  It was all a mistake, that’s all.  The island never meant to bring him here.

For some reason the vindication felt more than a little hollow.

...And then Ford let out a sudden alarmed yell, and began thrashing around like he was trying to fight something.

“Ford!”  Stan snatched up his spear and half-leaped into the shallows, lunging frantically through the water and not caring if he stepped on another coral reef or a sea urchin, because he needed to-

A massive gray tentacle raised Ford up into the air, before hurling him into the shallows and then sinking back out of sight.

...Oh.

Stan splashed his way to Ford’s side, and knelt to help him sit up.  He looked more than a little dazed, and there was octo-shark (or sharktopus; Stan hadn’t really decided on which name he liked better) ink on his clothes and all over one side of his face, but at least he didn’t seem to be hurt.  All the same, Stan checked him over anxiously as he got to his feet.

“Did he bite you?  Sometimes he’ll try to if he’s hungry enough.”

Ford paused in the act of wiping ink off his face onto his sleeve, and his eyebrows scrunched together in concern.  “Do you know that from personal experience?”

“Only a little.  Never said he actually got a bite outta me.”  Stan couldn’t help a small smug grin, before twirling his spear proudly.

To his surprise, Ford’s mouth curled up into a small chuckle of his own-which just as quickly faded into alarm.  “It looks like several other things did, though.”

Stan looked down-and gasped.

Being in the water had washed off a lot of the camouflage on his arms and legs, and now you could see the many scars that covered them.

Stan staggered backwards a few steps, trying to huddle into his clothes as best he could-he wasn’t supposed to be seen , not out in the open like this, not when so many of the creatures here had good eyes in addition to hearing and smell, he was vulnerable like this, opening himself to attack-

“Are those- human teeth marks?”  Ford was staring, wide-eyed, at a deep bite scar on Stan’s right forearm even as he pursued him.

Stan clamped his hand over it, and then hurried to the trail that would take him back to the cave without answering.  He had to get back home, out of sight, before it was too late-he’d already been out here too long as it was, it wasn’t safe, not when-

It was getting harder to breathe, his chest was so tight, but at last he was in the clearing, and half-leaped through the entrance.

To his relief, there was no one there that shouldn’t be; and a few seconds later Ford, gasping for breath, came in after him.

“Wow-” he finally wheezed, hands on his knees, “you’re even-even faster than I remember.”

Yeah, having to spend a lotta time fightin’ and runnin’ just to survive’ll do that to you, Hunter drawled; his voice sounded kind of like it had before he finished detoxing.

All Stan said was, “I’ve had a lotta practice,” before he went looking for his paints; he’d have to let himself dry off before he could reapply them, but it would make him feel better to have them ready for when that was done.

Chapter Text

Something was wrong with Stanley.

Well, something besides all the obvious things that were wrong with him, like his being trapped on a magic island for eight years, and being attacked by numerous types of creatures-including, apparently, at least one human-during that time frame.

And Ford didn’t know what it was, and it aggravated him that he didn’t know.

All he knew was that seeing that his paint had washed off had disturbed Stan more than he expected, leading him to just go tearing off back to the cave without a word of explanation, and he only seemed to relax once they were back inside.

Even now, though, Stan wasn’t completely relaxed; he was still clutching his spear in one hand as he maneuvered his way around the statues to a little nook just behind them, and finally set it down in order to produce three mismatched containers which he set down next to the bed: an old Gatorade bottle, a small clay pot, and a milk jug that had been cut in half (Ford suspected they had washed up on the island at some point).  All of them were filled with a thick, goopy substance, which came in three different colors: green, gray and brown.  It occurred to Ford that they were what Stan used to dye his clothes and his skin, as his twin pulled out a faded beach towel from the same cubby; he unrolled it, before tossing it at him.

There was a bit of a fumble, but Ford managed to catch it.  “Wha-?”

“You’re all wet.”

“Oh.  Right.”

For a moment Ford awkwardly considered how to do this, before just taking off his shirt and setting it down on a nearby rock, then toweling himself off as best he could from there.

Stan drew out a second towel, more ragged and stained than the first, and patted himself dry; once he’d finished, he spread it out and sat down on it.  He dipped his fingers into the brown dye, and began tracing it over his legs in a very practiced-looking rhythm, so that before long it looked like they were being decorated with long, twisting vines.

For a minute Ford just watched him work, entranced despite himself.  It reminded him a little bit of times when they’d gone down to the beach as children, and Stan had decided on a whim to cover his limbs with muddy sand in the spots that had the least glass shards; these were usually followed by him chasing Ford, roaring and proclaiming himself to be a dangerous mud monster, and to run for your lives!!!!

The memory had him covering his mouth with his hand, and pretending to be interested in the statues.

His gaze returned to the one labelled, CARLA.

“...Is that...Carla McCorkle?”

Stan startled at the sound of his voice, and his hand jolted, smearing some of the dye.  Then he looked over at CARLA, and his face (at least the part of it Ford could see) reddened.

Stan looked back down at his work.  “...Maybe.”

Ford’s smile this time was more sympathetic.

“I know, okay?”  Stan’s shoulders tightened.  “It was dumb!  She-probably doesn’t even remember who I am anymore.”

Ford thought back to the last time he’d seen Carla, back in high school.  It had been a few days after Stan had been kicked out, and she’d cornered him at lunch to ask why he wasn’t at school.  Apparently her relationship with the hippie hadn’t ended well, and she’d finished being angry with Stan for that whole fiasco and wanted to at least talk things out with him.  And when Ford told her what happened...well.  His cheek still stung a little from the memory of her reaction.

All he said was, “You’d be surprised.”

“Who are the rest of these people?” he asked after a moment.

Stan glanced around at the other statues.  “...They’re my friends.”

“...As in you just made them up, or…?”

“No.  They’re-they’re people who got ta leave.”  Stan began using the green dye now.  “I just...forget it.”

Ford looked at the statues again.  Now that he was looking for it, he could see that their craftsmanship, while sloppy, was also...affectionately done.  They appeared to be regularly maintained, keeping their features distinct and making sure they weren’t falling apart, and their names stood out brightly against the cave wall.

“You made these because you miss them.”

Stan shrugged, and began using gray for the parts of his skin that hadn’t been covered yet, giving the vines a frighteningly accurate level of shadowing.

As he was finishing up, he suddenly looked up at one of the makeshift windows, and gasped.  “We gotta go outside.”

Ford blinked.  “What?  Why-”

“Just come on!”  And without further ado Stan snatched up his spear, and half-leaped towards the cave door.  All Ford could do was chase after him, in a complete role reversal from earlier.

Outside, the sun was setting, casting everything in reddish-pink light.  Stan went to the fire (which had been reduced to low coals by now), and sat down on one side of it, before looking up at the sky expectantly.  His very bemused twin sat down at his side; he barely seemed to notice.

And then, as it became darker, Ford finally realized what all the excitement was about.  The sky above them had begun to flicker with lights.

Green, pink, blue and gold, all flashing vibrantly in the darkness, and becoming even brighter against the blue-black as night settled.

Ford’s jaw dropped.

“An aurora borealis?  But-that’s impossible!  We’re too far south!”

Stan gave him a wry glance over his shoulder.  “Yeah, I can believe everything else about this place, but that’s just weird .”

Ford elbowed him without really thinking about it.  “Oh, shut up, you know what I mean.”

“Shut up and watch.  It gets better.”

Ford looked back up, wondering how this could possibly be ‘better’...and then he realized what Stan meant.  The aurora’s lights were forming shapes.

In a way, it was similar to an old-fashioned moving picture show, or like Japanese shadow puppets.  As best Ford understood it, it appeared to be a tale about a giant waging war on a village of humans, who fought back using a variety of traps and cleverly-made weapons.  Eventually they succeeded in killing the giant, and used his bones to build a new home for themselves, because their old one had been destroyed during the war.

“Is it like this every night?” Ford asked when the story ended, and the lights began fading away.

“Basically.”  Stan had picked up a rock, and was using it to sharpen the tip of his spear.  “I mean, it’s not always the same story, but yeah, there’s one pretty much every night.  I was rootin’ for the giant.”  He sounded disappointed.

“Really?”  Ford raised an eyebrow.  “Why is that?”

“Cuz humans suck.”  Stan examined the end of the spear, and then went back to sharpening it.

Ford looked away uncomfortably, turning his gaze back to the stars.

As he watched them, the beginnings of an idea began to stir themselves to life.  Because if there was some kind of spell or curse or something that was keeping him and Stan trapped here, there had to be a way to break it.  He’d have to ask Stan more questions, though, see how well he knew the island...

He fell asleep before he could put his thoughts into words.

It took Stan a minute to realize that Ford was asleep.  Specifically, he realized it when Ford’s head landed on his shoulder, and he felt his brother’s weight starting to lean on him.

Stan immediately jerked away, barely catching him before he could face plant into the sand...and then just slowly laid him down, before scooting over a few feet.

It physically hurt to lose contact with Ford, but it was for his own good.  Because it was all a Lie.

It had to be a Lie-every time Ford had done something that affectionate towards him had to be a Lie.

Otherwise it never would’ve been so easy for him to throw him away.

...All the same, Stan ended up going in and grabbing one of his spare skins, and laying it over Ford before sitting down nearby to keep watch.

Most predators out here didn’t come near the camp anymore, but you could never be too careful.

Chapter Text

All you do is lie, and cheat, and ride on your brother’s coattails

Sabotaged my entire future

At this rate he’ll be lucky to graduate high school

There’s no way out there’s no way out THERE’S NO WAY OUT

“Little pig?  Where are you, little pig?  Come out, come out, wherever you are...I’m SO HUNGRY-!”

Stan’s eyes flew open, and he gasped, snatching his spear and looking around frantically-

But no.  That’s right, Thayne wasn’t here anymore.

Ford was, and he’d evidently discovered the fruit tree, because he was sitting by the remains of the campfire, holding one of them and staring at it in wonder.  He’d also put his shirt back on.

Stan realized that he’d probably dozed off at some point when the sky had started to lighten, and growled in annoyance at himself; anything could’ve happened while both of them were asleep!

Slowly he sat up, scratching a hand through his hair, and noticed that the makeshift blanket he’d given Ford had somehow wound up on him.  How odd.

“Oh good, you’re awake!” Ford said brightly.  Holy Moses, it was way too early in the morning for anyone to have a tone of voice that was that chipper.  He held out the fruit.  “Do you have a name for what this is?”

Stan brushed a clump of hair out of his eyes, and it swung back into place; without hesitation he pulled his switchblade out of his sleeve, and sliced the offending clump off, before allowing the pieces of hair to be carried away on an early morning breeze.  “It’s a fruit.”

Ford gave him a look that seemed equal parts surprised at his grooming habits and annoyance at his pointing out the obvious.  “What kind of fruit?”

Stan shrugged.  “Haven’t figured out a name for it.”

“Hmph.”  Ford looked back at the fruit, and took a bite out of it, chewed thoughtfully, and then swallowed.  “It has a texture and flavor somewhere between an apple and a peach, or possibly a nectarine.  Very nice crunch, and with just the right amount of tart to offset the sweetness.”

“Just make sure they’re not the only thing you eat while you’re here.  Your gut will not thank you.”  Just the memory made Stan’s own stomach cringe.  He got to his feet, and stretched out his cramped muscles.

“I don’t suppose there’s any chance of coffee being on the island?” Ford asked hopefully.

Stan gave him a flat look.  “You’re kidding, right.  I don’t even remember what coffee tastes like.”

Ford visibly wilted.  “...Maybe some washed up on the island?”

“What, along with a cappuccino machine?”

“Can we at least look?”

Stan rolled his eyes.  “Might’ve known you’d turn into as much of a bean fiend as Ma.”  He handed Ford the switchblade.  “Be right back, I gotta use it.  If anything comes around, stick ‘em with the pointy end.”

Much to his relief, Ford was still there when he came back, and appeared to be unharmed.  He had gathered several more pieces of fruit while Stan was gone, and laid them out on a clean rock.  Stan picked one up and bit into it, and accepted the knife back when it was handed to him.  Then he grabbed one of his cooking knives from indoors, and the remains of the pig-rat from last night, and carved off some fresh slices, handing one of them to Ford.

Ford glanced at the meat gingerly.  “Is this sanitary?  As best I can tell, you don’t have a fridge or anything to keep it fresh.”

Stan sniffed at his own slice, and then took a big bite out of it with a shrug.  “Should be okay.  I’ve only ever gotten sick here if I’ve eaten meat that’s been left more’n three days, unless I dried it.”

Ford tilted his head.  “That’s interesting.  You haven’t caught any kind of diseases or anything in all the time you’ve been here?”

“Not that I know of.”  Stan continued eating, and after a moment his twin joined him.

For a few minutes they ate in silence, until Ford suddenly asked, “Stanley, have you ever been to the center of the island?”

Stan froze, and then shook his head no.  “Never tried goin’ in that far.”

“Why not?”

“It’s where all the really big predators are.  And things get...even weirder.”  He realized a second too late why that was the wrong thing to say.

“Excellent!”  Ford’s eyes were bright with a horrifyingly familiar excitement-or, as a much younger Stan had put it, his “weirdness sense was tingling.”  “I suspect that the source of whatever magic is keeping us here will be somewhere in the center of the island!  Ergo, that’s the best place to search for it!”

Stan’s mouth opened, and shut, and opened again, until he finally remembered how to form words.  “...Stanford, what part of ‘really big predators’ do you not understand?  There are so many reasons why going in there’s a dumb idea!”

“Maybe, but it’s also the only lead we have!”

What’s with all this ‘we’ stuff?  I told you, I’m not tryna leave this island.

Ford was oblivious to Stan’s indignation as he got up and began pacing around the campfire in a little circle.  “Do you happen to have made a map, by chance?”

Stan made a noise of disbelief.  “Do I look like I have paper lying around?”

Ford’s jubilation was briefly replaced by disappointment...but he immediately perked up again.  “That just means it will be completely uncharted territory!  The possibilities are endless!  My guess is that there’s a spell, or better still, a very capricious wizard who might also be responsible for all the strange, chimeric animals and plantlife that live here!”

“And what’re you gonna do if there is one?”  Stan leaned his chin into one hand tiredly.  “Find him and ask him nicely ta let us go?”

“No, don’t be ridiculous, I intend to challenge him to a battle of wits, should he prove to be hostile.”

Tha-wha-you know what, of course you would.  Of course you’d think that’s a good idea.

Stan reluctantly faced the truth that he hadn’t been wanting to acknowledge: if Ford went out into the jungle by himself, he probably wouldn’t last an hour.  He had no idea what he was dealing with, and didn’t seem interested in listening to it even if he told him.  Ergo, Stan would have to go on this stupid quest thingy with him.

Ever the loyal dog, aren’t you, boy? Filbrick Five asked from where he still lay on the far rock.  The spider-ants were still picking the meat from the skull, and they were so ravenous that it’d probably be all gone within the next day or two.  It was not a pretty sight.

“Shut up !” Stan hissed at him.

Ford looked somewhere between confused and hurt.  “...What did I say?”

“I wasn’t talking to you!”

“...Then who were you…?”

Wow, great way to make yourself not look crazy .

Stan just stood up and said, clearing his throat, “If we’re goin’ into the jungle, you’re gonna haveta fix your clothes.  Otherwise you’re basically a walking Big Mac.”

Chapter Text

The process for dyeing Ford’s clothes took a few hours, so it was sometime late in the afternoon before the Pines twins set off into the jungle.

With his clothes and whatever bits of skin were visible painted to match the vegetation, and even his face (since Stan didn’t have a spare mask handy), and considering that Stan had covered himself in seemingly every weapon he owned, Ford couldn’t help feeling a little like they were suited up for Vietnam.

It occurred to him with a slight chill that Stan didn’t even know Vietnam had ended.  He didn’t know who the president was, or who had won the Super Bowl, or what movies had recently come out...

...Not that Ford paid that much attention to current events himself, unless they had something to do with the supernatural or science (not always mutually exclusive), but Stan had always been at least a little more interested in that than he was.  And maybe it was overly sentimental of him, but the more he thought about it, the more thinking about how much Stan had been closed off from just felt so...sad.

Stan didn’t seem to pick up on his mood; he was too busy leading the way into the trees, so smooth and quiet that Ford could barely see him.  In fact, there were a few times when he nearly lost him altogether if not for the spear which was clenched in his hand.  All the same, he had to hurry to keep up with his seemingly-effortless maneuvering, despite being in far better shape than he was in high school.

Was I always this bad at catching up with Stanley? Ford wondered as he tried to avoid tripping over a few tree roots.  He certainly thought he remembered Stan always being the one following him- riding on your coattails , a voice that sounded a lot like his father’s muttered in the back of his mind-but then another memory pushed it aside.  A memory of running down the beach after Stan, cheerfully yelling for him to wait up.

The sadness returned, but for different reasons this time; reasons he didn’t want to think about.

Ford lost track of how long they’d been wandering through the jungle; unfortunately his watch had been ruined by his impromptu swim, and the sun was partially blocked out by the canopy, so before long it just felt like they were walking through an endless twilight.  Not to mention an unnervingly quiet one, since Stan hadn’t spoken a word since they entered the trees and had rebuffed Ford’s few attempts at conversation.

Ford noticed, after a while, that Stan wasn’t the only one being quiet.  He couldn’t hear the birds singing in the trees, or other creatures crawling in the (sparse) undergrowth like you could in the jungle near the beach.  And as they went deeper and deeper, it got quieter and quieter, until all he could hear was the sound of his shoes rustling and clambering along (he couldn’t hear Stan moving at all, and was slightly jealous).

He tried to occupy himself by thinking about what the source of the island’s magic could be.  Stan had mentioned that it changed locations; he wondered if maybe that meant it was an aspidochelone, or giant sea turtle with an island on its back.  It wasn’t all that likely, considering Stan had never said anything about it submerging (and besides, he had survived on it for eight years, and the aspidochelone was supposed to drown people who stayed on its back for too long or who lit fires on it), but Ford wasn’t ruling it out until he got definite proof otherwise.  If it wasn’t a giant turtle, then he was more in favor of the wizard idea.  He must be a very powerful one, if he was strong enough to create numerous hybrid animals and create a sustained spell preventing visitors from leaving...oh, or what if it was a whole group of wizards?  Now that was an intriguing concept-

“Aw crap.”

It was the first thing Stan had said since they entered the jungle, and it caught Ford off guard.

He was even more caught off guard by Stan grabbing him and plunging into the shadows of a tree with low-hanging branches.

“What’s going-”

“Quiet!”  Stan half-shoved him up onto a branch, before leaping into it after him and clamping a hand over his mouth.

Less than a minute later, Ford realized what had his brother so agitated when something came stalking its way through the trees.

In some ways, it was like an unusually large leopard, with the same shape of the head, and golden-yellow coat dappled with spots, and the same feline way of sauntering along.

However, its eight long legs, coupled with the multiple eyes set in its head and prominent mandibles sticking out between its lips, made it also bear resemblance to a giant spider.  It also waved five long tails in the air, like the kitsune of Japanese mythology.

Ford’s breath caught in his chest as he caught sight of it, both intrigued and alarmed that it was capable of moving so gracefully on its many legs.  The alarm became stronger when he realized that it was sniffing at the air, and turning in the direction of their hiding spot.

Next to him Stan stiffened, and his grip tightened on his spear.

The leopard-spider began to saunter closer, its many bright green eyes seeming to stare hungrily right through the branches into Ford’s.  He could hear his heartbeat pounding in his ears, and despite himself his breaths came quick and frightened against Stan’s hand; Stan’s grip tightened a little, and he tried to focus on breathing through his nose and think of a plan of attack at the same time.  While the beast’s multiple sets of claws would definitely be a hazard, there was a slim possibility that the number of legs would make it more uncoordinated, so they might be able to use that to their advantage.  It also would depend on how good its climbing abilities were, and whether it had an ability to spin web like a spider-

Before the leopard-spider could reach them, a small creature like something between a monkey and a rabbit, came hop-jumping out of the nearby bushes, and saw the predator far too late.

Stan waited until the crashes and screams had faded into the distance before releasing Ford.

“What was that?” he whispered as they clambered down out of the tree.

Stan gave him a look that he could tell was grim even through the mask.  “One of the reasons why I don’t like comin’ this far.”  And he turned and started walking again.

Chapter Text

It had been too close.

Even as he resumed pushing through the greenery Stan could feel his hands shaking, and he was forced to take several deep breaths in through his nose and out through his mouth to regain some level of control.  The fact that it was going to start getting dark in a few hours didn’t help.  Under normal circumstances, you did not want to be in the jungle after dark.

Unfortunately, these weren’t even in the same ballpark as normal circumstances, so he would have to try something else to make sure they weren’t eaten before daybreak.

Stan was so lost in thought that he snapped a low-hanging branch that was in his path, a few seconds too late to realize what he’d done.

The tree screamed.

“Sorry, sorry!”  Stan held up his hands in frantic surrender and took a quick step back.  The tree folded its branches and somehow managed, without possessing eyes or mouth of any kind, to give him a stern look.

Behind him, he heard Ford give a small gasp.  He glanced over his shoulder, and saw him staring up at the tree with eyes big as saucers.

“...That tree just screamed.”

It gave Stan a ridiculous amount of relief to hear this confirmed by an outside party.  “Yeah, they don’t like having their branches broken unless they’re dead ones.”

Ford reached out towards another branch curiously, and squeaked when it smacked his hand away.  He pulled back gingerly, rubbing his fingers.

Stan rolled his eyes.  “Sorry, he’s new here.  Still learning the ropes.”

The tree made a small rumbling noise that had no words, but gave the impression of grumbling, “Well, all right, I’ll let it go this time, but see that you don’t go making a habit of it.”  Then it lifted all of its branches up out of reach.

Stan gave it a little nod, and stepped around it, intending to go on his way.

But then he had to turn back, grab Ford by the collar, and physically drag him away.

“Are all the trees like that?” Ford asked in an excited whisper as they resumed their journey.

A small, annoyed voice in the back of Stan’s head wondered peevishly, ‘Didn’t he get the memo about us needing to be quiet in here?’  But he found himself answering, “Mostly just the ones this far in.  You also gotta thank ‘em for lettin’ you have some of their fruit or they get even more touchy.”  To prove his point he picked another apple-nectarine thing from a nearby low-hanging branch, and gave the tree that it came from a nod.  “Thanks.”

The tree’s branches dipped for a moment in a return ‘nod,’ before rising back into position.

Stan passed the fruit back to Ford, who bit into it absently before asking, “What do they do if you don’t...show them manners?”

Stan gave a little shiver.  “They follow you until you apologize.”

Ford laughed.  “What, like the march of the Ents?”

“Yup.”  Probably in the top three of his least favorite experiences on this island.

For about a minute they walked in blessed silence (comparatively, anyway; Ford still seemed to have no idea how loud his feet were, but then again, how could he know?), before Ford cleared his throat and murmured, “Now I really want to see that.”

Stan shivered.  “No, you don’t.”

He finally stopped when he noticed how far behind Ford was lagging, and remembered that his brother needed more rest than he did.  Stan found a spot that seemed decently defensible if push came to shove, encircled by a tree with a hollowed-out center, and led the way over to it.  He sat down, and pulled his canteen out from under his shirt, then beckoned for Ford to join him.

Ford came staggering over, and practically fell down more than sat, bringing back faint memories of gym (aka the one class where Stan always got better grades than Ford).  He had to fight back a smile as he handed him the canteen, and then resumed keeping an eye on the surrounding greenery.  They’d been more lucky than he’d expected so far, but that was all the more reason to be careful now.

“...How did you learn that, about the trees?” Ford abruptly asked after taking a moment to rest.  “Have you gone this far into the jungle before?”

Stan grimaced.  “Not this deep.  It was in the early days.”  Back when he’d still been looking for a way to escape.

“What happened?”

“I messed up, and the trees chased me till I apologized.”

Ford frowned at him, looking annoyed or frustrated or something.  “That’s all you have to say about it?  You were literally chased by trees !  You’re not going to even try to expand, or make a story out of it?”

“I’m trying not ta draw too much attention to us and get us killed!” Stan snapped.

Ford’s look of irritation grew, but he just lifted the canteen and took another drink.

Even though he was finally getting the silence that he wanted, Stan’s mood did not improve.  For some reason, Ford’s indignation about him not turning his experience with the trees into a dumb story like he would’ve when he was a kid had touched a nerve he didn’t realize he still had.  He could have made it into a story if he wanted to, of course he could’ve, he just didn’t see any point in it anymore.

But somehow, expressing that fact almost seemed to make Ford...disappointed in him.  And he hated how guilty he still felt, after everything , about making Ford disappointed in him, so he just felt angrier in response.

So he turned his attention to his spear, and started sharpening it again.  Quietly.

Stan thought for sure that conversation was over for the evening, until Ford cleared his throat.

He sighed, and his shoulders drooped.  “ What , Ford?”

“You said that different things happened to different people who came to the island that would make their name get called so they could leave.  What kinds of things?”

Stan shrugged.  “Dunno.”

Ford made a frustrated noise.  “You must have some idea!  Didn’t you pay attention, so maybe it could be used to help you leave one day yourself?”

Stan growled back.  “I told you, there’s no point.  I got nothing ta go back to.”

Ford leaped to his feet, and uttered a somewhat opprobrious reference to equine fecal matter.  “What happened to your dreams about traveling the world one day?  What happened to looking for buried treasure, and seeing the seven wonders and looking for unexplored territories to conquer?  What happened to your comics?  You drew so many wild, creative comics filled with wonderful stories and details-what happened to all-!”

He stopped short when Stan barked out a laugh.

It was a laugh that even scared himself; it was shrill, and trembly, and broken, and was going on for far too long.

Finally Stan cut himself off enough to croak, “That’s real funny, comin’ from you, Stanford.  ‘What happened to me.’  Gosh, I wonder what happened ta make me like this?”

Ford started to open his mouth, but Stan cut him off.

“Do you wanna know what I remember from the last time I saw you?  It was the look in your eyes, right before ya shut the curtains in our-oh, sorry, your -room.  It was a look that said, ‘Good riddance.’”  Stan knew he should stop talking, or at least lower his voice, but it was like Ford had pulled a plug on all the pent-up words and there was no stopping them now.  “So I dunno what you’re squawking about, about me bein’ stuck on this island for all time, cuz I’m just givin’ you exactly what you wanted.”

Ford let out a splutter of rage.  “You think I wanted Pa to kick you out?!”

“Why not?  It meant you wouldn’t have your dumb, sweaty, screwup twin holdin’ ya back anymore, right?  Meant you could get alllll the genius scholarships ya wanted, cuz you wouldn’t have me around ta mess things up for you!”  Stan pulled off his mask and shot Ford a manic grin.  “You wanna know what kinda folks usually wash up on this island?  Gutter-trash lowlifes with no place in the world, and no one who cares what happens to them!  I dunno why you’re here, but that’s definitely why I’m here!  So tell me, Sixer , why would I ever bother tryna leave, when all I’d haveta look forward to is having nothing, and being nothing-?!”

This time he hadn’t anticipated the blow to the jaw that Ford swung at him, and didn’t quite dodge fast enough to avoid injury altogether.

For a moment Ford just stood over him, seething quietly.  Then he uttered a suggestion even more opprobrious than the first one, and began stomping off into the trees.

“Just go back to hiding in your cave-I’ll find the source of the island’s power myself!” he snarled over his shoulder.

Stan was briefly stunned-but then he responded to his brother’s ire with his own.  “Maybe I will!”  He got to his feet and stomped in the opposite direction.  Then he glanced behind him and called as a final shot, “You’re goin’ too far to the left, you idiot!”

“I-no I’m not!”  Ford immediately tried to overcorrect his steps, ran into a tree, and tried to regain his bearings.

Stan didn’t turn around again.

Chapter Text

For a few minutes Stan just made his way through the trees on autopilot, because the main part of his brain was too busy seething with blind rage to focus on such matters.

He realized too late that he’d forgotten to grab his mask before he went storming off, and that meant his face (at least, the part not covered by hair) was visible.

...Well, so what?  In his current mood he was ready to take on anything that came at him, especially if it meant he could get as far as possible from-

If you abandon Ford right now, you’re gonna regret it.

It wasn’t a voice that Stan remembered hearing before.

It wasn’t Carla, or his mom, or even Filbrick, who were the ones that usually lectured him about stuff like this.  It was different...but at the same time kind of familiar.

Stan stopped short, and looked around uncertainly for a shape he could attach the voice to.

“...Who are you?”

I’m your mental health, Stan.  We haven’t spoken in a while.

Stan rolled his eyes.  “Might’ve known you’d turn out to be a smart@$$.”

Yeah, well, ya can’t blame me for that, sunshine.

Stan growled and took another step forward.

I mean it.  You can’t just leave him like this.

“Wanna bet?”

You said it yourself: he won’t last long on his own.  You really wanna have his death on your conscience?

“Why not?  He was happy enough ta-”

He’s not the one who threw you out.  Pa was.

“Well, he sure as heck didn’t put up any protest about it!”  Another stubborn step forward.

That might’ve been cuz he was a little upset about you messing up his project.

“I didn’t mean to!  I never would’ve done that to him!”

But you did.

“No!  Stoppit!”  Stan clamped his hands over his ears, but it wasn’t enough to muffle the relentless words.

You can try ta hide from it all ya want, but you messed things up with him first.  And you’re payin’ for it now.  I’m not sayin’ you deserve being stuck here...just that it makes sense why Ford never called for you.

Stan curled up in a ball and howled.

He was sure that he’d as good as rang the dinner bell...but miraculously enough, nothing came for him.  He heard a few birds get scared away up in the high branches, but maybe the sound of his hysterics was scarier than some of the predators lurking out here were expecting.  Either way, he was too miserable to care.

For a full minute he just sat there, until his mental health spoke again.

Why do you think Ford’s here?

“How should I know?” Stan muttered.

Well, think about it.  What kind of people normally get stuck on this island?

“Like I said.  Gutter trash who don’t belong in the real world.”

Really?  Does that mean you think Kit was gutter trash?

“Wha-no!  No, he was just-”

How about Adele?  Or Sun?  Or Hunter-no, never mind, Hunter was definitely gutter trash.

“I-fine, maybe they’re not all like that, but it’s always people who feel like they don’t really belong out there!”

Hmm, people who feel like they don’t belong .  Interesting…

“I just wonder if there’s anywhere in the world where weirdos like me fit in.”

“Hey, that’s not fair!  He got better as he got older, and you heard what the principal said!  That he had a bright future ahead of him and he was goin’ places and crap!”

Well, maybe somethin’ went wrong.  And you’ll never find out either way if you let him get eaten the way Thayne was.

Stan let out a growl of annoyance and frustration at himself (looked like he was a loyal dog after all)...but then got to his feet, and began tramping back down the trail from whence he’d come.

Ford tried (with minimal success) to fight his way through the underbrush, fuming as he did so.

I’m just givin’ you exactly what you wanted.

Gutter-trash lowlifes with no place in the world, and no one who cares what happens to them!

It meant you wouldn’t have your dumb, sweaty, screwup twin holdin’ ya back anymore, right?

What exactly was he supposed to do that night?!  Try to stop Pa, when he was busy trying to fight all the hot, angry feelings in his own chest (assuming, of course, that Pa would even listen to anything he said)?!  It wasn’t like he could’ve predicted that instead of taking the car and driving away, Stan was going to go down to the beach and-and-

Ford staggered to a halt, and his mouth trembled for a moment, before he forced himself to regain control and continue walking, even though he had no idea which way he was going now without his guide to lead him.

Stan was right about one thing, though; Ford definitely didn’t fit the pattern of people who wound up here.  I mean, sure, he’d lost contact with his mother and Shermie and the few friends he’d made in college, after failing to get the funding he needed for proper anomaly research because the grant board thought his claims were “a ridiculous pursuit of fairy tales,” and to make ends meet he’d been forced to get a demeaning job on a decrepit ship with a crew who probably hadn’t even noticed that he was missing, but that was no reason to think nobody cared what happened to him!

Besides, studying plankton was perfectly legitimate work, it was nothing to be ashamed of, and it was completely giving him a place in the world!  Sure, it wasn’t where he’d wanted to end up, but since when was there anyone who always got what they wanted, right?

Stanford Pines was doing just fine out in the real world before he wound up on this horrible fascinating frustrating island-

Unfortunately the ever-growing darkness meant that he was having a harder time seeing where he was putting his feet, and one of them got snagged on a particularly large root, pitching him forward.

Stan told himself that he wasn’t going to reveal his presence this time.

He was just going to keep an eye on the knucklehead, make sure he didn’t get killed, and find a subtle way to guide him towards the center of the island so he could see if that was the source of the curse thingy, regardless of his own doubts on the matter.  His mental health (who for the time being he’d decided to call Steve, because he acted like a Steve) didn’t like it, but just muttered something about Stan being more sane when he was around other people and let it go for the time being.

He nearly broke his promise to himself when he heard Ford let out a startled yell, and then a thudding sound.

Frantically he pushed forward, ready to do battle on whatever had attacked him-and relaxed when he saw Ford sitting up unharmed, grumbling to himself as he pulled off his glasses and took a look at them.  Even though he was about ten feet away, Stan could see that the left lens had a crack in it.

Please tell me ya brought your spares, knucklehead.

Ford just sighed and put them back on, before slowly getting to his feet.  “Figures,” he muttered aloud.  “This day couldn’t possibly get any better.”

I hear that , Stan grumbled to himself.

For a moment Ford looked around indecisively, before deciding on a random direction and continuing his trek.  Stan resolutely followed, moving like the pathetic shadow he was.

And Ford continued to mutter as he walked.

“I’ll show them all , not just my pigheaded brother but everyone on that stupid grant board-when we get off this island I’m going to write a paper proving that anomalies like this are a legitimate field of study and shove it down their throats!  Then we’ll see who the joke is!”

To anyone who didn’t know him well enough to recognize the difference, he probably would’ve sounded just angry and defiant; Stan, however, was able to pick up a hint of desperation in his tone.

...Joke?  Who was calling Ford a joke?  Who’ve I gotta give a left hook to?

Stan’s musing was interrupted by the sight of a scorpi-snake that had taken notice of Ford, and was making its way towards him with clear murderous intent; a quick spear thrust through the head took care of it, with the added bonus of meaning he didn’t have to hunt for dinner (as long as you didn’t eat the stinger, the tail was pretty good when eaten raw-nice and crunchy, mm-mmm).

He quickly dismembered it, grabbed up the pieces that were safe for munching, and resumed his pursuit.

It wasn’t too difficult to keep up; Ford was clearly getting tired again, and by now it was dark, with only the faintest hints of pink and green light shining through the trees to indicate that the aurora had started.  Hopefully it wasn’t too interesting of a story tonight; Stan hated missing out on them.

At last, with a small, defeated sigh, Ford staggered to a halt next to one of the trees.  He leaned against the trunk for a moment, and then pulled himself up into the lower branches.  After a few minutes of maneuvering around, he found a position that seemed at least somewhat comfortable and not one he’d fall out of easily, and was out like a light.

Stan climbed up into a nearby one, and resumed keeping watch over him.  His eyes were beginning to sting from lack of sleep, but he shrugged it off.  It didn’t matter.

Chapter Text

In the morning, Ford awoke when a piece of fruit bounced off his head (had he been more lucid, he might have realized that it wasn’t dropped so much as thrown at him).

His neck and back informed him petulantly that his chosen sleeping position had not been a comfortable one as he half-flopped to the ground, before he picked up the (now slightly bruised) fruit, and took a bite out of it before heading into the bushes to take care of business.

Once that was done, Ford resumed walking.

He didn’t have any clear idea of where he was going, but he found a few more fruits lying westward, so he just went that way.

As the day passed, there seemed to be a larger amount of fruit conveniently in his path than one would expect; had Ford been paying attention, he might have noticed that it didn’t always correspond to the trees that he found it under.  However, he was too busy being lost in his own thoughts.

He tried to work up his enthusiasm from earlier about what he might find at the center of the island.  It could be wizards, or some kind of mad scientist’s lab, or any number of unusual possibilities…

It wasn’t the same, however, when he was searching for it on his own.  Not now that he knew Stan was here, and-and after he’d fought with him again and...pushed him away.

Ford’s shoulders drooped, and he passed a hesitant glance over his shoulder...but then sighed.

Even if Stan would be willing to talk to him right now, he had no idea where the shore was, let alone the cave.  He’d just have to find the center, and then hope he could use whatever was there to find his brother again and get both of them off this island.

It was a very thin-sounding hope, yes, but right now it was all he had.

Ford walked for what was probably hours, distracting himself by observing (and trying to name) whatever creatures he managed to see nearby.

Fortunately, there was no more sign of the leopard-spider creature, but he did see more rabbit-monkeys hopping through the bushes, then unexpectedly leaping up to swing their way into the overhanging branches; something that looked like a combination of a bear and a tyrannosaurus broke apart a giant tree with its bare claws to get the honey out of it; a large pink whalemingo flew overhead, making a sound a little like trying to play a kazoo through a rubber hose.

Ford wished, for the fifteenth time, that he’d had his journal in his pocket; there would have been so much to write about, so much to draw!  Chasing fairy tales my foot-this was all real , and it was magnificent !  Just as incredible as he’d heard Gravity Falls was, and while the separation from civilization was a bit of a bother, he was sure there were ways to remedy that, if he could only figure them out.  Maybe he could be like the Professor from Gilligan’s Island , and design a running water and electrical system from bamboo and coconuts, heh heh.

Eventually Ford stumbled into a clearing with a large boulder in the middle, and sat down on it to rest.  He lifted the canteen (which Stan had never taken back from him), and gulped from it until his thirst was quenched, before sitting back tiredly.

There were a few clouds overhead, lazily drifting through the sky; idly Ford began looking for pictures in them.  He saw a surprisingly realistic depiction of an atom, and an airplane (no, not a real one), and a hippopotamus...heh, Ford wondered if there were any mutated hippo creatures here on this island...maybe one that was mixed with a gorilla, creating the world’s most terrifying herbivore...wouldn’t that be a sight…

Ford woke up to the sound of rustling.

Something was moving in the trees just off to one side of him, and it jolted him awake instantly.  He sat up, and just in case began to scramble further up the side of the boulder, heart racing in his chest; he didn’t know what that was, but the fact that it was hiding, watching him, couldn’t be good-

The creature lunged to the foot of the boulder, just as Ford finished pulling his legs up, and halted with a disappointed huff, before glaring up at him.

Had he been aware of Stan’s name for it, Ford would have had to correct him that it was technically a mandrill hyena.

It’s easy to confuse mandrills and baboons, but the red and blue coloration of its muzzle, in addition to the height and volume of its mane and ruff, was a dead giveaway.  In addition it possessed a short, spotted coat, almost human-like hands with long, pointed claws, and large white teeth that Ford could see clearly in its half-open mouth.  It uttered a sound that sounded like a combination of a mandrill’s hoot, and the jittery “laugh” of a hyena, as it stood up on its hind legs and put its hands on the boulder.  It stared up at Ford for a moment with eyes that were dark, and intelligent, and very, very, hungry-and then a thin ribbon of drool dripped from one of its fangs, and it began pulling itself up after him.

Ford immediately leaped off the other side of the boulder, and began to run.

He heard the beast screech in disappointment, and then the padding of its pursuit.

Even back in Glass Shard Beach when he and Stan were trying to evade Crampelter and the gang, or even that incident with the Jersey Devil, he had never known what it was like to be chased by something that viewed you as prey before.  All Ford could do was run, while looking around frantically for something he could use to escape or defend himself-maybe try climbing one of the trees?  No, mandrills were good at climbing, that was no good.  And hyenas, despite how they were often depicted in film, were very persistent predators in their own right, on par with lions, and they were definitely faster and more enduring than humans were-

Oh [CENSORED] [CENSORED] [CENSORED] the trees were becoming thicker and harder to push through by the second, Ford began clawing at them frantically, uncaring if he broke the branches or not in his desperation to get further in-

He heard the beast bark again, and turned around, as much as he didn’t want to watch this thing tear him to shreds he also didn’t want to be a coward-

A dark blur leaped into his path and lashed out, and the creature fell to the ground mid-leap with a pained screech, clutching at a long red gash on its arm.

“S-S-Stan?” Ford asked hoarsely, once the shock broke and he realized who the figure was.

“I’ll hold it off while you get outta here,” Stan said in a disturbingly calm voice, holding his spear at an angle poised to attack.  “Think this one got kicked outta the pack or somethin’, but that doesn’t mean he’s any less dangerous.  Go!”

“What about you?!”

Stan didn’t even turn around.  “What about me?!”

And then the beast charged at them with a roar, and Stan met it with one of his own, and with the tip of his spear.

Despite the command to run, Ford was rooted to the spot as he watched in horrified fascination.

He’d seen Stan fight before, back when they were kids-especially after the summer when they took boxing lessons, and he developed more of a taste for it than either of them had expected.

This was nothing like boxing.

This was two creatures fighting for their lives-and one of them was clearly hoping to get a free meal out of this too if he got the chance.

Every time the beast tried to move past Stan, he would jab and swipe with the spear, getting in several good hits on the back and chest; the beast, in turn, managed to tear into him a few times with its claws, so before long they were both wet and sticky with their own blood.  Ford noticed that Stan was taking great pains to keep the creature at a distance and avoid his teeth; presumably its jaws were particularly strong, Ford had read that hyenas could eat bones, so it was definitely a good thing if Stan managed to avoid that-

The mandrill hyena tried to dodge around him to the left, and Stan quickly sliced through its arm with the tip of the spear; it screamed in rage and pain-and then wrapped its jaws around the middle of the spear and bit down.  There was a loud crack , and it snapped in half.

Stan barely had time to gasp before the mandrill hyena had jumped on him, pinning him to the ground; it was only by bringing his hands up and grabbing its throat that he was able to keep the snapping jaws from plunging into his own throat.

Ford looked around frantically for something he could do, some way of stopping this-even Stan couldn’t hold out forever, Ford could see his arms trembling as he tried to push his attacker back.

He looked down-and saw a rather large rock down by his feet.  It wasn’t much of a weapon, but he quickly hoisted it up, trying to gauge if it was heavy enough-it was plenty heavy, so it would have to be.

The mandrill hyena had pushed itself farther down, leaning hungrily towards Stan’s unprotected face-and then one of his hands released its throat, before a finger reached up and plunged itself into its eye.

The creature screeched in pain, giving Stan the opportunity to bring a leg up and kick it off-and before he could get up again Ford charged, and brought the rock down hard.

As it turned out, either it was heavier than he realized, or the mandrill hyena’s skull was far more fragile than it looked.

Let’s...just say it caused a bit of a mess.

Chapter Text

After a moment the rock fell from Ford’s suddenly nerveless hands, which began quivering as what he’d just done slowly sank in.

There was so much red-red on his shirt, red on his pant legs, red splattered all over his hands. Red all over the lifeless form laying at his feet, with part of its head-

Ford tried and failed not to let everything he’d eaten today come back up.

When he was finally able to straighten up he wiped his mouth on his sleeve, forcing himself not to look at the corpse again, and instead turned to look at Stan.

His brother was still lying on his back…with an arm clamped around his ribs.  That whole area was covered in the same kind of red.

The mildest way you could describe this was that things were very, very bad.

Stan looked up at him and asked, “...You okay?”

“Am I -I’m fine!”  Or at least he wasn’t physically damaged that he knew of, which was close enough right now.  Ford collapsed to his knees at Stan’s side and gently lifted his arm-and nearly emptied his stomach again at the gaping wounds he could see through the shredded remains of his shirt.  “Stan-this is bad, you’re really hurt.  Do you have medical supplies back at your-no, that-that’s too far away, this needs to be dealt with now.  Is there anything you know of around here that can help you?!  Anything at all?!”

“Calm down…‘s just pain…”  Stan’s words came out in a slurred rush, his eyes going in and out of focus as he looked up at Ford.

“You’re going into shock and I’m worried about blood loss.  Stan, please!”  Ford frantically ripped his sleeve, began trying to staunch the deepest injury only for the cloth to become soaked through in moments.  He looked around in a panic for something- anything -and then something tapped him on the shoulder.

Ford jumped and spun around, ready to fight to the death to protect whatever life Stan had left, only to come face to bark with a tree that he was sure hadn’t been in that spot before.

It rustled in a surprised kind of way, and then reached one of its branches forward again.

He realized, after a moment, that it appeared to be offering some of its large leaves to him, and that the leaves themselves...were secreting a pale green substance of some kind that smelled faintly of aloe.

Ford hesitated, and then reached out and plucked one of the leaves.  The branch appeared to point to Stan, then back to the leaf, then back to Stan again.

...Well, what other options do I have?

“Thank you,” he said aloud, and then, ignoring everything he knew about biology and wildlife and logic, he applied the leaf sticky-side down to one of Stan’s wounds.

Stan let out a sharp keen of pain, but then relaxed, as some of the lines eased out of his face.  Ford wondered if that meant the substance was some kind of painkiller.  Encouraged, he picked more leaves, and wrapped them as best he could around his brother’s other injuries.  Then he opened the canteen, and after lifting Stan’s head and shoulders, held it to his lips.

“Drink, Stanley.  You need to rehydrate.”

Stan blinked up at him in a confused frown, but his mouth opened an inch; Ford didn’t waste the opportunity to pour in some water.  To his relief, Stan managed to gulp it down with minimal spillage.

When Stan finished drinking, he looked up through eyes that were still glazed, and raised a trembling hand to cup Ford’s cheek.

“You-you’re not a joke, Sixer,” he whispered hoarsely.  “Don’t...say that about yourself.”  Then his touch went slack, and his eyelids fluttered shut.

For a panicked moment Ford feared the worst-but his fingers, when applied to Stan’s neck, managed to pick up a pulse-somewhat weaker than he would have liked, but steady enough.  He let out a sigh of relief, and then looked around.

He knew enough to know that it wasn’t safe for them to stay out here; the smell of blood would probably attract more predators wanting the opportunity to get a free meal.  Besides, he didn’t want to spend anymore time in the presence of the...other corpse.

The tree tapped him again, and then pointed its branch in a westward direction.

Ford didn’t know what he would find, but he thanked the tree again, before slinging Stan’s arm over his shoulder and half-walking, half-carrying him away.

After a few minutes he found what the tree must have been referring to: a narrow, winding stream that was probably a branch off the one by Stan’s hunting trail.  Next to it, to his surprise, was another cave, just on the bank-a big one, actually made from rock.  Just like with Stan’s, the entrance was covered over with vines, but Ford could faintly make out its dimensions, and his stomach gave a little excited flutter as he carried Stan towards it.

But as they reached the stream, he decided that they both needed to be cleaned up properly first.

He sat down on the bank, laying Stan out next to him, and dipped his hands into the water.  It was the kind of cold that he could tell would make his teeth ache to drink it, but it felt remarkably good to use for rinsing his hands and arms and anywhere that had bloodstains.

As soon as he was clean to his satisfaction, he ripped off his other sleeve and soaked it, then turned to Stan and, after removing his shirt, began gently sponging the blood and filth from his body; his twin shivered a little, but didn’t wake.

When Ford lifted one of the leaves, he found that the wound had clotted neatly, presumably thanks to the green substance.

“Remarkable,” he murmured, adjusting his glasses to get a better look.  While he wasn’t a medical doctor by any stretch of imagination, he thought that the injury seemed clean.  He certainly hoped so, since they had no access to either antibiotics or a hospital, and if he didn’t manage to keep the wounds clean Stan could-

No, not thinking about that.  Finish cleaning him up.

Ford removed the leaf the rest of the way, and began doing his best to wash the wound without opening it again; as he did, he realized that another tree was at his side, offering more of the same leaves.

He made sure to thank it as he took fresh ones to give to Stan.

When he finally finished the work, Ford lifted Stan up again (feeling an odd mixture of concerned and surprised by how much thinner he was than Ford remembered-while he clearly had become an expert at hunter-gathering, it was probable that he was extremely malnourished from having nothing to eat besides pork and fruit), and crossed the stream (which was only knee-deep at its highest) to the cave, and slipped through the vines to the inside.

Ford didn’t know what he’d been expecting, but it wasn’t what he found.

There was a makeshift bed lying against one wall-a big one, made of skins like the one back in Stan’s cave, except that it had a large stained mattress resting underneath them.  The wall across from it had a crude shelf carved into it, and actually contained a few old, weather-stained books, along with some coconut shells and what looked like a set of carved arrowheads.  And the wall next to it...was covered from top to bottom with tally marks.

The cave had clearly not been inhabited in years, if the layer of dust covering everything was any indication.

This must be the old hideout of someone else who was on the island!

Ford felt a fresh tingle of excitement run down his spine-maybe he could discover some fresh information about the island here!

But first, he needed to finish taking care of Stan.

He made his way over to the bed, and pulled off the top skin; the one underneath was comparatively clean, so he laid Stan down on it until he looked comfortable.  Then, without really thinking about it, he sat down on the bed next to him with a small sigh.

“...I never wanted any of this to happen to you, Stanley,” he said softly, looking down at the peaceful expression on his face.  “And I never forgot you, either.  Honestly, there hasn’t been a day that’s gone by that I haven’t wondered...what happened to you, or-” he swallowed, voice cracking at the edges- “if you were even alive.”

There was no reaction from Stan, but in a weird way that just made saying all this easier.

“So your theory about why people are trapped here...there’s got to be more to it than that.  I’m not saying it doesn’t have merit, since there’s...at least some correlation, but...there has to be more.  And we’re going to find out what it is.”

Chapter Text

Little pig, come out wherever you are

I’m so hungry

The barking of baboons mixed with the cackling of hyenas and the sound of screaming

Stan woke with another gasp of fear-followed shortly thereafter by an even louder gasp of pain.

Sharp, burning agony was lancing across his arms and chest and stomach, and there was a cave roof overhead, but it wasn’t his, it was one he’d never seen before and most changes here were Bad-

“Easy, easy!”  A hand caught his shoulder, gently pushing him back down as he started thrashing.  “It’s okay, you’re safe.”

A familiar face slid into his line of vision, staring down at him with worried eyes.  “Careful, you don’t want to exacerbate your injuries.”

Injur-oh.

So that’s why everything hurts.

Stan lifted one of his arms to check it out-and noticed two things.  First, it had been wrapped in leaves.  Second, the dye had been washed off, leaving his skin clearly visible.  That meant if anything came after him now-

“Easy!” Ford repeated; the hand on his shoulder rubbed a little circle into it with his thumb.  “You’re okay.  We’re well hidden, you’re safe.”

Stan didn’t-couldn’t-believe that; he was never safe.  But the wall of vines dangling in the doorway did soothe him enough to make him stop thrashing.

After a moment he looked around, examining this strange new cave.

“...Where are we?”

“I don’t know, exactly,” Ford admitted.  “One of the trees...pointed me here.  Literally.  I presume it intended this as a place for you to get some rest and heal.”  He looked down at Stan’s arm.  “Speaking of which, I should probably get you some fresh leaves.  Can I trust you to stay put and not undo all my hard work while I’m gone?”

Stan narrowed his eyes at him, but Ford was curiously unmoved.

Finally, with a small grumble, Stan reached into his pocket and produced one of his bone knives, holding it out to him.

“Remember, the pointy end goes into whatever’s attacking you.”

“Duly noted.”  Ford accepted the knife.

“And if you’re not back in about thirty minutes I’m comin’ after you.”

“I’ll be fine, Stanley.”  Upon which he immediately hit his head on a low-hanging part of the ceiling, and had to pause for a moment and rub the sore spot before finally heading to the exit.

Somehow Stan was not reassured.

Once again the trees were remarkably generous in offering their leaves to Ford; in addition several of them gave him fruit, to the point where he needed to turn his shirt into a makeshift basket to carry it all, and one of them even pointed out some plants and mushrooms that he recognized as being edible.  He made sure to thank them for their help, and after washing them in the stream he returned to the cave, shirt practically bursting with food.

To his not very great surprise, he found Stan struggling to get up.

“It hasn’t been thirty minutes yet,” Ford said, shoving him down again.

Stan grumbled.  “Time’s hard ta keep track of here.”

“Or you’re just impatient.”  Ford handed him a cross between a mango and a peach, and began changing the leaves out for fresh ones.  The wounds appeared to be doing well under their administrations, to his relief; none of them appeared to be infected, and they were mostly closed up or on their way to it.

When he finished, Stan said, “You gotta eat too.”  He indicated the pile of food with a familiar scolding glare until Ford picked up a mushroom and began nibbling it.  Then he resumed eating his own food.

“...How are you feeling?” Ford finally asked.

Stan shrugged.  “I’ve had worse.”

Ford stared at him in slight horror.  “You’ve had worse.  Than this .”  He indicated Stan’s upper body and the amount of leaf bandages that coated it.

Stan looked down at his arm and gave a little shrug.  “Yeah.  Guy who was here before you tried ta eat me.”

Apparently he hadn’t meant to say that aloud: his mouth immediately shut, and his eyes grew wide with panic.

Ford, for his part, felt an icy chill run down his spine despite the ever-present heat.  “ What ?!”

“Uh-nothing, I didn’t-you didn’t hear anything-”

The excuses and stammering stopped when Ford put a trembling hand on his shoulder, staring down at him with horrified eyes.

“Stanley…”

“It-it’s kinda a long story.”  Stan looked away again, staring at the cave exit.  And now that he was really paying attention, Ford could see that his hands had started trembling, and his forehead was beaded with sweat, and his breath was coming quick and shaky.

So even though he wanted to know-because of his insatiable curiosity, because he wanted to know if they were going to have to fight off the cannibal if he was still on the island somewhere, because it didn’t seem like Stan had really taken the time to process what happened-he just squeezed Stan’s shoulder and said softly, “...It’s okay.  You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.”

Stan looked surprised, and a little bit confused...but then his jaw clenched stubbornly, and he cleared his throat and began to speak.

“I dunno how long ago it was-like I said, time doesn’t mean much here besides what part of the day it is, and I lost track of the days years ago.  But it was probably more than a few months.  Anyway, this guy Thayne shows up on the island, I find him, and for a while things are okay.  Just like with other people, I showed him the ropes, taught him how ta survive out here-and turns out he was a ‘Nam vet, so he knew at least a little about surviving in the jungle, so I didn’t haveta teach him too much in that area.  And he had a deck of cards, so we could play poker or whatever when we got bored, and for a while things were okay.

“But eventually...he started actin’ up.

“He couldn’t take the isolation.  I mean, you probably noticed I’m a little crazy at this point, but-” Stan grimaced- “...he was a lot worse.  He would...keep tryna swim away, even if we couldn’t see any kinda shore nearby, and he’d haveta be incapacitated with pain before he’d stop.  He started goin’ through phases where he alternated between laughing and crying and just bein’ mad at everything, and he’d go out and pick fights with animals just ta kill ‘em.  Sometimes he’d eat ‘em, sometimes he just left ‘em in the jungle to rot.  I tried gettin’ him ta stop, but I couldn’t help him.  I didn’t know how.  And he just got angrier and angrier.

“And then one day he just…” Stan glanced down at the scar on his arm, the one shaped like bite marks, “...got hungry.”

Flashback flashback flashback flashback

Stan crashed through the jungle, dazed with pain and clutching at his bleeding arm.  His stomach hurt too, from where Thayne had tried to slice open his liver in his sleep, but it wasn’t nearly as bad as his arm.  He ran on, deeper than he’d ever dared go before, and scrambled into one of the trees.

A few minutes later he heard Thayne, stumbling a little from the blow to the head Stan had managed to give him but still very swift on his feet, navigating the jungle with ease.  And what was worse, he had a knife.  A big one.

“Oh, little pig…” Thayne singsonged as he came closer, “come out, little pig...I’m so hungry, and you have so much meat to spare.  Come out, come out wherever you are…”

Stan tried to climb higher, get farther into the safety of the tree-and the tree was surprisingly helpful, wrapping some of its branches around him until he was concealed by leaves-but he still wasn’t high enough for his satisfaction when Thayne entered the clearing.

He looked around, swaying his head from one side to the other in a snakey kind of way, and then his eyes lit up as he looked at the trunk of the tree.

Stan followed his gaze, and bit back a curse.  There were bloody handprints on the trunk.

“There you are!”  Thayne walked up until he was right under the tree, peering up into the branches.  “Pigs aren’t supposed to climb trees.  It’s not safe for them.”  He laughed mirthlessly, and stuck the knife in his belt before reaching out to start climbing.

In desperation Stan did the only thing he could think of: he slid out of hiding and half-fell, half-jumped on him.

He managed to knock the wind out of both of them as they hit the ground, and recovered enough to get up first, tried to start running again-but a strong hand grabbed his ankle, and he went sprawling in the dirt.

In a panic Stan rolled to avoid Thayne’s attack, and slammed his foot into his nose with a crack .  But the knife was out again, and Thayne came slashing and slicing and it was all Stan could do to dodge the attacks.

The drooling, grinning, bloodstained face of his attacker looked nothing like his friend.

The fight lasted for what seemed like hours, but was probably only minutes.  Stan had his boxing skills, and was definitely in decent physical condition from having to spend almost every day hunting to survive, but Thayne had army training on his side, along with single-minded determination.

So before long he managed to pin Stan up against another tree, with the knife to his throat.

“Just one bite,” he said in a tone like he was trying to be soothing.  “That’s all I want, little pig, is one…” his eyes darted to Stan’s arm again, and he licked his already bloodstained lips, “tasty...bite.”

He lunged, baring his teeth-

And the tree smacked him away.

He fell flat on his back, dazed, and Stan realized that he’d dropped the knife.

Quickly he grabbed it up, and in a swift motion sliced open Thayne’s leg; if he tried to come after him again, it wouldn’t be as easy.

And then, through the trees, he heard the sounds of hooting and barking approaching.

The baboon hyenas had caught the scent of blood, and they were excited.

“Mandrill hyenas.”

Stan blinked, and looked up at Ford.

His expression was...horrified, and his mouth appeared to be moving on autopilot.

“It’s an easy mistake to make, but the second half of their genetic makeup is mandrills, not baboons.”

(What did I tell you?)

“You can tell by the coloration of the snout, and-”

Despite himself, Stan couldn’t help snorting in annoyed amusement.  “I’ve been stuck with them for eight years, I’ll call ‘em whatever I want.”

“Right.  Sorry.”

Stan had seen those things sometimes-they generally stayed deep in the jungle, but on a few occasions where prey hadn’t been as plentiful inland the pack (or troop, he wasn’t sure which one to call them) came hunting.  And he’d seen what happened to the creatures they hunted.

In a panic Stan had scrambled into the tree behind him; he knew that baboon hyenas could climb freakily well, but it was the first escape route he’d seen available.  And once again, he found himself being camouflaged by the leaves.

Down on the ground, Thayne barely had time to sit up before the pack came through the trees.

Realizing that he was in genuine danger had seemed to snap him out of the madness somewhat; he looked at the hungry creatures nearby, and tried to get up-but his injured leg slowed him down, made him stumble.

He barely had time to scream before they attacked, and the screaming lasted for ten horrible seconds before stopping.

By the time they were finished, there was nothing left but bits of hair and cloth; there was barely even any blood.

End of flashback end of flashback end of flashback end of flashback

Stan blinked a few times, and cleared his throat, before looking at Ford with a wobbly smile.

“I-I thought about makin’ a statue for him, like the others.  But...I was sc-I didn’t wanna know what he’d say.”

Chapter Text

“...My g_d.”

It wasn’t the most eloquent phrase ever spoken, but it was all Ford could think to say.

Stan rubbed his eyes on his arm in a quick fast motion that Ford recognized as his “getting something out of his eye” technique, and flashed him a brittle smile.  “Yeah.  Not the funnest experience of my life.”

“Is that when you started…?”  Ford gestured to the remains of the dye on one of Stan’s arms.

He nodded.  “I’d already experimented with camouflage a little bit, but after that...it became kinda a full-time thing.”

After a moment of silence Ford said, “That gives credence to a theory I’ve been considering.”

One of Stan’s bushy eyebrows rose.  “Somehow I’m not surprised.”

The corner of Ford’s mouth quirked upward for a moment.  “Yes, I know.  But just listen, Stanley.”

Stan shrugged.  “Not like I can do anything else right now.”

“...I think that the trees’ role in the ecosystem is to keep inhabitants alive.”

“...Say what?”

“Think about it.  They provided you with protection when you needed it most, and when you were hurt from the fight they offered medicine and shelter.  And they’ve helped me a great deal with finding food.”

Stan looked down at the scars that littered his body.

“They’re doing a great job,” he deadpanned.

“I didn’t say they kept you from getting hurt, just that they kept you from getting killed .  Like how Shermie wouldn’t keep you out of fights, just out of the big ones you couldn’t handle by yourself.”  He faltered, as another fact that was less comfortable dawned on him.  “...It also means that the reason why they’ve been so helpful to me is...that they know I can’t do it on my own.”

“...Come on, Ford, you’ve only been here a couple days, you haven’t adjusted yet.”

“How much help did they offer you when you first arrived?” Ford asked.

Stan flinched, and rubbed the back of his neck, thus proving his point.

“They know that my survival skills aren’t as...adept as yours.  At least not in areas like this.  Because in the time I’ve been here I’ve gotten caught in a trap, broken my glasses, and nearly been eaten by a mandrill-by one of the strange mutant creatures that roams these parts.”

“You did manage ta kill it on your own, though,” Stan interrupted.

Ford wasn’t comforted by the lovely reminder of earlier.

Stan seemed to pick up on this, and looked away, rubbing the back of his neck.

“What’s wrong?” Ford asked, a little tersely.

“We’re stuck on a judgmental magic island and needa figure out how ta get you off it-thought that was obvious by now.”

Ford’s jaw clenched a little.  “We’re figuring out how to get you off too.”

“Ford…”

Unlike earlier, his voice was neither angry nor indifferent.  It was something far, far worse: hopeless.

For a moment they both just sat there-Stan staring at his bandages far too intently to be paying any actual attention to them, and Ford staring at Stan in frozen silence.

Then, out of the blue, Ford pounded his fist against the mattress.

It didn’t make as impressive of a noise as if he’d pounded it against an actual hard surface, but it did help him push down the fear that was rising up in his chest a little bit.

“No!” he insisted, shaking his head.  “No, I don’t accept it!  I refuse to accept it!  Because if you can’t make it off-” his voice cracked , and he had to swallow hard for a moment- “...then neither can I.”

Stan stared up at him with wide eyes.  “...Why the heck not?”

Ford shook his head, and his mouth turned up into what was not exactly a smile.  “Because I don’t have a place in the world either, Stanley.”

“But-”

“I went to one of the least impressive colleges in America-” he didn’t notice the way Stan flinched- “and got laughed out of my grant presentation when I told them I wanted to study anomalies for a living.  Since then I’ve been trying to make ends meet on a research vessel that studies plankton , because it was the only seafaring job I could find that didn’t involve having to clean and scale fish on a daily basis, with a group of people who barely notice I’m there.  And...and I hate it!”

It was a confession that he was tired of swallowing down and covering with excuses and rationalizations; saying it aloud felt...liberating.

Stan’s expression was a canvas of multiple expressions at once: surprise, concern, disbelief, guilt.  His mouth opened and shut for a moment, before finally saying, “...I don’t belong in the real world anymore, Ford.  I barely belonged there when I was there, but now...look at me.”  He gestured at himself.  “I’m a savage.  I didn’t finish school, I don’t know jack about gettin’ a job-what am I even gonna put on a re-zoom?”

“Résumé,” Ford corrected automatically.

“Whatever.  I’m sure folks’d be impressed by seeing ‘Eight years as a hunter-gatherer far away from civilization’ on one.  At least you know more about that junk than I do.”

“...You’d adapt,” Ford said at last.  “You always adapt, to anything that gets thrown at you.  You think modern life would be harder than-this?”  He waved a hand at the outside greenery.

Stan shifted against the mattress.  “Well, considering last time I was there I wasn’t good for anything besides scraping barnacles off the taffy shop-”

“The principal was full of [opprobrious term for fecal matter],” Ford growled.  “I think he was still mad about all those dead fish you put in Crampelter’s locker.”

The memory was enough to get a brief chuckle out of Stan, before he turned serious again.  “It wasn’t just him, though.  It was everyone .  Everyone but-”  He looked away.

After a moment, Ford sighed.

“Plenty of people liked you, Stanley.  Plenty of people thought you were something special.  It just wasn’t Pa.”

“Or all the teachers who were disappointed that I wasn’t a genius too, or all the kids who made fun of me for bein’ dumb after they were done makin’ fun of you for bein’ smart.”

Ford raised an eyebrow.  “Since when did you care what they thought?”

Stan’s jaw took its turn clenching.  “Just cuz I acted like I didn’t care didn’t mean it didn’t hurt.”

...That actually makes a lot of sense.

Ford flinched, remembering every time Stan had laughed off someone else making a crack about him not having the same brains Ford did, or shrugging indifferently about insults thrown at him, taking the time to comfort Ford about the ones that he was always stung by instead.  Always pretending like he was just fine.

“...I never realized.”  I should have.   “But you know our teachers all still liked you.”

Stan snorted.

“No, they did,” he insisted.

“Gimme a break-Ms. Garfunkel did not like me.”

“She did so.”

“She never laughed at my jokes once !”

“Probably because you made them while she was trying to teach.”

Stan gave a little shrug.  “So what?  Her class was boring.”

Ford rolled his eyes.

“...Besides, she was always gettin’ on my back about my grades.”

“Yes, because she could tell that you weren’t applying yourself like she believed you could.”

Stan looked utterly bewildered by the possibility of a teacher actually believing in him...but then shook his head.  “Doesn’t matter.  Even if I did try, I was still never gonna be you.”

He twisted a little bit until he was lying on his side, facing the wall.

Ford just sat and stared at his brother’s back.  He could see more scars there-scars that appeared to be from things with long sets of claws, and probably fangs too, but there were others that were less recognizable.  He followed the patterns with his eyes and tried to pick out which ones went together, in an attempt to push away the despair threatening to well up at the impossibility of their situation.

He really was as helpless as everyone thought, and Stan was so traumatized-both by his life here, and the life he’d had before coming here-that he’d just resigned himself to living in this-this limbo .

Ford had to figure out a way to free his brother and bring him home; he had to.

He just had no idea how.

Chapter Text

For a minute Ford sat and drummed his fingers on his knees, trying frantically to think of a solution.  Then, when nothing came to him, he finally got up and did one of the things that sometimes helped when he was feeling overwhelmed by an apparently-insurmountable problem: he paced.

The rhythmic act of walking up and down, with hands clasped behind him, was at least enough to soothe his nerves somewhat, and after a few minutes of doing so he allowed his attention to drift to the shelves.

Of course!  Maybe there’s something useful here.

Ford walked over, and idly lifted one of the books, blowing off the dust.  He wasn’t sure what he was expecting it to be; he knew for certain, however, that he had not been expecting an illustration of a horse, with the title Black Beauty written in graceful looping letters.

Ford had never been big on horse stories, or on horses for that matter; while he was aware that they were useful creatures, and that girls between the age of six and thirteen were generally obsessed with them, he had never met one in person, and had read enough stories about people who had been crippled for life after being kicked by or bucked off of one to feel more than a little wary of them.  He knew, however, that this particular story was quite famous for exposing the inhuman treatment of horses by London cab drivers and aristocrats; curious, he opened it and looked at the inside cover to see if there was any indication of who it had belonged to.

All he found, however, was a scrawl that, if you looked closely, was possibly the letters “A.E.”

Ford replaced it on the shelf, and took down the other one.

This one appeared to be a log book, and was significantly older, with the pages in a farther-along state of deterioration to the point of crumbling at the edges when he touched them.  He gave a small growl of frustration, since this one seemed like it had the potential to be maybe a journal of some kind...but then he registered that the interior of the cave was becoming even darker, so it would be hard to try reading the book right now anyway.

...Wait a moment.  It’s getting dark.

Ford replaced the log book, and hesitantly glanced back at his brother, who was still lying on his side.

“...Stanley?”

A small grunt was his only reply.

“...I think it’s about time for the aurora to start.  Would you like to go and watch it?”

There was a pause, before Stan slowly, with a grimace of pain, rolled until he was facing him, and then began trying to sit up on his own.  Because he was Stan, and the concept of self-care even when he was in pain was utterly foreign to him.

Hurriedly Ford crossed the cave to his side and guided him the rest of the way, before slinging his arm over his shoulder and slowly levering him to his feet.

“Easy, don’t exert yourself!”

Stan gave a little grumble and rolled his eyes, but made no attempt to get away-Ford took this as an indication of how much pain and/or exhaustion he was feeling, and held him a little closer as they made their way to the entrance.

Once they were actually there, though, Stan hesitated and pulled back a little, looking down at his exposed skin.

“...The trees will protect us,” Ford said, hoping a) that he was right, and b) that his tone of voice was convincing.  “And if not-” he drew the knife from his belt, held it up for inspection.

Stan still looked doubtful, but just then a flicker of blue-green light flashed through the vines.  He immediately pushed them aside, and together they stepped out into the open.

Directly to the left of the entrance there was a small ledge in the rock, shaped almost like a bench; together they sat down on it, and tilted their heads back to get a good look at the sky.  And once again, Ford was in awe as he watched the vibrant colors swirling to life.

Tonight’s story was about mermaids; most of the sky above them flooded with a soft blue-green color, with pink, gold and orange flashes depicting the mermaids as they flitted around through the “waves.”  And then one night a monster came-a large, hairy beast that it took Ford a minute to realize was a seal, albeit far larger and hairier than he’d ever seen one before, not to mention far more savage: it chased the merfolk through forests of kelp, and devoured the fish that were apparently their livestock, and when it had to come up for air it would sit on top of a large rock that stuck up out of the ocean and tilt back its head at the full moon-

“Holy crap,” Stan murmured.  “It’s The Wolfman , with a mermaid twist.”

“...It does create an interesting question of whether merfolk lie awake on full moons in fear of were-seals,” Ford mused.  “And whether wolfsbane would still be an effective weapon against them, or if instead you’d have to use-I don’t know, maybe a special type of kelp, or coral-”

“Looks like we’re about ta find out.”  Stan elbowed him, and pointed to the show, where a group of merfolk were forming a party to hunt the were-seal.

Ford adjusted his glasses, attempting to squint around the crack in the left lens.

“Did you forget your spare glasses again?” Stan asked in an exasperated tone, looking at him out of the corner of his eye.

“I did not ‘forget’ them,” Ford huffed.  “They were in my jacket pocket, and I wasn’t wearing it when I fell overboard.”

“Yeah, well, this is why I told ya ta keep ‘em in your pants pocket or something.”

“That’s not practical.”

“It’s the literal definition of practical, and means you don’t gotta worry about ever winding up blind!”

“I’m not blind, I’m just very near-sighted,” Ford grumbled, gaze fixed on the aurora.

“I’ll say.”

“What was that?”

“Nothing!  Ooh, this is the good part, they finished gathering the angry mob!”

When the were-seal was finally hunted down, and revealed to have been a member of the merfolks’ tribe this whole time as her lifeless corpse returned to its original form, Stan yawned and rubbed his eyes, before applauding.

“Encore, encore,” he muttered.

Ford chuckled as he lifted Stan’s arm over his shoulder again, before levering both of them to their feet.

“Heh.  When Drift was here...I used ta do voices for the shows.  He liked that.”

“Drift?”  Ford pushed through the entrance, and guided them both to the bed.

“...tha’s what I called Kit…”  The words faded into an exhausted-sounding snore.

Ford had meant to sit up and keep watch, through the night if need be; however, when he tried to pull away so he could do so, Stan unexpectedly twisted into his side, and his fingers buried themselves in Ford’s shirt.

For a moment he wondered if Stan was awake; however, closer inspection revealed that his eyes were tightly shut, and that even though he wasn’t snoring as loudly as he used to, he was still deeply asleep.

Ford cast another glance at the vines that covered the entrance, and hoped that they would be enough to at least conceal them from sight (and that the trees would protect them from any predators who might rely more on sense of smell).

Then he kicked off his shoes, and let his eyes slide shut.

Chapter Text

Stan woke up, and realized that he wasn’t alone.

This on its own would have been unusual enough, but not only was he not alone, whoever he was with was lying right next to him; he could feel them breathing, very slow and steady.  And for a moment his sleep-fogged brain was confused, because even with Adele they’d never gone this far, since she said she wasn’t ready for another relationship-

Stan opened his eyes, and found himself face to face with his soundly sleeping twin.

...Oh.

His knee-jerk instinct was to pull back, try to escape the Lie.

Unfortunately, his back was up against the cave wall, and Ford was pressed tightly against him, effectively penning him in, so there was nowhere to escape to .

And when Stan stirred a little, with the intent of simply getting up and moving away, his injuries throbbed in protest until he lay still again.

After a moment of frustration, he grumpily conceded that even if it was all a Lie and he was only hurting himself by allowing it to continue...maybe it wouldn’t be so bad to enjoy it for just a little longer.  And not just because he couldn’t remember the last time he’d had someone touch him that wasn’t trying to kill him.

He settled down again, and tried not to let this remind him of times when they were kids, when Pa had yelled one too many things at them (or more often at him ), and they would go sit on the bunk bed of whichever one was most upset until they felt better, and sometimes just wind up falling asleep on each other.

He was pretty sure Mom had pictures lying around somewhere, too...

The next time Stan opened his eyes, sunlight was filtering through the entryway and Ford was sitting up on the edge of the bed, staring down at a book and completely oblivious to the world around him.

Oh, great.  More déjà vu .

...Wait a second.  Where the heck did he find a book?

Stan tilted his head, and tried to scoot around until he was in a position to check it out better.  Unfortunately, Ford felt him moving, and half-twisted around.

“Oh good, you’re awake.  How are you feeling?”  He put the book aside and picked up a handful of fresh leaves that were resting by his leg.

Despite himself, Stan allowed him to take his arm and start redressing some of his wounds.  “Little less like I’ve been through a paper shredder.”

Ford grimaced.  “That’s a disturbingly appropriate description of how you look.”

“Gee, thanks.”  Stan looked up at him-and then abruptly snickered.

“What?”

“Speaking of looks, I like the scruff you’ve got now.  Gives ya less of a baby face.”

Ford rubbed his jaw with an affronted expression-and then smirked at him.

“We have the same face, Tarzan.”  He gently poked Stan in one of his uninjured spots.

“Dunno how you can tell that anymore.”  Stan tugged a handful of beard.

“I recognized you as soon as I saw you without the mask,” Ford said simply, before gingerly lifting one of the leaves around his ribs and inspecting the injury.  “These are healing far faster than I could have hoped; that’s good.”  He replaced the leaf with a fresh one; the green stuff on it didn’t sting as much as it had the last few times.

Stan hesitated, before asking softly, “...Do I still...look like me?”

Ford paused in his work, and glanced back up at his face.  “You’re...definitely older.  And coarser than I remember.  But...yes.  You still look like you.”

It had been a long time since Stan had been able to get a clear look at his reflection; the closest he’d managed was looking at himself in an old metal container that had washed up on the beach a few years back that eventually got stolen by one of the rabbit monkeys, and even that had been all warped out of shape so it wasn’t like he’d been able to see himself all that well.

“...Huh.  That’s good ta know.”

Ford rubbed a hand over his cheek with a small frown of irritation.  “I do miss being able to shave; when we get back to civilization I can teach you how.”

Stan suddenly became very interested in a large cluster of cobwebs hanging from the ceiling.

“We’re both going home,” Ford insisted stubbornly.

After a moment Stan gave a ‘you’re impossible’-type sigh.  “Whatever ya say, Ford.”

“Whatcha reading?” he finally asked, after Ford had finished up his work and picked up the book again.

“I found it on one of the shelves,” Ford said.  “A lot of the writing has sadly deteriorated, but...from what I’ve been able to make out, I think it was once the log book of the Mary Celeste .”

“...Of who?”

Ford gave an achingly familiar long-suffering sigh.  “The Mary Celeste was a famous ship that was discovered in the 1870’s, with all ten people who were aboard missing, and no indication of what had happened to them beyond some possible signs of being attacked and the lifeboat being gone.  And none of them were ever seen again.”

“Whoa.  Creepy.”

“I know!”  Ford practically had stars in his eyes.  “I don’t think all of them washed up here, but the log indicates that it was at least a small group!  It could be a vital clue in not only unraveling the mystery of the Mary Celeste , but the mystery of how this island works!  Oh, I wonder if any of the crew of the Edmund Fitzgerald wound up here!”

“...That another ship?”

“Yes, it sank a few years ago in Lake Superior, and almost no bodies were discovered.”

Stan snorted.  “Why do all these ships have such dorky names?”

“Well, what would you prefer to name a ship?”

Seconds later the implications of the question sank in, and both of them suddenly became very interested in examining separate areas of the ceiling.

Finally Stan sat up, still with a little pain but not as much as there had been.  Ford watched him anxiously, but at least he didn’t try to stop him.

“Find anything else?” Stan asked, indicating the shelf across from them.

“Just a book about a horse, and that one of those coconut shells was covering a jar of something called ‘freckle cream.’  I suspect they belonged to a later inhabitant.”

“Huh.  Guess there’s been more people on this island before me than I thought.”

“The question, then, is whether they were able to make it off the island…”  Ford returned to carefully turning the pages of his book.

Stan realized, as he took some food from the pile and placed a piece into Ford’s hand, that it had been a while since he’d heard from Steve-or from anyone else, which was odd, since they’d sometimes follow him when he wasn’t at the cave.

He hoped nothing had happened to them.  Filbrick didn’t have a body anymore, but what if he decided-

He shook his head, forcing the thought away.  “...So what’s the plan after you get tired of puttin’ me under house arrest?”

Ford looked up, and absently took a bite of the fruit in his hand.  “Hmm?  Oh, once you’re well enough to travel I thought maybe we could continue our journey towards the center.”  He hesitated, giving Stan a guilty look out of the corner of his eye.  “...If you’re amenable to the idea, that is.”

Stan scratched a hand through his hair, thoughtfully pulling something out of it and throwing it away when he realized it wasn’t one of the edible ones.  “If that means, do I like it, then no, I don’t.  But-” he quickly added upon seeing how crestfallen Ford’s expression was- “I know I’m not gonna get any peace from you unless ya find it and unravel the mystery or whatever, and ya don’t have the skills ta make it by yourself, so...yeah.  I gotta come with you.”

“Thank you for that vote of confidence.”  But Stan could hear something in Ford’s voice that made his chest ache a little.

Something that sounded almost too real to be a Lie.

Chapter Text

For the next two days their routine remained the same: Ford would forage for food, change Stan’s ‘bandages,’ and try to make sense of the log book, while Stan was gradually able to sit up longer, then stand, then take wobbly steps around the cave under his twin’s watchful eye.  Protests that he was fine and didn’t have to be babied like this were disregarded, on the grounds that he’d lost a lot of blood at the baboon hyena’s claws and needed as much time to heal as he could get.  Finally, out of desperation for some kind of stimulation, he actually asked Ford to get him the other book, and started reading it.  It wasn’t the most exciting thing in the world, since he’d never been much of a horse guy either and it was written during Victorian days, but for someone whose reading material had been limited to whatever washed up onshore and could dry out well enough to be legible for the last eight years, it wasn’t too bad.

He offered to teach Ford how to snare an animal so they could get some protein in their diet, but he declined; Stan wondered if having to kill the baboon hyena had disturbed him more than he was letting on, and so he didn’t push it.  He remembered all too well how it had felt the first time he’d had to kill something here.

When night fell, they would sit on the bench and watch the aurora, enjoying the unusual stories portrayed by the colored lights, and once it faded away they would go back inside and fall asleep side by side on the bed.

Gradually Ford managed to decipher enough of the writing in the log to get the jist of what had happened to the party who’d brought it here: they had washed up on the island after something attacked the Mary Celeste and stole most of the people-some of them right off the deck, some by actually opening the hatches and reaching inside to snatch up whoever was close enough.  The writer had been too frightened to really describe whatever it was properly, except to say that it had been big, and possessed a set of “massive, pulsing” tentacles, leading Ford to suspect that it was a type of kraken.

“It says that the writer-he was one of the crew, I think-he and two passengers, and three other crewmen, all managed somehow to hide away until the creature left, before grabbing some navigational equipment and then getting into the lifeboat and rowing away before it could come back,” Ford said aloud, staring at the page.  He leaned in and squinted.  “...And the writing’s very smudged here, but I think it says they were trying to find the coast, but got turned around in an unexpected fog...and then something about drums.”

Stan looked up from Black Beauty and nodded.  “Yeah, sounds about right.”

Ford chewed his pen (seriously?  He hadn’t had his spare glasses, but he remembered to always keep a pen in his pocket?).  “So apparently the drums are a constant for everyone who visits the island.  I wonder if it’s a type of incantation to summon those it wants to bring here-or even just its way of welcoming them…”

“Everyone else who’s come here said that they heard it, so I guess it could go either way.”

Ford hummed thoughtfully, and returned his focus to the book.

A few minutes later he made a disturbed-sounding grunt.

Stan looked at him.  “What?”

“Halfway through, the writing stops.  And the last page is clearer to read than the others, and...it says some interesting things about the man’s mental state.”

Stan sat up and peered over Ford’s shoulder, trying to decipher the scrawl.

The others have given up hope of signaling a ship, as even on a clear day we have seen no sign of one, and have decided to move further inland in hopes of finding a new freshwater source.  I tried to persuade them to stay-I have gone deeper than any of the others, I know what monsters are lurking in those trees-but they would have none of it.  Even when I pleaded with Mrs. Briggs not to put her daughter at risk, she accused me of being a coward, and there was nothing I could say to that.  Not when it’s true.

They left me here to tend the signal fire, and await their return.

It has been two days, and there is no word from the others.  I hope they took my warnings seriously, and have properly armed themselves against the chimeras that pass as inhabitants.

I can’t redeem myself.  I’ve tried everything since we arrived on this cursed island, taking every risk the others would permit me to ensure their safety and comfort, but nothing is enough to stop the nightmares.

The sounds of my comrades screaming for help, while I hid in fear for my own life.

Perhaps it is for the best that the lifeboat was destroyed; if we never return to civilization, my shame will never have to be exposed at a court martial.

“It would appear that he is unjustly blaming himself for the deaths of others at the hands-or in this case, tentacles-of a far more formidable foe that he probably had no chance of defeating,” Ford mused.  He glanced at Stan out of the corner of his eye.  “Rather irrational behavior, wouldn’t you say?”

Stan felt his stomach churn, and focused his attention on the pages with even more interest.

Another sun has risen and set, and there is still no sign of them.

I can no longer bear it; I must go and look for my comrades, danger or no danger.  And if I find that they have not survived the expedition, then-

Then God forgive me if I join them.

There was nothing else after that.

“Guess they never made it back,” Stan said at last, grimly.

“It would appear not,” Ford said, setting the log aside.  “Otherwise, the newspapers would most likely have mentioned some of the lost crew of the Mary Celeste turning up.  It does beg the question, however, of how the book wound up in this cave, since the implication is that he was down by the shore when he was writing in it...but maybe he brought it with him.”  He was only half talking to Stan now.  “But then why did he stop writing?”

“Maybe whoever washed up later found it and brought it here.”

Ford nodded thoughtfully.  “Maybe.”  He gave a frustrated sigh that Stan could tell was about all the unanswered questions he was getting the more he searched.

“Shame you couldn’t bring some archaeology equipment to the island with you,” Stan said with a small smile.  “Or a chemistry set or whatever.”

“Well, that’s not exactly my area of expertise regardless.”  Ford still returned the smile as he carefully closed the book.  “However, I think we should bring all of this with us whenever we go back home.  I’m sure there’s several museums that would pay a fortune for it.”

“If ya can convince ‘em ta believe it’s real.”

He expected Ford to declare that he would make them believe.  Instead, all he did after a moment was look down at the cover and give a small sigh.

“...Yeah.”

Chapter Text

Finally, when Ford was changing Stan’s bandages on the third day and saw that the deepest gashes on his ribs and chest had closed up into large pink scars, he declared that he would be fit to travel by tomorrow at the least.

“Why can’t we get going today?” Stan asked.

“Because you need at least another day of rest.”

“Shouldn’t I be the judge of that?”

“Since your idea of self-care when injured is continuing to press on regardless of the severity of the damage, I don’t think so.”

“Hey, I can still kick your butt,” Stan warned.

“Yes, I believe you.”  Ford said, with just a hint of amusement.  “We can still wait until tomorrow.  If nothing else, it might give us more time to figure out where we’re actually going.”

“Yeah, I did wonder if ya’d thought about that.”

Ford looked suitably sheepish.  “How familiar are you with this part of the jungle?”

“Not even a little.  This is way deeper than I’ve ever dared go.”  Stan shrugged.  “And I think my cave’s usually on the east side of the island, so when we first left I was headin’ westward.”

“...Usually?”

“Sometimes the island moves around so my side’s facing the sunset instead of sunrise.”

“That is both fascinating and frustrating.”  Ford rubbed his jaw.  “I wish we had a metal needle; then I could use it to make a compass, so we could at least know which way true north was.”

“If, of course, the island didn’t mess with that too,” Stan muttered.  “Wouldn’t put it past it.”

Once again, Ford marveled at his brother’s ability to survive on this island for the last eight years.

Stan looked down at his arms, which showed up dark against the somewhat paler skin of his chest and stomach.  “...And I just realized I’m gonna needa make some more dye before we go anywhere anyway.”

Ford hated that Stan needed that.

It caused a large worm of discomfort to squirm in his stomach, hearing that Stan needed to cover himself up in order to feel safe.

But you couldn’t logically argue with indisputably proven facts, and the facts were that Stan did need to cover up to feel safe-and worse, considering what a hostile and dangerous environment they were in, maybe he was-no, he was right in thinking that it was a good idea.

Ford hesitated, and then asked, “What do you need?”

Stan did another one of his confused blinks, before hesitantly saying, “...I’m gonna need a couple types of plants, and a few rocks ta mash ‘em up, and some stuff ta mix the dye in.”

Ford made a beeline for the shelf, and scooped up the empty coconut shells; then, on an impulse, he grabbed the jar of freckle cream too, since he’d checked and it was mostly empty anyway, and carried them all back to the bed.  “Voila.  You have one out of three things.”

Stan picked them up and sniffed at the insides, then gave a small nod of approval.

“So, what kind of plants do you need?”

With a reluctant sigh Stan described the types he used to create the dye, and allowed Ford to slip out into the open after making sure he had his knife on him.  “Remember-”

“I know, I know, use the sharp end for fighting off anything that tries to kill me.”

Right away Ford managed to find some of the plants Stan wanted; and anything he had trouble looking for, the trees were happy to guide him to.  He tried not to let it put him in mind of grown-ups helping a lost toddler on the beach, and just focus on getting what his brother needed.  Once he had what seemed like enough, he headed back for the cave, grabbing a few large rocks on the way-these in turn had him trying not to think too hard about using one to cave in the mandrill hyena’s head.

Stan was standing in the entryway when he returned, just barely visible through the vines.  As soon as Ford stepped inside, he immediately leaned against the nearby wall and began studying his nails.

Ford raised an eyebrow as he put his findings on the mattress.  “Were you about to come looking for me?”

“What?  No!  Don’t be-don’t be dumb, Poindexter.”  Stan rolled his eyes and stomped over to inspect the things.

The eyebrow rose into greater heights of skepticism.  “Most people would say that that’s impossible for me.”

“That’s cuz they don’t know you like I did.”  Stan began chopping up one of the plants and putting the pieces into the coconut shell.  “Shoot, wish I had a cooking pot; boiling makes the dye mix better.”

“...Do you need one?  Because maybe we can-”

“No, I’ll-I can handle it.”  And Stan lifted one of the rocks, and began determinedly pounding the chopped plant fibers into mush.

Eventually, he was forced to concede defeat enough to build a fire (which, Ford noticed, he did with enviably little effort), and after adding water to the plant mixture, tried to hold the coconut shell over it close enough to boil without burning himself.

After the fifth time of him trying not to drop it into the fire and stopping to suck on a burned patch of skin, Ford managed to persuade the trees to give him some branches, and a few thin-yet-sturdy vines, and put them together to create a makeshift cooking crane.  A couple of tiny holes bored in the sides of the shell later, and it was hanging neatly over the fire, high enough to not burn, but just low enough to make the contents begin to boil.

“...Fine, if ya wanna be boring about it,” Stan muttered.

Finally it was a simple case of letting the dye cool into the usual thick paste, and once it was done, Stan set the three bowls down on the floor, before sitting cross-legged in front of them and dipping his fingers into the brown dye, tracing it onto his skin in the familiar pattern.

After a minute of watching, Ford sat down on the opposite side and scooped some dye up onto his own fingers; he squinted at Stan, and began trying to mimic the pattern onto his own arm.

It took Stan a moment to notice what he was doing.

“Not bad, but you gotta curve a little more.  Like this.”  He held out his arm to demonstrate.  “Make it less jagged-looking.  And branch off in a few spots, so it looks like there’s a buncha trees all clustered together.”

Ford traced another ‘branch’ over the first one, and looked at Stan questioningly.  He gave an approving nod.

“Good.  Don’t forget ta mix in the other colors too.”

“Yes, yes.”  Ford had already lost himself in this new project.

“And make sure you write ‘I’m a grade A nerd’ in any bare spots.”

“Why would I do that?  That seems-” Ford blinked, and then raised his head, fixing Stan with an unimpressed stare.  “Ha, ha.”

He could see the glint of Stan’s teeth through his beard, even as he shook with silent laughter while keeping his gaze fixed on the wavy lines he was painting down his foot.

And something in Ford’s chest twinged, meaning it took him a moment to remember what he was doing.

It was the first time, in all the time he’d been here, that he’d seen Stan give a smile that looked genuinely happy.

Chapter Text

Stan finally felt safe.

His arms and legs were perfectly blended to match the surrounding greenery outside the cave, and after they were dry he’d taken one of the cleanest skins from the pile they’d been sleeping on and dyed it the same way, before cutting slits for his head and arms to create a makeshift poncho.  So now he was no longer easy prey.

The downside, of course, was that he didn’t have a mask.  Painting his face just wasn’t the same, it didn’t give him the same kind of security covering it up did.

Also, he no longer had his spear; even though he’d always preferred close-range fighting, and still had a few decent knives at hand, there were definitely advantages to being able to hold whatever you were fighting at a distance.

If he got the time and found the right materials, he was definitely gonna make new ones.

For now, when he finished his work he slowly got to his feet and turned in a circle, checking himself over for any spots that he might have missed.

Behind him he heard Ford give a small laugh.

“Watching you move is like looking at one of those 3D posters where you have to cross your eyes to see the actual picture.”

“Heh heh.  Now ya see me-” Stan stepped around until he was right in front of the vines covering the entrance- “and now ya don’t.”

Ford laughed again.

He, of course, didn’t have the hang of it quite as well as Stan did: even when he was fully camouflaged up, he didn’t have the same rhythm of movement, or practice in holding still for long periods of time.  But hey, he hadn’t been here as long as Stan did, he just needed time to get the hang of it-

And then what?

Stan froze, and felt his stomach tie itself in a knot.

You’ll both just stay here the rest o’ your lives, happily hunting and fishing and fightin’ off monsters side by side?  How sweet : the Pines twins, bein’ modern-day Robinson Crusoes together-at least until Stanford remembers that he has better goals in life and things he actually wants ta do with his big brain, cuz he’s meant for more than this, and figures out a way ta get his tuchus back ta civilization where he belongs.

Stan clenched his jaw.  ...Ya know, I was really hopin’ you’d stay at the cave.

Meaning you hoped ya wouldn’t haveta hear me anymore?   Stan couldn’t see Filbrick, but he could feel his presence nearby; hovering somewhere around his head, or lurking in one of the cave’s shadows.   Nice try, boy; you ain’t gettin’ rid of me that easily.  Not when I’m here ta remind ya that the last thing your brother needs is being stuck on this massive pile of floating crap with a piece of selfish, lying scum like-

“Stanley?”

Stan shook his head violently, and realized that Ford was standing in front of him, frowning.

“Uh-what?  Was I talking out loud again?”

Ford tilted his head, the way he did when observing something that interested or confused him.  “...No, but you had a funny look on your face.”

“Eh, that was probably just my normal expression.”  Stan smiled, hoping it didn’t look too wide, and turned towards the entrance.  “Am I cleared ta go hunt somethin’, doc?  I’m gettin’ tired of fruit.”

“Are you sure?”  Ford’s eyebrows remained all bunched up.

“Yeah, I wanna stretch my legs.”

Ford looked uncertain, but all he said was, “Don’t go too far.”

“You got it.”  And Stan stuck his knives into his belt before slipping out into the open.

He had to admit, once he got going, it felt good to fall into the familiar routine of silently moving, becoming one with the jungle and trying not to think too hard.

Stan had only gone a short distance from the cave before he could hear something chattering ahead of him in the trees, and pushed through some low-hanging vines to see if it was what he thought it was.

Ah, yes; luck was on his side.  In one of the larger trees ahead of him, he could see a large, reddish-brown squirrel-bird, preening its long, bushy tail and thick wing-feathers as it perched on a branch.  He didn’t like killing these little guys, preferring to stick to pig-rats, but their meat was pretty good, and besides, they were a lot smaller and less work to prepare.

Stan knelt, cautiously drawing one of the knives and twirling it in his hand.  It wasn’t one he could safely throw, so he’d have to move close enough to grab it and slit its throat in one swift motion, make sure the little thing didn’t suffer, at least.

Moving slowly, taking his time, he began making his way towards the tree.  He kept his eye open for any large branches or dead leaves on the ground that might give away his presence, and kept his knife tucked inwards so the blade wouldn’t glint in the sparse sunlight.

Five feet away.

The squirrel-bird had started cleaning his ears, licking his little paws and then rubbing at them vigorously, just like you’d see in a documentary about an unsuspecting animal.

Stan was almost at the tree trunk now.  He debated whether to climb it, or just try and grab the beast and hope he didn’t get bitten; he knew his reflexes were fast enough that he could probably do that one, if he could just pick the right spot-

A figure was suddenly standing in his path; Stan stumbled back in alarm, and the squirrel-bird, startled by the noise, opened its wings and alighted from its perch.  Soon enough it was just a flicker of red among the trees.

It had been a long time since Stan had actually seen the figure now standing in front of him in person, so it took him a moment to really recognize him.

He was impossibly, impossibly tall, almost as tall as the tree, and built like a cinder block: all big and hard and cold and immovable.

The bright yellow of his large checked overcoat stood out far too brightly against the muted colors of the jungle, and even if his hat hadn’t been shading the upper half of his face, you wouldn’t have been able to see his eyes-they were wreathed in blackness (had they always been like that?  Had Stan ever actually seen them?  He couldn’t remember anymore).

It was the first time he’d ever taken a form on his own, without needing Stan to make one for him; he tripped over his own feet trying to get away from it.

Filbrick stared down at him-even unable to see the upper half of his face, Stan could tell he was looking at him, he was always looking at him, judging him, condemning him-and pointed a meaty hand off towards Stan’s right.

Stan glanced over that way; all he could see was more trees-and, if he squinted, the faint remains of the trail indicating that he and Ford had come this way three days ago.

He looked back in confusion at Filbrick, who pointed again, more emphatically.

Against his will he found himself getting to his feet, taking a step in that direction-and then another, smaller, even less familiar form was in his way.

This one was harder to make out, since his features were all blurry, like a bad signal on a TV screen, but Stan could see enough to see that he was shaking his head no.

Even though he couldn’t see his face, something about his presence was familiar enough for him to tilt his head and ask, “...Steve?”

Steve nodded, before lifting one blurred hand and pointing ahead of him.

Stan glanced over his shoulder, and again saw only trees.

“Whatsa matter with you two?” he demanded abruptly, realizing that neither of them had said a word this whole time.  The silence was enough to make his fear start to change into irritation.  “What’s with all the pointing and stuff-leopard-spider got your tongue?”

Filbrick’s jaw clenched in a silent growl, and he stepped out of the shadows, ground trembling under his shoes, to loom over Stan.  He pointed again, more emphatically.

But Steve shook his head, and gestured the opposite direction.

Stan looked back and forth between them, uncertain and confused and without a clue what was going on-

“Stanley?”

There was a crash from behind him, and Ford came stumbling through the vines.

Stan spun around, in a combination of alarm and nervousness.

Ford looked him over with worry in his eyes.  “I-I thought I heard you yelling something.  Are you all right?”

...Okay, if I know how this stuff works like I think I do, as soon as I look around they’re gonna be gone, and if I try telling him about it I’m just gonna sound crazy.

Stan looked over his shoulder; sure enough, there was no sign of either Steve or Filbrick.

He let out a frustrated sigh, and closed his eyes.  Yup.

“What’s the matter?”

Stan made an executive decision.

“We gotta go that way.”  He pointed in the direction Steve had indicated.

Ford blinked, and adjusted his glasses.  “...What makes you so sure that’s the right way?”

“Just a wild hunch.”  Stan grabbed up his knife from where he’d dropped it, and stalked back to the cave.

Chapter Text

In the morning they set off in the direction Steve had pointed, eating breakfast as they walked.

Stan kept an eye out for things that might object to their presence here, such as bigger predators or especially territorial plants, or any more unwanted spirit guides, but even by mid-morning there was no sign of any of them except for a few tracks that were big enough to make the hair on his arms stand on end, but not fresh enough to make him worry about these being regular travel paths for their owners.  He wasn’t sure whether or not to take the lack of presence from either Filbrick or Steve as a vote of confidence that they were going in the right direction; the fact that he wasn’t hearing them either didn’t help, because that just meant that they could be anywhere.

He tried to ignore the occasional concerned looks Ford was giving him, and focused on leading the way.

It was pretty quiet out here, but at least it wasn’t too quiet; he could pick up the faint calls of birds in the treetops, and the occasional scrambling of smaller forest creatures in the underbrush (which also meant that when they stopped to rest he might be able to catch a fruit-free meal, as long as they could find a safe place to build a fire), and the soft, whispery rustling of the trees talking to each other in their weird secret tree-language.

To his relief, Ford finally seemed to have got it through his floofy head that out in the open was not the time to be talking or asking questions.

Granted, he could hear him occasionally utter startled gasps when some new creature or plant caught his attention, and even muttering to himself about it, but at least he kept his tone low, and a glance over his shoulder told Stan that his brother would stop every few seconds to sketch whatever he was looking at in the empty pages of the logbook.

Stan shook his head, the corner of his mouth curling up against his will, and began looking for a sturdy branch to make a new spear with; not only would it be a more efficient hunting tool than the knives, but he’d have an easier time steering the idiot with it while he was in nerd mode like this.

He decided it was time to stop when he saw that Ford was starting to lag behind from exhaustion instead of just being distracted by weirdness, and found a spot under a tree that seemed like a good vantage point.

As soon as he realized that they were taking a rest break, Ford sank down against the trunk with a deep sigh, running a hand through his sweaty bangs.

Stan passed him the canteen, along with one of the knives, and then scrambled up into the branches.

Time to get a good look around and try to figure out if they were any closer to the center.

Heh; Ford’s probably weirded out that heights don’t scare me that much anymore, Stan realized as he pulled himself higher and higher up the trunk, careful not to snap any branches.  He remembered faintly that he never would’ve been able to do this when he was a kid.

Yeah, well, I figured out the hard way that there’s a lot of other things it’s more important to be scared of.

There’d even been a few times, back when he was younger and still kind of excited about living here, that he’d tried to swing on some of the vines, figuring that as long as he was living like Tarzan he might as well try out some of the perks of being Tarzan.  And sure, there’d been a few times when he’d miscalculated the strength of a few vines and been lucky not to break his legs, and once he’d accidentally grabbed a wasp snake tail by accident and was just lucky he got hit with the stinger instead of the fangs so he just needed to spend a couple of days detoxing, but eventually he’d kinda gotten the hang of it.  It’d been an adventure for him, learning how to nimbly swing from tree to tree (though without going “AAAAAWWWWAAAAAAWWWWAAAAA!!!!” because that was how you got killed by things that were drawn to loud yelling creatures).

…Funny, he couldn’t remember at what point he’d stopped trying.

When he was as high as he could go, Stan twisted around so his back was to the tree trunk and began surveying the terrain.

Up here, he had a much better perspective on just how big this island was.  As far as the eye could see, there was nothing but trees, except for the occasional glint of a river in the sunlight; there weren’t even any mountains, just a few hilly places off in the distance.

Nothing really caught his eye, though; no indication that they were any closer to the center of the island.

Stan chewed his lip, and then turned to look in the other direction.

More trees, more occasional glints of sunlight on water telling him that the ocean was off that way.

Even Filbrick’d be useful, cuz he’d help me know which way not to go.

“Hey, Steve?” he murmured.  “Ya wanna give me a hint here, buddy?”

He got absolutely zilch in response; not even a flicker in the corner of his vision like he sometimes got.

“Thanks, that’s real useful.  If I was paying you I’d fire you.”  Stan sighed and rubbed his forehead.  Really hope Ford can’t hear me saying crap like this.

“...Okay, looks like I gotta decide the old-fashioned way.”  Gingerly he steepled his fingers, and began tilting them in what he decided were the two most likely-looking directions.  “Eeny, meeny, miney-”

“Stanley!”

It took him a moment to realize that the voice did not belong to Steve, Filbrick or any of the others, and that it was instead calling from just below him.  And it sounded kind of urgent.

Oh crap what happened did he get bitten by something or sprayed by something or shot by something’s poison dart or venom-

He nearly skinned his palms in his hurried flight downwards, until he met Ford climbing up.  Frantically he looked his brother up and down-no blood, no swelling, no skin turning green.  That narrowed it down to being chased by something, or he’d accidentally broken a branch and now the tree was mad at him, or-

“Hurry, you have to come see this!”  Ford grinned excitedly and beckoned, before plunging back downwards.

…If it’s an ‘interesting plant’ or something I’m gonna kill him.

“It’s just over here,” Ford whispered, leading the way toward the edge of the clearing and obliviously stepping over a particularly nasty batch of some kind of vine that tried to climb up you and smother you to death if you touched it.  “I was doing a little bit of scouting-” Stan translated this in his head as ‘looking for something weird to study’- “and I found this .”

Stan squinted-and was actually drawn up short.

Half-hidden by the surrounding greenery was something he hadn’t seen in eight years (yes, I know that covers a lot of ground): a signpost.

An old, wooden signpost, mostly covered with vines and looking pretty rotted, but still recognizable for what it was due to the still-intact arrow that was attached to it.  If he looked closely, Stan could make out a few splintered areas where others must’ve been once upon a time.

“...What the heck?” Stan finally muttered, squinting at it.

“It must have been built by the crew of the Mary Celeste !” Ford said excitedly.  “Well, either them or whoever else was here before us.”  He chewed the tip of his pen as he examined it.  “The question is, of course, which way is the arrow pointing towards-the center, or the shore, or some other landmark they deemed worth pointing out?  Is there maybe writing on the arrow that’s been covered up?”

“Don’t touch it,” Stan warned quickly.

Ford grimaced.  “Don’t worry, I figured that out already.  Kind of the hard way.”  He pointed to a cluster of vines at the top of the post that were still faintly bird-shaped.

Stan examined the signpost with a frown, absently spinning one of his knives between his fingers.

Hey, Steve?  Now’d be a really great time for some kinda hint.

Anything at all, cuz we’re at a kinda literal crossroads.

And then his blood ran cold when, off in the distance in the opposite direction the arrow was pointing, he picked up the faint sounds of barking and cackling.

Chapter Text

Ford had a journal again.  All was right with the world.

…Well, not everything , per se.  Especially because Stan had started acting strange again (twitchy and anxious and he kept surreptitiously glancing around like he was looking for someone; Ford had an odd feeling that it was more than just concern about predators), and he wasn’t sure how to help.  But…the situation was more tolerable now, because he had a way to process things, not to mention draw and make notes about all the wondrous flora and fauna he kept seeing.

A little part of him felt bad for using what amounted to a historical artifact as his personal research journal, but Ford justified it on the basis that this way it was a continued log of the adventures of people who had become prisoners of the island, and therefore only served to further increase its future historical value, thus providing further credence to the theory that rationalizing is a hereditary talent in the Pines family.

The signpost only gave him more questions, the least of which was where had whoever built it found the materials necessary to make it?  His best guess was that it was probably driftwood, or perhaps materials from a shipwreck, but without a chance to examine it up close he would be unable to determine for certain-

Ford was just finishing up his sketch of it, and adding some extra shading to the base and surrounding foliage, when he found himself being nearly yanked off his feet.

“St-!”

Ford barely had time to get the beginning of a syllable out, and Stan didn’t give him time to finish the rest.  He just plunged both of them into the underbrush, leaping from rock to tree root to pile of leaves, even in his frenzied state clearly trying to avoid leaving tracks.

Ford couldn’t see or hear what they were running from, but when he got a good look at his brother’s face he stopped worrying about what it was and just tried his best to keep up with him.  If Stan thought they were in danger, then they were in danger, and questions could wait.

Before long his face and arms and neck were stinging from rushing in between and alongside low-hanging branches, and his lungs felt like they were being scrubbed by little men with sandpaper, and his legs were throbbing with the effort just to keep moving in more or less a straight line, and none of it was helped by the fact that they were suddenly surrounded by a faint layer of mist that was making it hard not to run into trees.  For the umpteenth time Ford mentally kicked himself for putting so little effort into gym class as a child, even though there was no way his younger self could ever have predicted being in these kinds of circumstances-

His foot caught on something, and he was unable to retain his balance.

Ford barely had time to be in pain before he was being yanked back up again.

“Come on !”  The order came out as more of a panicked hiss than anything else as Stan tried to pull him onward.

Ford struggled to obey, but now his knee and ankle and an elbow and the palms of both hands were all throbbing and he could feel warm, wet liquid gathering and pooling over in the hurt spots, and he cursed how low his pain threshold seemed to be at the moment because he didn’t have time for this kind of weakness-

And then he heard what must have alarmed Stan in the first place: an all-too-familiar high, barking cackling, echoing through the misty trees behind them and getting closer by the second.

There’s more of them this time.

A lot more.

And based on Stanley’s observations, they’re drawn to the scent of blood.

“We need to run!” he whispered, looking around frantically to examine their options; he doubted even Stan could fight this many off at once, but maybe if they climbed a high enough tree, or found a stream or something to splash through, they could make the pack lose their scent-

“That won’t be enough.  They’re better than bloodhounds for sniffing out prey.”

The hollow tone of voice quickly drew his attention back to his brother-and to the fact that he had drawn one of his knives, and without hesitation was bringing it down on his other, extended arm.

“ What are you doing?! ”  He barely managed to grab the knife-wielding arm in time.

“Let go!” Stan snarled; he tried to pull free, but somehow Ford held on, pulling with equal stubbornness.  “They’ll go after whichever of us smells better, and to them it’ll be the one that’s bleeding more-”

“Are you out of your mind?!” Ford spluttered.  “That’s a suicide mission!”

Unnoticed by either of them, the mist was growing thicker, long smoky tendrils curling around their legs and up the trunks of the nearby trees.

“It’s worth it!”  Stan finally wrested himself from Ford’s grip, and took a step back-

“NOT FOR ME!”

Ford covered his own mouth a second later, but it was a second too late: the sounds of crashing and hooting intensified in their direction.

Ford saw the panicked look in his brother’s eyes, and the way his arm started to raise again.

“If you do that, I won’t make any attempt to escape, and will just stand right here and let those things kill me!  Is that clear?!” he hissed as loudly as he dared.

Stan let out a strangled noise.  “You don’t mean that!”

“Try me!”

They were losing valuable escape time the longer they stood there arguing, and he knew it, and he knew that Stan knew it.  But he had no intention of letting Stan throw himself into another attempt at moronic self-sacrifice; not this time.

To his surprise, instead of raging at him again like he expected, Stan’s expression turned into something far more…desperate.

“Sixer, please !” he croaked.  “You haven’t seen what these things do when they catch you-and I can’t-I can’t protect you, not from all of ‘em, I’m not strong enough!”  His hands trembled.  “All I can do is-”  He started to jerk the blade down towards his arm again, but Ford lunged forward enough to grab him again.

“I won’t be able to live with myself if you do that!  It was bad enough the first time-!”  Ford cut himself off, before slowly meeting his eyes.  “Stanley.  Please.  We can figure out a different plan.”  Granted, he wasn’t sure how , not with the limited amount of time and options they had, but his brain was already considering possibilities, like climbing a nearby tree and hitting the beasts with clubs as they climbed up after them or something.

Stan hesitated, hand trembling…but then his eyes darted to a spot over Ford’s shoulder, and widened; at the same time, his grip on the knife loosened, allowing Ford to take it from him.

If it was the baboon hyenas or some other kind of predator his grip would probably have tightened instead; confused, Ford turned around.

There was a figure standing there, out of focus like in a badly taken photograph, but if you squinted you could see that they appeared to be wearing jeans and a plain white T-shirt.

“What the deuce?” Ford asked, squinting.

To his left, he heard Stan make another shocked noise.  “You can see him too?”

Chapter Text

Ford can see Steve.

He can see STEVE.

…Does that mean he’s crazy too , or that I’m not ?

Stan honestly wasn’t sure which option was worse.

He didn’t have time to think about it too long, because Steve was pointing again.

Very insistently.

And he could hear how close the baboon hyenas were to them now, could even see the nearby trees starting to rustle, and they didn’t have time to waste objecting, questioning or worrying about what was going on or if following his directions was a dumb idea, so he just grabbed Ford’s arm (shoot, if they got out of this alive his brother was gonna have so many questions) dragged him over to a tree to grab some leaves (barely remembering in time to say “Thank you” after he plucked them, as they didn’t need more things coming after them right now), and then began running again as soon as he’d slapped one on all the bleeding spots he could see.

Thinking coherently was becoming more difficult by the second; it was all drowned out by every instinct Stan possessed screaming in his ears for him to RUN HIDE GET AWAY FIND SHELTER BEFORE IT’S TOO LATE BEFORE THEY FIND YOU AND DO TO YOU AND FORD WHAT THEY DID TO THAYNE-

He wished he had his spear, so he could at least have a fighting chance against these things if and when push came to shove.  He wished he had time to stop and make one.

As he ran, Stan was trying really, really hard not to see the bloodstained figure that kept lurking behind nearby trees with accusation in his eyes; to his relief, Ford didn’t appear to see him.

The fog was getting thicker.

It had been a while since Stan had seen fog here; usually it only showed up when the island was welcoming a new guest, and as far as he knew it was only down by the beach.  He didn’t know what it meant to see it now, so deep towards the center; it wasn’t in the rules that he was familiar with.  A little part of him wondered if maybe it meant they would get sent home by going through it-but he immediately dismissed it on the grounds of being Too Good to be True, not least because it was getting harder and harder to see where he was going and he was being forced to slow down and if they couldn’t find a way out of it they definitely would never escape because the pack had a way better sense of smell than he did and this probably wouldn’t even be an obstacle to them-

He skidded to a halt when, in the cloud of dark gray off to their left, something screamed.

It was a long, quivering, lingering scream; Stan had heard its like many times, often in the dead of night.

He’d never heard a baboon hyena make that noise, though.

The worst part was when it stopped, and all he heard after that was the wet crunching noise of something starting to eat.

And then he heard it again, from about ten feet in front of him; then to the right, then behind him; everywhere he turned his head, he could hear, but not see, the sounds of the creatures that constantly lurked in his nightmares being killed and eaten alive, and he had no idea what was doing it.

And then something clamped around his arm.

“St-Stanley!  It’s me!”

In hindsight, it would have been a good idea for Ford to say that before grabbing Stan.  But at the time, he’d been a little preoccupied by his own crushing terror over whatever unknown horror was currently devouring their former predators, and had wanted to get Stan’s attention and ask what they should do now.  It occurred to him a few seconds too late that Stan was most likely experiencing the same level of terror, if not more, on account of having spent the last eight years trying to survive on this hellish island and deal with nightmarish situations on a regular basis, and therefore might not appreciate unexpected contact at this particular moment.

After a few seconds the look in Stan’s eyes changed from single-minded terror and determination to stricken realization, and he immediately scooted away, removing his other knife from Ford’s throat.

“It’s okay!” Ford whispered quickly as he sat up, “That was my fault!”

Stan didn’t appear to believe him; he just looked down and huddled in on himself for a moment, before replacing the knife in its sheath and getting to his feet in one fluid motion.

Ford slowly stood up after him, and looked around uneasily, trying to see through the fog.

The sounds of the baboon hyenas being massacred had stopped…but under the circumstances that wasn’t very comforting.

Ford stepped closer to Stan, more cautiously this time, making sure that he could actually see him and recognize that he wasn’t a threat.

“Stanley?” he asked, sotto voce .  “Any-”

A hand was frantically clamped over his mouth before he could finish.

Seconds later, both of them heard the sound of… something , slithering through the fog just barely out of sight, so all they could make out was the faintest silhouette.

Something big, with a very pungent smell.

Neither of them moved a muscle, as whatever the Thing was swept past, apparently (thankfully) oblivious to their presence.  It rustled swiftly over the ground, with a faint shush shush shush noise that sounded like it might belong to something with scales, and just when he thought there couldn’t possibly be more of it, there was still more passing by.

It was worse than being stalked by the leopard spider chimera, or even the baboon hyenas, because at least then Ford had been able to see them, and wasn’t forced to rely on his imagination for the details.

He could feel his injuries throbbing in tandem with his pounding heart, and it seemed like his ears were picking up every creak and snapping noise as the Thing moved along-

And then it was gone, and he and Stan were alone in the fog.

Slowly, shakily, Stan released his mouth, but remained close; Ford could see his hands trembling, even though he kept clenching them shut and looking around with anxious eyes.

Abruptly they fixed on something, and his breath hitched.

Ford turned, expecting it to be that person from earlier who Stan had been so surprised about him seeing-but instead, it was a large shape, about twenty feet ahead where the fog had cleared a little.

For a horrifying moment Ford’s heart jumped back into his mouth, but then he squinted and realized that it was…a kind of archway.

An archway made of stone, big enough for ten men walking side by side to pass, and still have room overhead for some very tall umbrellas or something.  It was very obviously manmade, not least because…there appeared to be writing on it.

Ford slowly stepped forward, peering at it over the crack in his left lens.

It had been carved straight into the stone, and he wasn’t sure if it was in another language entirely or if parts of it were somehow missing, because it didn’t make any sense.

YAT SYAM T SOLE HTYLNO

Ford stepped closer, and saw yet another arch behind it, with a different set of writing:

EVAE LYAM DNUOF E HTYLNO

“...Stanley?”  He glanced at his brother, who was just behind him, staring up at the arches with the same confusion.  At some point he had managed to snatch up a fallen branch, and tied a knife to the end of it.

“Don’t look at me, I don’t get it either,” he whispered back, twirling his new makeshift spear.  He seemed to have recovered a little now that he had one in his hands again.

“...Do you think it’s safe to walk under them?”

Stan squinted, and reached out with the spear to poke at the space under the arch.  Then he knelt, and tilted his head from side to side-before abruptly slicing through a vine stretched across the ground.  On one side of the arch, a beautiful purple flower let out a plaintive shriek, before slowly withering up.

Stan finally looked up, and gave a little shrug.

“Nothing’s gone in there in years.”  He straightened up, before adding, “…And it’s in the opposite direction of where that Thing went.”

Ford swallowed.  “Good enough for me.”

After another moment of hesitation, he stepped through the archway.

To his disappointment, nothing happened.

An archway this foreboding should have had something happen after stepping through it, like a tingle running down your spine or the ground beginning to shake.

But no-all was as still and ominous as before.

A moment later Stan was at his side, eyes darting and spear at the ready, and gave him a tiny nod.

Together, they walked further into the unknown.

As they approached the second arch, they found a third one, with yet another cryptic message:

EI DYAM T SOLYLURT EH TYLN ODNA

It proved to be as without any evident danger as the other two arches, and when they passed it, they found…a city.

Chapter Text

…Sort of.

It was technically the ruins of a city.

When they stepped through the final archway, the fog was thin enough for them to see what had once been a long stone road, with tall buildings built from rock and wood standing on either side.  In the middle of the road, about twenty feet away, some ancient architect had decided to place a three-level, beautifully tiled water fountain, which had possibly once had water lilies or other aquatic plants floating in each blue-green pool.

However, by now all had been claimed by the jungle.

The buildings, which must once have been absolutely majestic, had been reduced to broken boulders and half-standing walls, all of them crawling with vines and large clusters of moss.  The road was overgrown with plants, often poking out of the cracks between the stones.  As for the fountain, it had probably dried up years ago, and the tiles were cracked and broken.

Stan was surprised to find that it wasn’t just Ford’s footsteps that seemed far too loud as they walked through the eerie silence; it was probably because not even birds sang here, and the thick mist that surrounded the edges of the city made it feel like they were encased in a kind of dome that blocked out the rest of the world.

It was hard to tell if the destruction that surrounded them was natural, or if something had happened here.  Of course, on this island it could probably go either way.

Regardless, Stan was careful not to let himself get too comfortable.  Because on the one hand, he could tell that no animals lived here, except maybe a few insects that helped pollinate the plants.  There were no tracks, no droppings, no signs of vegetation being eaten-nothing.  It was probably the only place on the whole island completely devoid of predators (unless you counted Stan).

…On the other hand, that brought up the question of why exactly all the animals on this island were too afraid to come here.

Just in case, he kept his new spear clenched in his hand (and made a mental note to make some adjustments to it as soon as possible, because it wasn’t as well-balanced as it could have been).

For what might’ve been anywhere between five minutes and an hour (time was even harder to keep track of than usual with no trace of the sun) they walked along the broken trail of broken buildings.

Occasionally they saw a few more personal signs that people had lived here once: a statue sitting in front of a house, with its form too crumpled and broken for Stan to recognize what it was supposed to be of; another house with courtyard off to one side where the plants had been organized in rows, and even as overgrown as they were now it was faintly recognizable that they had once been a garden; some pieces of bent, rusted metal that Ford thought used to be wheels for a cart lay in another yard.

Several times Stan had to block the nerd’s path with the spear to stop him from rushing forward to examine them further; until or unless they found out what had happened here, he didn’t think it was a good idea to touch anything.

And then, up ahead, Stan saw something new: a circle of stones, about twenty feet high and completely devoid of greenery.

Just looking at them caused a small tingle to run down his spine.

“That must be the center of the island,” Ford whispered; his eyes were shining behind his glasses.

“...Could be,” Stan whispered back.  “But we probably shouldn’t-”

Ford was already striding towards it.

Stan groaned, and rushed to stay by his side.

And people used to think I’m the impulsive one.

He looked around anxiously as they reached the stones, but like everything else around here, they seemed creepy-but-safe.  Honestly, they kind of put Stan in mind of Stonehenge, or some other ancient druid circle, with the way they were grouped together.

With, of course, the obvious difference that as they peered inside, he could see that the inside parts of the stones had splashes of color on them which he was pretty sure most druid stones usually didn’t.

“You ever read about anything like this before?” he whispered.

“Never.  I think it’s a sign that there was an unknown civilization here once!”

Stan raised an eyebrow at the enthusiasm in Ford’s voice.  “Maybe this used ta be Atlantis.”

“No, that doesn’t make sense, Plato said that Atlantis sank -unless, of course, he was misinformed, and it ended up floating away instead…but then what happened to all the inhabitants…”  Ford began scrawling in his journal with a vengeance, even as he stepped into the stone circle-and gasped as he got a better look.

Each stone was decorated with the image of a person (or sometimes more than one), looking kind of like a hieroglyph except it was facing forwards, with markings at the top and bottom of each picture that didn’t look like any language Stan had seen before, and all surrounded by a colored border in either blue or red.

One stone was etched with a picture of a woman, wearing what looked like an aviator cap and very high boots; another had a large group of people that looked like sailors, probably from the previous century; yet another was a guy in a black uniform with a red armband on the left sleeve.

All of them were surrounded by red.

Ford was clearly in hog heaven, sketching and writing away with familiar manic energy as he rushed from stone to stone, muttering about “connections” and “correlation does not imply causation.”

And then, as he reached a stone that was blue instead of red, Stan recognized the tiny figure etched onto it.

“Drift!”

Ford looked up.  “...Sorry?”

“No, that-that’s Kit!  He was-he was the first ta wash up here after me!”

He stared in a mixture of shock and delight at the tiny face staring back at him; he’d forgotten how big the kid’s ears were, and how scrawny he’d been.  In the picture he was wielding a stick in one hand and glaring defiantly, like a kitten that thought it was a tiger.  Stan had to stifle a laugh at the memories that brought back.

…But this didn’t make sense.  He’d washed up here a few years ago, yeah, but this picture looked ancient .  Like it had been carved into the rock hundreds of thousands of years ago.

…Just when I think this place can’t get any weirder…

Stan looked to the right of Kit’s rock, and lo and behold, there was everyone else: Hunter, looking as grizzled as he remembered; Dante, wearing the suit he’d had on when he washed up and even carrying his stupid briefcase; Adele, carrying Angie on her hip; and Sun, with her hair in its messy black bun; all of them surrounded by blue.

Stan couldn’t help grinning at Sun and murmuring, “ Ibwa, pingkeu kkoch. ”

Ford gave him a confused look.  “Sorry?”

“I think it means, ‘Hey, beautiful.’”  Stan shrugged a little.  “She didn’t speak English, and since I didn’t know jack about Korean, we kinda had ta guess what we were saying to each other sometimes.”

(Actually, ‘hey, beautiful’ in Korean would have been ‘hei, aleumdaun.’  The misunderstanding arose when Stan tried to demonstrate to Sun what ‘beautiful’ meant by showing her a pink flower, leading to a very humorous linguistic misunderstanding.)

Stan’s smile faded when he realized that one figure wasn’t with them.

Cautiously, not sure if he was right but going on a small hunch, he turned to look-and there he was, back over on the red side: a tall guy wearing faded camo, and carrying a knife.  He had to blink a few times to push away the mental image of the face grinning and covered in blood, and tried not to think about the significance of his placement.

“Stanley.  Look.”

Gratefully he looked away, and saw Ford staring at two stones that were between the two colors, standing side by side.

There was no question about who they were.  One of them was wearing a white T-shirt and carrying a duffle bag over its shoulder, and the other had glasses and appeared to be hiding his hands behind his back.

They were unique among their fellows in that neither of them had a colored outline.

Chapter Text

A tiny chill ran down Stan’s spine as he stared at the image of his own youthful face.

How had he ever been that pale?

Had his cheeks really been that chubby?

Had he actually been wearing shoes ?

Stan barely recognized himself in this stocky teenage stranger; even the final rags of the clothes he’d been wearing when he first washed up here had fallen apart ages ago.

He stepped closer, trying to find something familiar in that face-and realized as he did that the stone was somewhat reflective, because he could see a horrifying wild thing approaching it too, right behind-

Oh.  Wait.

Holy Moses.

Stan slowly brought a hand up to his cheek, watching in disbelief as his reflection did the same and confirmed his worst fears.

Even if he washed off the dye, he didn’t think there’d be much of an improvement.  His hair was a matted, greasy, tangled mess that looked like birds nested in it on a regular basis; the beard was even worse, because in addition to the tangles and knots and uneven lengths he could see remains of past meals clotted in the hair around his mouth.  And when you took in the tattered clothes, the spear, and the wild look in his eyes…what you had before you was the kind of homeless guy that made you roll up your windows and lock the doors if you saw him on the street with a cardboard sign.

He turned away, clamping a (very rough, very callused) hand over his mouth, as his spear clattered to the ground.  He’d known he looked different after all this time, he’d known that he was basically a savage now, but he hadn’t been prepared at all to see this -

Ford was suddenly standing in front of him, moving slowly so he wouldn’t be threatened by his presence, and putting tentative hands on his shoulders.

“It’s all right, Stanley.  It’s all right, ssh.”

I’m not a kid, Stanford, quit tryna baby me.

Despite the mental admonishment, he found himself leaning forward, until his forehead dropped down onto Ford’s shoulder.

The little part of his brain most concerned with survival tried to speak up, remind him not to give in to the Lie or he’d just get hurt again, and that they didn’t have time for this anyway because they needed to get out of the open before this creepy place decided to do something worse to them; the rest of his brain told it to shut up, and then short-circuited altogether when he suddenly felt warm arms make their hesitant way around his shoulders.

He’d almost forgotten what this felt like: warm and secure and comforting, like being wrapped in a big, thick blanket, except better.

Even though he wanted to protest at how backwards this was, how he was supposed to be the one protecting and comforting Ford , he could feel the soothing rhythm of his twin’s chest rising and falling, and one of his big, warm hands rubbing little circles between his shoulders until he almost wanted to purr from the sensation.

Instead, when he finally felt capable of talking again he whispered, “You need a bath.”

Ford snorted.  “If I need a bath, then you need a decontamination shower.”

“Shut it.”  Stan gave him a tiny punch in the chest, before finally straightening up and pretending not to die inside when he felt the contact fall away; he distracted himself from the feeling by rubbing his face and quickly gathering up his spear.  “So what’s the theory, Einstein?”

Ford blinked and adjusted his glasses.  “...Beg your pardon?”

Stan straightened and gave the spear a small twirl.  “What, you don’t already have one about what all this crap means?”  He gestured to the circle of stones.  “Geez, you’re slipping.”

Ford’s confused expression changed to an eyeroll.  “I have a few ideas, yes, but I need more data before I can make a decision about which one to pursue.  In the meantime, we should probably find shelter and food, and then-” his expression turned more serious- “I think we need to talk.”

“...It’s never a good sign when people say that.”

“I know.  But I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t think it was important.”  The somewhat pleading look he gave Stan was definitely cheating.

He just looked away grumpily and stepped to the edge of the circle, right between Kit and Hunter.

Neither of them said anything as he left them; he wasn’t sure if that was a good sign or a bad one.

After some wandering back through the ghost village, they ended up moving cautiously into the ruins of the house that had a garden in the backyard, since it was the only one nearby with three and a half walls still standing.  Stan stepped in first to give it a quick search.

He found that it split into two rooms, which appeared to have once been a kitchen and a bedroom/general purposes room, since the former had what looked like a prehistoric wash basin and a stone counter where food was probably prepared; other than that, there wasn’t much of interest.  Both rooms were mostly empty, except for being covered in dust and cobwebs and dead leaves that crunched under his feet-but heck, Stan had slept in worse places before he finally managed to set up his own cave how he wanted it.  They’d just have to spread out some of the furs they’d brought from the other cave, and presto: perfectly comfy.

Once he was satisfied that the inside of the house was as safe as anything was around here, Stan went out to the garden.

Despite being overgrown and untended, some of the vegetables and fruits were still salvageable, and Stan was careful to take just enough that it wouldn’t be easily noticed.

Ford had already spread out the furs when he came back inside, so Stan laid out their meal, along with some fresh leaves for his injuries.

For a minute they ate in silence, and Ford took the opportunity to start cleaning and bandaging his injuries properly.

Then Stan sighed and asked aloud, “Where do you wanna start?”

Chapter Text

For once, Ford fought down his knee-jerk impulse (namely, to demand to know what the [CENSORED] Stan had been thinking when he’d decided it was a good idea to try to sacrifice himself to the baboon hyenas).  As much as it filled him with a kind of anxious, helpless anger, he suspected he already knew the answer to that one.

Instead he went with, “...Who was that person?”

Stan’s eyes darted towards him, then back down to the mushroom he had started munching.  “Which one?”

Ford forced himself to say patiently, “The blurry one that you were surprised I was able to see.”

He could see his twin’s shoulders immediately tensing up, and the mushroom getting crushed between his fingers.  “...Not sure anymore.”

“I don’t understand.”

Stan looked down at the mangled remains of the mushroom, before stuffing it into his mouth anyway.

For a moment Ford didn’t think he was going to get an answer, and was about to change the subject to something he’d hopefully be more comfortable discussing, when he said quietly, “It’s just-you’re gonna think I’m-”

Stan stammered for another second, before sighing and staring at his feet; as he spoke again, he absently rubbed the back of his neck in a familiar uncomfortable gesture.  “...After the last guy that was here, and all that went down, I…that’s when I first made the statues, back home-at the cave.  I guess I needed someone friendly ta talk to, and…yeah.”

Ford had to bite down on the desire to ask why he didn’t have a statue, while Ma and even Carla did; he had a nasty feeling that he knew that answer too.

Stan went on, still not meeting Ford’s eyes.  “I’d talk to ‘em, and pretend they were talking back, and-I dunno anymore how much of it’s just me imagining what they’d say if they were here, and how much is me...really hearing it.  Or just…”  He winced.  “...thinking I hear it.”

Ford had suspected as much.

He hadn’t wanted to consider the possibility, anymore than Stan wanted to admit it…but as alarming as it was to hear his suspicions confirmed, he had to admit that it wasn’t much of a surprise.

And considering everything that had happened to Stan, he wasn’t sure that he would have reacted any differently in his-he glanced down at Stan’s bare feet and was forced to cancel the idiom-if he’d been in the same circumstances.

Stan’s shoulders somehow managed to hunch even more, until he looked a little like a deformed vulture.  “Guess I sound like that guy from the pier, huh?”

Ford immediately knew who he was talking about, and it made his stomach churn uncomfortably.

Back in Glass Shard Beach, when they were about fifteen there was a man who had shown up on the dock one day, and made himself at home.  They never learned his name, but like Stan’s former friend who’d tried to become a cannibal, they’d suspected that he was a war veteran, because he wore a dirty army jacket and was always chewing a large handful of tobacco from a package that looked like the one Pa had brought back from his time in the service.  The man spent most of his day fishing, and while he sat there he’d talk and laugh and babble incoherently, apparently addressing his comments either to the empty air or to the pile of rotted fish heads lying next to him.  If he ever caught more fish, he’d quickly add their heads to the pile, but he also seemed perfectly content with pulling up old boots and rusty tin cans.  Occasionally people complained about his presence and worried about him being a danger to others, but nobody really tried to do anything about him.  Or for him.

Ma had given the boys many strict warnings to keep away from him, and despite their curiosity even Stan had been nervous enough to obey-possibly due to the large, rusty knife the man carried on his belt, and the way he was constantly covered in blood and fish guts from the knees down.  They’d just watched him from afar, with a mixture of curiosity, fear and pity.

And then one day towards the end of the summer, there was a tiny article in the paper saying that the man’s corpse had washed up on the shore that morning.  The authorities suspected that he’d fallen in the ocean during high tide or something and just not had the strength or sense to swim to safety.

He’d wound up being buried in a nameless grave, and people had just shrugged and expressed their quiet relief to each other that he hadn’t tried to kill anyone.

Ford hadn’t thought about him in years; thinking about him now, especially in conjunction with Stan, made a small chill run down his spine.

“What about the one I saw?  The blurry one?” he asked, trying to banish the mental image.  Without thinking about it, he got up and started pacing from one wall to the other.

Stan grimaced again, as he picked up his spear and began retying it.  “...He’s new.”

“Is he someone else who washed up here?”

“No, he just-I call him Steve.  Don’t know much about him except he’s really annoying.  And the fact that he’s right about some stuff just makes it worse.”

Ford stopped pacing, and swiveled to look at Stan head on.  “What stuff?”

Stan hunched over his work, and muttered something.

“I didn’t catch that.”

“I know.  That’s why I said it in a low voice.”

Ford rolled his eyes.  “Stanley, please.  I’m trying to gather as much data as possible so we can get some answers.”

Stan sighed, and reluctantly nodded.  “...He’s given me directions a couple times when I haven’t known the right way ta go.”

“That doesn’t sound all that annoying.”

“It was the first time.”  Stan shrugged, and held up the spear, turning it back and forth; whatever he saw apparently satisfied him, because he began sharpening it.

Ford frowned in confusion, but resumed pacing.  “...So when did you actually start seeing…Steve?”

“When we were tryna figure out how ta find the center.  He wasn’t really around before that.”

The pacing screeched to a halt, as Ford turned again, this time in excitement.  “Then maybe his existence is not so much a commentary on your mental state as on the level of weirdness concentrated towards the center of the island!”  Despite himself, he could feel a little thrill working its way down his spine.  “And maybe whatever is responsible for it all used Steve to guide us because it wants us to find the answers we’re looking for!  It’s like the trees: while he didn’t protect us from misfortune altogether, he led us in the right direction, and protected us in our direst moment of need!”

Stan didn’t look half as enthused about this new theory as Ford was.  He didn’t even look a quarter as enthused.

“Great,” he said icily.  “So at least one of my hallucinations might actually be real, and the island’s using it to play with us.”

He snatched up his spear before stomping out into the yard.

Chapter Text

Stan didn’t go far; he needed to stay close, needed to keep Ford safe.

He wound up just crouching down in the wreckage of the garden and ripping out some more overgrown vegetables at random, too angry now to care if it alerted something to their presence here.

It was one thing to think that he was losing it.

It was scary, and it sucked , but…even if he knew on some level that they were all in his head, at least having his group around made him feel a little less alone.  Even, in a weird way, Filbrick.

But if the whole reason why he kept seeing them was because the island was messing with him, and it wasn’t just his own brain making it happen as a coping mechanism or whatever…then what kind of a sick joke was that?  What did it get out of helping him pretend he still had all the people he’d lost with him?!

Probably making sure you don’t forget that it’s your fault you lost them all, cuz you’re a selfish, stupid fail-

Barely even taking time to aim, Stan hurled the spear at what turned out to be a particularly looming tree which the voice had been coming from; it lodged in the trunk, quivering, and Filbrick’s voice cut off.

Stan glared silently in that direction for a moment, and then went back to looking for food.

He barely noticed how thickly the fog was circling around him again-at least until it started glowing.

The mixture of gold and green light at the edges of his vision finally drew Stan’s attention away from venting his spleen on the defenseless greenery, and he looked up-before finally just sitting all the way down and watching the colors dance in quiet awe.

As it always did, getting to see the aurora helped to soothe his temper and provide a welcome distraction.  It took him a moment, though, to realize it wasn’t in the sky this time; instead, the colors seemed to have blended themselves in with the mist that surrounded him, until it was like he was actually inside the aurora.

Whoa…that’s pretty cool.

He faintly heard the sound of footsteps coming up behind him, and then a soft gasp.

“...Magnificent.”

Stan nodded wordlessly as he watched the colors, waiting to see where the story would start.  Until he noticed that they seemed to be wrapping themselves around the building he and Ford had decided to make their home.

Before his eyes the broken ruin changed into a beautiful building, probably all covered in tiers and buttresses and all those fancy architect words he’d never been able to wrap his head around.

Stan glanced around and saw that other buildings nearby were getting the same treatment, the aurora decorating them until they looked like they probably used to when they were first built: a beautiful, fancy city like how ancient Greece must’ve looked, or somewhere like that.

On a hunch, he picked his way over to the edge of the garden by the street, and saw that the same thing was happening here: the road was clean and shiny, the fountain flowing with sprays of blue and gold-colored water.

And there were people in the streets.

Not as many as you’d expect to see living in a city this big; probably just a couple dozen, walking back and forth along the road or between buildings and sometimes stopping to talk to each other soundlessly, and looking happy and at home here.

They were dressed in different styles of clothing, and looked like they were from all different parts of the world; Stan thought he recognized a couple Greek philosopher-looking guys, and someone who looked like an Indian fakir from a pulp fiction magazine, and basically a bunch of other people who looked like they spent a lot of time either traveling or thinking, or maybe both.

There were animals, too: all the weird hybrid kinds Stan had gotten used to seeing around, sometimes as pets, sometimes as food, but clearly happy and comfortable here.

As the aurora flowed, it showed them all living and working together and looking like they were having a pretty good time.  Sometimes new people came, looking sad or angry or hopeless, and they were welcomed by the villagers and eventually their smiles would join the others.

Occasionally, one or more of them who looked especially happy or at peace would look around, and even though there was no sound Stan knew they could hear the thudding of drums and their name being called, because they would then gather whatever supplies they wanted and after saying goodbye to their friends, go to the beach, and head for the shore, which was always just a short trip away.

(Stan had to swallow a lump in his throat at the memories that brought back.)

For a while the pattern stayed the same: people came, stayed a little while, and eventually left when it seemed like they’d had enough of a rest or whatever.

And then something went wrong.

A man came to the island that was either a wizard or a mad scientist, cuz he wore a long coat-robe-thing and was always taking samples of plants to study, and sometimes mash up and make into what looked like different potions.  He reminded Stan of Ford with how curious he was, always going off into the jungle to look for more things to study…except he was way more greedy for knowledge.

At first he seemed okay, since he was genuinely interested in helping people around him with his experiments.  He even helped a few leave the island (Stan wasn’t too clear on the details, but it looked like he managed to do something to the mist, and people’s thoughts started coming to life when they were in it?  Something like that).

But then he began spending most of his time hiding away in his own building, and making strange lights emanate from its windows while people watched in confusion and alarm outside.

A few joined him in his work, but after a while it looked like a schism (hey, look at that; Stan actually remembered one of those fancy vocab words!) broke out, with some of them moving to a different building and competing with him in their magic or science or whatever.

The aurora didn’t spend a lot of time dwelling on this period in time; instead it changed again.

The warm blues and greens had changed, becoming darker, angrier, red, orange, gold, surrounding the buildings in a simulation of fire, while people ran through the streets frantically trying to escape the destruction happening around them.

Some of them managed to reach the road out into the jungle, but others...weren’t so lucky.

The guy with the potions, and the people he’d been working with and against, were among the ones that weren’t so lucky.

When the lights changed again, it was to reveal the city slowly, slowly becoming the empty ruin it was now, which not even the animals dared to set foot in even after the plants reclaimed it.

Once in a while someone would come to the island, looking just as lost as those before, and stay awhile, but there were a lot less of them who heard the drums.

Instead they stayed, and either grew old until eventually their images vanished, or they wandered into the jungle and…well.  Stan knew what could happen to people who stayed in there for too long.

The lights slowly flickered to a sad blue-green color, and then died away, leaving him and Ford alone with the fog again.

Chapter Text

“...Guess it was a wizard after all.”

The sound of Stan’s voice breaking through the quiet made Ford jump.  He squinted over at where his brother stood, and faintly made out the sight of him shrugging before he trotted away into the fog.

“You thought maybe a wizard made the island.  Looks like you were kinda right.”  There was a crunching noise, and he reappeared with his spear in hand.

Ford snorted.  “We don’t know if one was actually responsible for creating the island, just that a group of wizards, highly advanced scientists, or perhaps alchemists, which are a sort of combination of the two fields, used to inhabit-”

“Yeah, yeah.  C’mon, let’s go inside, I’m cold.”

Once they were back in the building, Stan hesitantly built a fire in the fire pit.  Ford could tell his brother had to remind himself that nothing was likely to see it before he got started, and even then he kept it as low as possible, giving the room a dull red glow when he was done.

As soon as it was light enough for him to see, Ford pulled out his journal again, and started making a record of everything they’d seen, even though to his annoyance the artwork wasn’t up to his usual standards because of how much his hand kept shaking with excitement.

There had been an entire civilization living here once!

Or, well, technically a small group of people.  But that sort of counted as a civilization, didn’t it?

Had they been the ones who first built this town, or was it already there when they came here?  Were there ever any children born here?  Did they have their own languages, customs, belief systems?  Bigger questions: how long ago had all this happened?  Were the people they had seen the ones responsible for creating the island in the first place and giving it its special properties, such as giving the trees sentience?  And if they weren’t the ones who had done so, then WHO ?!?!

He wrote the final word down all in capital letters, and, as childish as it felt to do so, added an extra question mark and exclamation point after it, since the question was fascinating enough to warrant such dramatic punctuation.

His musing was interrupted by Stan murmuring, “It’s kinda…sad, isn’t it?”

Ford looked up, adjusting his glasses.  “Hmm?”

“The island.  It got so messed up by other people, and it just…wants ta be useful again.”  Stan was staring into the embers, as he absently tapped a mushroom against his other palm.  Ford felt an uncomfortable twist in his gut at the expression on his face.

After a second, though, Stan shook himself and bit into the mushroom, before stretching his legs out so the bottoms of his feet were being warmed by the coals with a sigh.

Ford hesitated, before setting down the journal and leaning forward, resting his chin on his clasped hands.  Now that they were both relaxed and fed and at least a few questions had been answered, it seemed like a good time to make something clear.

“Stanley…about earlier, when we were being pursued by the mandrill hyenas…don’t do that again.”

Stan shot him an annoyed glance; he responded with one of his own.

“I’ve already had to spend the last eight years thinking you were dead.  I would prefer not to have to deal with that becoming a reality.”

The glare in Stan’s eyes faded, replaced by a blink of genuine shock.  “...You did?”

Ford huffed through his nose.  “Yes, you idiot .  You took our boat of dubious seaworthiness and disappeared without a trace.  What was I supposed to think?”

Stan stared at him, eyes wide, before giving a little shrug.  “I dunno.  Just…figured you wouldn’t…”

He shrugged again.

Ford felt like the bottom had dropped right out of his stomach as Stan looked away without finishing his sentence.

Wouldn’t what?

Wouldn’t care ?

Wouldn’t wonder what had happened to Stan just because he’d lost him the opportunity to go to his dream college?

Because yes, that had been important to him, and losing that opportunity had still hurt more than anything he’d ever felt up to that point, but that didn’t mean he’d wanted Stan dead , or to just-vanish!  Just how heartless did Stan think he was?!

“It was a look that said, ‘Good riddance.’”

… That heartless, apparently.

“What happened to us?” Ford whispered.

Stan glanced at him, then back at the fire and shrugged a third time.  “I messed up your project, got kicked outta the house and wound up on a magic island.”

“That’s not what I meant and you know it.  In just one night we went from us against the world to…” he waved vaguely, “...this.”

Then again, it was probably a far more natural progression than that, wasn’t it?  Because over time Ford had started wanting more, and Stan had just wanted to be enough.

And after a certain point, neither of them could get what they wanted anymore.

He was still thinking about how to articulate his thoughts to Stan, or even just bring up the elephant in the room, when a familiar, highly unexpected voice crackled from the shadows, “You were better off without him anyway, boy.”

Stan groaned.

Of all the stupid times…

“I thought I gave you a pretty clear message that you weren’t wanted!” he snapped at the shadowy corner the voice had come from.  He realized just a little too late that maybe he shouldn’t have said that aloud, just in case it was just in his head, when the man himself stepped into view and he heard Ford give a startled gasp behind him.

“...Is that…Pa?”

But Filbrick wasn’t paying attention to Ford anymore; his shades were fixed on Stan as he stepped forward, the ground trembling beneath his giant feet.

Everything about him was giant, in fact, bigger than he’d ever seen him: his head towered about thirty feet above them, his arms were as big around as Stan’s whole body, if not bigger, with the accusing finger he pointed at Stan more like a giant, sharp claw.  Under his mustache, his lip curled in disgust.

“Aren’t I right though, Stanley?  Cuz without you around, Stanford could finally do things and make something outta his life-except oh wait, you screwed that up too, so he got stuck studying algae for a living!”

Behind him the mist began changing, shaping itself and gaining tiny flecks of color, until it looked somewhere familiar, and before he could protest, it began playing out a familiarly horrible situation that he knew by heart.  And this time he could hear it too.

“This is all your fault, ya dumb machine!”   An angry slam of fist on table, a hiss of smoke and clink of a metal thing falling off, and Stan’s young voice again, this time panicking as it sank in what he’d just done.  “Oh no.  Oh no no no, what’d I do?!”   Hurriedly picking up the metal thing, sticking it back on the bottom, turning the screws to hold it in place.  “There.  All right.  Good as new.  Probably.”   And covering it up, leaving with anxiety still churning his stomach but telling himself it’d be fine, Sixer was smart enough not to build something he could break beyond repair that easily.

Stan wouldn’t look at Ford.  Couldn’t.  Not when shame and panic were making it feel like all the air was being sucked out of his lungs.

Filbrick looked at Stan like he was something from the gutter he’d just had to clean off one of his penny loafers.

“Your brother’s got gifts!  Plans!  All the skills to make a bright future for himself, and instead he’s trapped here , on this floating hunk of weirdness that he can’t even study the way he wants to cuz he’s gotta rely on you ta keep him alive!”

The mist changed again, showing Ford trying to swim away and getting thrown back to shore; Ford examining an interesting plant and trying to sketch it, and Stan pulling him away; Ford sitting on the bed in the cave trying to concentrate on deciphering the journal while Stan pushed food into his hand, forcing him to stop and eat.

Stan tried to shrink away, grab his spear, something -but Filbrick just snatched him up in one meaty hand, and lifted him until they were face to face.  The embers of the fire reflected in his glasses, turning them to a dark, angry red, as he began shaking Stan like a ragdoll, so hard he couldn’t even think of struggling.

“Admit it, boy!  If you’d just accepted a long time ago that you need your brother a heck of a lot more than he needs you, he wouldn’t be stuck here now!  But he is , with his life and prospects and future all shot down the tubes, and neither of you know jack about gettin’ off again, and it’s all.  Your.  FAULT!”

“NO IT’S NOT!”

The shaking stopped with a jerk; Stan swayed dizzily, feeling like the top of his head was about to come off-and then he registered what had just been said, and who had said it.

Filbrick seemed just as shocked as he was…until anger set in.

“What did you just say to me?!”

“Oh, you heard me perfectly!” Ford snapped; even from up here Stan could faintly make out his hands clenched into trembling fists.  “I don’t know how much of you is really what Stan thinks our father feels about him, and how much is what he feels about himself, and how much is-is a combination of the two-” he faltered, looking faintly horrified, but then rallied again with a ferocious glare that Stan was more than a little impressed by- “but what I do know is that you’re wrong about him!”

“You can’t be serious,” Filbrick spluttered.  “You’re actually defending this loser?!  After everything he messed up for you?!”  The squeeze he gave Stan nearly made him black out, before it loosened again.  He finally snapped out of his daze enough to start trying to squirm free, even though the grip was like iron.

“He didn’t deserve to be thrown out for it!”

“...Wait, what?”

The look Ford gave Stan appeared just as confused by his reaction as Stan was to hearing those words actually leave his brother’s mouth.

“Yes, what happened was the worst experience of my life, at that point in time.  Losing you, and thinking you had died because of it, was even worse .”

Stan didn’t know if he was imagining it, but it seemed like Filbrick had suddenly…shrunk.  And his grip didn’t feel quite as strong, even as he tried to rally.  “That’s just cuz you felt sorry for him or something.  Stupid sentimental garbage distracting you from-”

“I never wanted fame and fortune, all right?!  I just wanted to find a place where I could finally fit in, and West Coast Tech initially seemed like a good fit!  Holy Moses, don’t you ever shut up ?!”

“Don’t you talk back to me!”  But Filbrick had shrunk again; he only seemed to be about twenty feet tall now, shrinking more and more by the second, and his grip had loosened enough for Stan to pull free of it.  He immediately fell a little too hard to the floor and could tell he was going to get some impressive bruises out of it, but seconds later Ford had grabbed him and pulled him away to the other side of the fire.

“You’re making a mistake!” Filbrick snarled; even his voice was less looming and bellowing now, sounding more peevish than anything else.  “Even here all you do is drag him down, and sooner or later he’s gonna realize that-”

“I’m keeping him alive , moron.”  Even through the terror, the insult was incredibly satisfying to say out loud.  “Studying the weirdness all around him’s no good if he’s not alive to appreciate it or show it to other people afterwards.  That’s not holding him back, that’s protecting him.  That’s my job .  Now get off my lawn.”

Filbrick-Pa-barely looked anything like a monster anymore.  Instead he looked like Stan supposed he did back in the real world: just a grumpy, impossible to impress old man from Jersey in a tacky yellow jacket.  He folded his arms with an annoyed huff, and slowly disappeared.

If Stan knew himself the way he thought he did, he wasn’t gone forever…but it was a start.

For a long moment they stood still, panting and trying to collect themselves.

Then Ford asked, “...You really tried to fix it?”

Stan flinched…but nodded weakly.  “I shoulda just told you what happened, though.  Or just-not gone near the dumb thing at all.”

“Yes, that…would’ve possibly been for the best.”

The admission stung, obviously, but he knew he deserved it.

“But I shouldn’t have talked about it with you where Pa could hear, and grossly overreact to the situation.”  He felt a warm, six-fingered hand touch his arm, and only startled a little at the unexpected contact.  “...And I definitely shouldn’t have made you feel like you were being left behind.  Or like you didn’t have a future too.”

For a long moment, Stan was quiet.

Then he sniffed, and scrubbed an angry hand over his eyes.

“ Ugh, dumb building-got a lotta dust everywhere.”

“Agreed, this is-” he heard Ford rubbing his eyes too- “an unaccountable nuisance.”

“And no one else can prove otherwise.”

Chapter Text

In the morning, they went out to explore the city again.

The fog had lightened into a thin blanket that just barely canopied the highest buildings and the tops of the surrounding trees, turning the sun into a small ball of gold that was just barely safe to glance at through the haze, and making it look like they were enclosed in a big golden dome.

As they wandered, Ford looked around at everything, scribbling observations and sketches into every free space he could find to write in, and occasionally getting so absorbed in his work that it was all Stan could do to keep him from running into things.

Just like old times.

Things weren’t perfect between them, obviously; they had a long way to go before they were even close to that.  But Stan felt…better.

Like a weight that he’d been carrying for ages was finally lifted off his chest, leaving him lighter and happier than he could remember feeling since…maybe when Adele and Angie were here?  No, probably farther back, with Sun…or even Kit…then again, it was probably more like long before any of those times, back in Glass Shard.

And even though a little part of him kept worrying that this wasn’t going to last, that he would screw it up somehow or it would all turn out to be a Lie again…he kept remembering what Ford said to Filbrick.  And what he’d said to him.

And since Ford was the worst liar in the world, making Ma jokingly wonder aloud a few times if he was really her child, that meant there was at least a 95% chance that it was Real instead.

The buildings were all pretty much the same: old, crumbling, anything that might have once been in them turned to dust ages ago unless it was made of stone or metal, and overgrown with plants, or at the very least moss.

Judging from the way Ford’s eyes darted around the buildings that had fallen apart the most, Stan suspected he was looking for the one where the wizard guy used to live.  He hoped it was just to make observations, and not so he could try to replicate his experiments.

What they mostly found, though, was odds and ends: a set of old, rusty daggers hanging on a wall, which crumpled and flaked when Stan tried to take one down (and made Ford scold him about the risk of getting tetanus); pieces of broken, twisted jewelry; a few more statues that Ford thought were representations of ancient gods (Stan named the most intact ones Larry, Moe and Curly); and a broken clay jar that had a picture of someone doing a backflip on a bull.

The jar, of all things, was what got Ford the most excited.  He picked up the half that still had a handle attached and turned it from side to side admiringly.

“Unless I miss my guess, this is a genuine example of Minoan pottery!”  His voice practically went up to an octave Stan hadn’t heard since before his voice changed.

“...Fish people?”

Ford elbowed him with a snort.  “Not minnow-an, Minoan!  The predecessors of the ancient Greeks, the people from whom the legend of Theseus and the Minotaur originated!  Just imagine how excited a museum would be to get their hands on this!”  He held the jar up to the light, letting them both see that the dingus’s coloring was still pretty nice.  “If we included the logbook and maybe a few more artifacts from this city, then I could practically write out the check for my research grant myself!”

“As long as you didn’t haveta explain where you got them from.”

Stan knew he was being a buzzkill, but he felt like before Ford got too carried away with his new fantasy he oughta be reminded that if he told people he found all these cool artifacts on a magic island that’s never in the same place twice, he’d be lucky if all they did was laugh at him.

Ford’s jubilance immediately wilted.  “Oh.  Right.  Yes, I…suppose that would be a bit of a challenge.”

He looked so crushed that after a second Stan said, “...I mean, you could probably just come up with a decent lie.  Or I could come up with a decent lie and you could use it.”

“Heh.”  Ford smiled, a little more weakly than before, and set the jar back in its spot before trudging onward.

After a second of hesitation, Stan picked it back up and tucked it under his arm before trailing after him.

He barely registered that he hadn’t turned down the possibility of them getting off the island altogether.

When they got tired they sat down to rest in the shade of an old tree for lunch, while Stan sharpened and cleaned his weapons.  He even used some of their water to clean the jar, allowing them to see that it still had a bit of a gloss to its surface, and that there was some fancy decoration on the edges of the picture.

While Ford gave him an appreciative smile, and after Stan finished cleaning it he resumed his examination of the jar, Stan could tell he was still all broody over having made the anomalous discovery of a lifetime, something that could maybe make those jerks who’d laughed at him eat their words…and didn’t have enough evidence to prove it unless they somehow saw the island for themselves.

Stan  bit his lip, unsure if he knew the right thing to say to comfort him, but feeling like he oughta say something …and finally went with, “Y’know, you’re not just a brain on legs.”

Ford gave him a confused blink.

“...I’m sorry?”

Stan finished sharpening a knife, and began absently twirling it between his fingers.  “Even if you don’t have a research grant or whatever, you still got a lot going for you.  You don’t haveta prove anything to anyone.”

He didn’t have to look at Ford’s expression to know that he didn’t believe him.

With a sigh Stan put down the knife, and began sharpening and cleaning the next one.  “For one thing, you’re a pretty funny guy.”

Ford tilted his head.  “I think you have us mixed up, Stanley.  You’re the funny one.”

“We can both be funny, Sixer.  I remember all those corny puns you kept coming up with when we were kids that’d have me in stitches.  And you thought up the best insults for me to dish out at Crampelter.”

“That’s not exactly a high bar, considering how easy it is to come up with insults for a lout like that.”

“...Yeah, okay, I’ll give you that one.”  Stan grinned.  Heh; it occurred to him that if they ran into their old bully now, he’d have a big surprise coming if he tried to mess with them.

Before he could voice this thought aloud, Ford said, “Besides, unlike me, you at least had the confidence to tell your jokes.  And because of how charismatic you were when you told them, more often than not you made people laugh even at the really bad ones.”

Stan scoffed.  “That’s probably cuz people in Glass Shard had a really lowbrow sense of humor.”

It was Ford’s term to make a noise of reluctant acquiescence, before going back to studying the jar.

After a minute Stan spoke again.

“You’re also a great artist.  You’re really good at paying attention to detail and all that junk, and I’m pretty sure even if I tried for a million years I wouldn’t get half that good.”

Ford turned to look at Stan head-on, setting aside the jar.  “You’re more artistic than you think you are.  And you’re also a great storyteller.”

“Quit changing the subject.  This is compliment-Ford time.”

Ford’s jaw set stubbornly.  “What if I want to make it compliment-Stan time too?”

“...Then you’re weird.”

“Yes, I’ve had that sentiment generously established throughout my life.”  Ford scooted around until he was looking directly at Stan, and went on, “Not only are you phenomenal at entertaining people with your creativity and sense of humor, but you’re also far more resourceful and smart than you seem to realize.”

To his own embarrassment Stan struggled for a response for a moment, before stammering out, “...Well, I’m resourceful, anyway.”

“You have to be smart to be resourceful, Stanley.”  The smug look on his face was very familiarly annoying.  “You figured out how to survive in a dangerously hostile environment, without assistance outside of the island occasionally taking steps to ensure your survival, for eight years straight, while adopting improvised weapons and camouflage as needed.  That demonstrates a remarkable level of adaptability and superior intelligence.”

“Oh, come on , Ford-”

“There’s more than one type of intelligence in the world, Stanley,” Ford insisted stubbornly.  “Yours just happens to be grossly unappreciated by narrow-minded people who think my kind is better.”

There was an unspoken people like Pa somewhere in there.

Again, Stan struggled to respond for a moment, before going with, “...You sound like Adele.  She kept telling me junk like that when she was here.”

Ford gave him a look of fond exasperation.  “Well, you should’ve believed her, knucklehead.”

Stan just rolled his eyes and went back to cleaning his spear, in an attempt to distract himself from the sudden tightness in his throat.

Ford finally stood up, brushing himself off, and picked up the jar.

“It’s probably a little silly for me to keep this, isn’t it?”

Stan shrugged.  “Long as it doesn’t slow us down, I don’t care.”

Ford hefted the jar for a moment, gauging the weight and trying to tell himself that it would ultimately be more sensible to just leave this historical artifact behind…and then cradled it protectively against his chest.

“I knew you couldn’t do it.”

“Shut up.”  Ford turned away haughtily, and Stan barely saved him from clotheslining himself on a branch.

As they wandered back through the ruins Stan asked, “If you got that research grant you wanted…what’d you even do with it?”

Ford hummed thoughtfully.  “I’d probably be in Gravity Falls right now.”

“Gravity Falls?  Is that a space station or something?”

That got a pretty decent snort out of him.  “Hardly.  From what I’ve read about it, it’s…in some ways not too different from here.  It’s a little town in Oregon where all sorts of weird things happen…”

Needless to say, it wasn’t long before Ford was regaling Stan with stories of all the strange, wonderful things he’d heard happened in this town, like tiny men in big red hats occasionally raiding people’s trash cans, and bears with multiple heads that wandered the forest (and apparently enjoyed listening to BABBA, but Ford wasn’t sure if that source had been reliable or not).

“Sounds like it was a dream come true,” Stan murmured as they arrived back at ‘their’ building, and tramped inside.

“It was.”  Ford smiled wistfully…which turned into a small sigh as he sat down on his pile of skins.  “But the grant board thought my desire to study the supernatural, or even just the anomalous, was ridiculous and wouldn’t give me any funding, so I just…ended up working on the research vessel, with the thought that maybe there I’d eventually earn enough to go to Gravity Falls someday.  Sort of a ‘jam tomorrow’ deal, in hindsight.”  And, he reflected ruefully, it had earned Pa’s grudging approval that he was doing something that constituted a ‘real’ job, and even though things had become even more strained between them after Stan…that little part of his soul had still wanted him to be impressed-

“If we get off the island, you should go there.”

Ford blinked.  “...Sorry?”

“You heard me.”  Stan began building up the fire.  “You love weird stuff, it’s your favorite thing in the world next to jelly beans, and I guess, coffee.  So if it makes you happy, go study it.  Screw the grant people.  Pretty sure you could find a job or something that’d get you the money you needed without their help.”

…Ford had to admit, it did sound idyllic.  Perhaps he could do odd jobs around town, and spend his spare time out studying the rare phenomena of the forest, comparing it to some of the strange things he’d encountered here to see if there was any connection-

“What about you?”  He gave Stan a somewhat scolding look.  “What’s your role in this little hypothetical scenario?”

Stan froze, and his shoulders hunched, and if he was about to say something else self-deprecating, I swear to Tesla Ford was going to swat him.

Finally he cleared his throat, and shrugged.  “Well, um-I-I guess…”  Ford could faintly see his ears reddening through the thick mane of his hair.  “...If you wanted me to, I’d be there ta make sure you remember how ta eat and sleep and stuff.  I mean, living in a quiet little town surrounded by forest sounds kinda nice.  But-we wouldn’t haveta do that, I don’t wanna be suffocating or-ow, what the heck?!”

Ford tossed another mushroom up and down threateningly.  “Stanley, I would be overjoyed to have you stay with me and let me help you readjust to civilization.”  He lowered the mushroom when Stan stopped looking like he was about to protest.  “And we could work together to figure out our place in the world, and-”

Stan’s eyes lit up.  “And we could write a book or something!”

“...A book?”

“Yeah!”  Stan brushed his bangs back out of his eyes, and let out a small excited laugh, of the kind Ford couldn’t remember hearing from him since they were children.  “We could write about this island, and all the weird crap we’ve seen here, complete with illustrations!  It’d be like a pulp fiction story or something-people probably wouldn’t believe it was real, but I bet it’d still sell like hotcakes!”

Ford slowly stood up, and put a hand to his chin as he began to pace in a thoughtful circle.  “Well, it’s not exactly as prestigious as managing to actually convince the scientific community…”  His eyes slowly brightened to match Stan’s.  “...but I think you’re right.  It’s a story that people would find utterly fascinating , especially with the rugged ne’er-do-well with a heart of gold as the protagonist!”

“Quit making this about you, Stanford-ow.”  He rubbed his shoulder with a grin.

Ford lowered his arm, smirking, and then looked at the row of buildings across from them thoughtfully.

“...It might also have the beneficial side effect of helping future inhabitants.  If they read the books, they would know what to expect, and how to protect themselves against all the dangerous things, and maybe more of them would be able to eventually return home-”

And then he stopped short, eyes widening.

He glanced at Stan, to make sure he wasn’t just imagining things, and saw his eyes were just as wide as his own felt.

It reassured him that he really was hearing the far-off sound of drums…as well as, just on the edge of his hearing, the sound of someone calling their names.

Chapter Text

“Sixer…” Stan whispered finally, “I think you just bribed the island.”

Everyone who’d heard it calling their name had told him that it sounded like the voice of someone different; Kit thought it was his mother, Dante his pretty young secretary, Adele her grand-mére from Dakar, Sun had said something he thought meant it sounded like her little brother…the point was, it always belonged to someone they knew that apparently still loved them, or who thought their existence was important.  Heck, in Hunter’s case it had been the voice of his parole officer.

And now, as Stan listened, he couldn’t help thinking that the voice, faint as it was, had a hint of Jersey accent, and an even larger hint of long-suffering patience.

Ford seemed to hear it too; he adjusted his glasses and asked, with a confused frown, “Is that…Shermie?”

“Kinda sounds like him, yeah.”

The voice called again, more insistently; the sound of drumming rose in accompaniment.

“Stanford…Stanley…”

This couldn’t be real.  He was probably dreaming again, it wouldn’t be the first time that happened…or he was just mishearing the voice, that used to happen all the time when they were kids, so it was probably just calling Ford-

“STANLEY AND STANFORD PINES!!!!” the voice bellowed.

…Then again, maybe not.

Stan was mortified to feel his stomach tying itself in knots, and a chill running up and down his spine and into his suddenly-shaking hands.  He had never, ever expected to hear his name being called, and now after all these years-

“Stanley?”  His view was suddenly blocked by the sight of Ford’s anxious eyes.  “We probably shouldn’t keep it waiting.”  He held up his bag with a weak smile.  “...I’m all packed.”

Stan could see the edge of the Minoan jar peeking out of the top, and a snide thought about how exactly his twin expected to swim to shore carrying it managed to break through the numbness a little bit.

All he said, though, was, “...Fine.  Let’s go.”

He stood up, snatching up his spear in one hand and grabbing Ford’s wrist in the other, and marched out into the street.

There was a figure standing there waiting for them; one who Stan was finally able to see clearly, because all the blurry faded-ness had gone away.

He had a kinda round, chubby face, with a few spots of acne here and there, and short brown hair that was slicked back, and a pretty honking big nose for his age; as they got close, “Steve’s” eyes lit up with a warm smile, before he jerked a thumb over his shoulder towards a long dirt path waiting for them at the end of the street that he was pretty sure hadn’t been there before.

Stan didn’t know what to make of his mental health looking like…that, and he didn’t have the time or patience to try to dissect it now.  He just nodded to him as they passed, and then took off running down the path, pulling Ford with him.

At first Ford staggered and stumbled, but once he got his footing he began to…not exactly match Stan’s pace, but still keep up with him a lot better than he had as a child.  Before long they were running side by side, following the sound of the drums.

To Stan’s surprise, within an hour he could see the faint glimmer of the ocean up ahead through the trees, and he could even pick up the sound of waves crashing.

He wasn’t sure if that meant that the island was a lot smaller than he’d realized, or if they’d gotten turned around in the fog while finding the city and it wasn’t actually at the center, or if the island had somehow shrunk itself.  Knowing how the thing worked, any of those was within the realm of possibility, and either way he- they -had come too far to worry about it now.

A little part of Stan worried that this was too good to be true, that any second he was going to trip at the finish line because baboon hyenas or saber-toothed crocodile gorillas or strangling vines or those stupid flowers that shot poison darts were going to get in their way and try to stop them from leaving.

The rest of him cracked his knuckles and said, Let them .

But nothing did.

And then, as he and Ford jogged to the end of the dirt path and took their first steps onto the coarse, rough, irritating sand, he realized that he could see, through the fresh blanket of fog that hovered over the waves, a faint, rocky coastline in the distance.  And sitting in front of them, bobbing lightly in the shallows, was their boat.

Good as new, with a sail billowing proudly from the mast, and the words Stan O’War emblazoned on the side.

“...Where is that?” Ford asked, squinting at the coastline.

“How the heck should I know?”  Stan hesitantly stepped closer to the boat, trying to remember if it had always been this small.  “It doesn’t look like Jersey…but maybe I just don’t remember it well anymore.”

“No, no, you’re probably right.”  Ford followed him, and after a second he set his bag down in the front of the boat.  “There’s only one way to find out, though.”

Stan looked out at the ocean, then at the boat, before abruptly stumbling back.

“I-I should go find the cave and block it up first, make sure it’ll be safe for the next guy.  Or-we oughta stay the night, cuz it’s getting dark, and we can catch one last aurora, and I dunno if the tide’s good, y’know, we might wreck and drown before we can get to shore and that’d suck.  Or-”

Gentle six-fingered hands caught his shoulders; his mouth snapped shut.

“I think the island has it covered,” Ford said softly.

Stan bit his lip, and fumbled with his spear.  He was right, and he knew he was right.  There was no good reason why he should be putting this off.

“...Can I at least go-say goodbye to everyone?”

Ford’s brow furrowed, but all he said was, “Only if you promise to come back.  Because I’m not leaving without you.”

“Yeah, I just…wanna grab some stuff.”

Stan!   We just got the news! Kit cheered as Stan stepped inside and hurriedly grabbed up a few things: his precious canisters of salt and pepper, a few extra weapons-and an old, faded photograph that he’d somehow managed to keep preserved all this time.  He wanted to bring his dye, because you never knew when you’d need to hide, but the containers would probably spill and he’d lose it all.

You’re finally gonna get off this rock-this is great! the kid went on as he watched him.

“Yeah.  Great.”  Stan snatched up one of his sturdiest hides and used it to tie everything into a bundle-before pacing in a little anxious circle.  “So why do I feel like this?”

Probably because you’re afraid of this new massive change in circumstances, cher , Adele pointed out; absently Stan adjusted her head back up straight.  This place has been a constant in your life, and now you’re about to lose it.

It’s okay to be afraid, honey, Ma murmured.  But you know you don’t wanna stay here, and you have a plan for what you’re gonna do out in the real world, so don’t keep your brother waiting.

“But-”

No buts except yours outta this cave!  Now quit stalling and go on!

Agreed, Dante said primly.  You’ve spent enough time surviving here; now’s your chance to finally go out and live.

You go, geochin namja, said Sun softly (Stan thought that meant ‘handsome,’ since she called him that a lot).

“Ugh, it’s like all of you are conspiring against me!”  But Stan reluctantly moved from statue to statue, gently adjusting and fixing them one last time, hoping they wouldn’t freak out whoever saw them next too much.

Last of all he went to the remains of Filbrick Four, still lying in the corner where he’d left them…and after a minute of staring thoughtfully he stacked them up again, except for the broken head.  Then he went out and grabbed the skull, which had long since been picked clean, and set it on top of the pile, and stood back.

“Pretty sure you’re the only one I’m not gonna miss.”

Filbrick Five glared at him, before the skull tilted, almost like he was shrugging.  Just get outta here already if you’re gonna leave.

Stan nodded, and after gathering everything and looking around one last time…he did.

Together they pushed the Stan O’War out of the shallows, before climbing in one at a time, seated on either side of the tiller.  Despite Stan’s concerns about it being smaller than he remembered, he was relieved to find that they both fit all right, and while it was a little heavy in the water it still floated.

As they began riding the waves, Stan turned around to get one last look at the island that had been his home for eight years-and saw that it was already starting to be swallowed up by the fog, so he could barely see it.  That meant that any second, it’d be gone, probably forever.

It was like a giant fist had grabbed onto his heart and started squeezing it, while another one was doing the same thing to his throat.

There was so much that he hadn’t seen, and hadn’t done-there was a big waterfall on the other side of the island, he’d thought about going swimming in the pool under it sometimes, but after what happened with Thayne he’d never worked up the courage to go that far for a bath, not if it meant washing away his camouflage so far from the cave; he’d never tried to ride one of the elephant giraffes that sometimes migrated close by, or climbed the mountain, or-

Again, the feeling of a warm hand on his shoulder pulled him out of his mini spiral.

Ford gently turned him until he was facing forward, and asked, “Do you still remember how to work the tiller?”

Stan swallowed, and then shrugged, giving his brother a weak smile.  “I might need a few pointers.”

“Turn it left if you want to go right, and right if you want to go left.”

“Ugh, this is why we should’ve put a wheel on this thing!”

“Need I remind you that it wasn’t within our budget?”

“Which is why we shoulda just stolen one!  This isn’t rocket surgery, Sixer!”

“Rocket science .”

“Same difference.”

They continued playfully bickering, up to the point that they washed up on the shore.

Chapter Text

The first thing Ford noticed as they reached the shore was how cold it was.

It was only to be expected; after what had to be at least a week or two trekking through a hot, humid jungle, of course any lower temperatures would feel chilly to him.

And then he heard the soft “huh-suh-suh-suh-suh” of teeth chattering at his side, and realized that if he was cold, Stan had to be absolutely freezing .

Before he could ask, though, Stan hopped out of the boat-and immediately gave a muffled scream which turned into a litany of impressive curses while he did a small jig.

“How’s the water?”  Ford tried very, very hard not to grin too widely.

“Sh-sh-sh-shut up,” Stan hissed, grabbing the side of the boat and tugging it over to the nearby dock, scrambling up the ladder as quick as he could.  “G-g-g-g-gimme the st-st-stupid rope.”

Ford passed it over, and once the Stan O’War was firmly tied up, they grabbed their things and slowly, cautiously began to walk down it towards a cabin which looked like the marina office.

Despite being visibly on edge, Stan seemed to be handling it well; he was walking casually enough, aside from keeping his spear clenched in one hand while his eyes darted from side to side, and he seemed more like “curious and interested” Stan than “fight or flight” Stan.

At least the shore was more or less deserted, with just a few people getting in some twilight fishing further down the beach; there weren’t even a lot of electric lights on yet, just a few cars parked up the hill by the quiet, empty road.  Hopefully they could just take their time to slowly adjust to being back in civilization, without any confrontations or unpleasant surprises until they’d gotten a chance to call Ma-

An old, rusty pickup truck came skidding into the parking lot on two wheels, while the driver apparently exercised a desire to implode the eardrums of everyone in the surrounding area by blaring his horn.

“STANLEY NO!”

…It was probably only by the sheerest luck that Ford’s grab to his elbow stopped Stan from throwing his spear straight through the windshield and outright killing whatever maniac was behind the wheel.  Instead the spear was knocked to the right, screeching slightly as it raked a long line down the side of the truck before disappearing into the bushes, while the truck itself braked to a squealing halt.

Stan made a strangled sound through his teeth, and then looked at Ford sheepishly.

“...Oops.”

“...It’s okay, you’re okay, we’ll just-come up with some kind of explanation.”

As they started towards the car Ford wished he had some cash on him, if the driver proved to be difficult; the last thing he wanted was for Stan to spend his first night back in civilization in a jail cell.

The driver was still sitting frozen in place as they got close; Ford could see through the windshield that he was on the petite side, with mousy hair and big, baggy eyes that were currently staring at them with the kind of expression normally seen on a terrified rabbit.

“...Sorry about that!” Ford called, trying to smile reassuringly.  “We-um-we mean you no harm!”

He could hear Stan groan from behind him.  “Smooth.”

“Maybe you should talk to him, then.”

“Fine, maybe I will!”  Stan shoved past him and began stomping forward.  But before he reached the truck, the engine revved to life, and the driver reversed with a squeal of tires before tearing off back down the road, quickly fading into the distance.

The two men looked at each other…and then retrieved the spear, before making their way as casually as possible back to the boat.

“Probably oughta head a little further up the coast.”

“Agreed.”

The man running the front desk at the next marina office was…surprised, to put it mildly, by their appearance, but Stan (proving that even after all these years, he hadn’t completely lost his touch when it came to hoodwinking people) told them that he and Ford had just returned from a walkabout in Australia, and had lost most of their supplies during their journey; he still seemed a little confused, but accepted it.

Somehow Stan even managed to persuade him to let them use the phone, and before long Ford found himself nervously dialing a number with a New Jersey area code.

“Madame Caryn’s, what mysteries of the universe can I unlock for you today?  Keep in mind, all questions about ya future love life will cost extra.”  Had their mother’s voice always sounded that tired?

Ford was mortified to feel his throat grow incredibly tight, and was forced to swallow a few times before saying quickly, “Hi, Mom.”

A long silence passed, before she asked, in a significantly less ‘mystical’ tone, “...Who’s this?”

“It’s me, Mom.  Stanford.”

“Shermie, this isn’t funny-”

“The last time we saw each other, before I went aboard the Essex , you asked me if I really wanted to do this job.  You told me you were worried that I was throwing away what I really wanted to do for what Pa thought I should be doing, and that you wouldn’t hold it against me if I changed my mind.  And I didn’t answer, but…you were right.”

There was a soft gasp, followed by a loud clunk .

“Mom?  Hello?”

Ford was just beginning to think that she’d hung up, and was about to redial and try again, when the receiver crackled and he heard her say, in a weak, wobbly voice, “...Stanford?  Is that really you?”

“Yes.”  His stomach churned with guilt at the way her words cracked.

And then he was forced to hold the phone away from his ear in order to avoid being deafened.

“...WHERE THE H_LL HAVE YOU BEEN?!  MOYSHE KAPOYER, YOU HAVE THE NERVE TA JUMP SHIP WITHOUT TELLING ANYONE AND MAKE EVERYONE THINK YOU DIED AND NEVER EVEN THINK TA CONTACT YOUR POOR OLD MOTHER FOR A WHOLE MONTH -”

“Ma-”

“WHAT WERE YOU THINKING , YOU KNUCKLEHEAD, I THOUGHT I RAISED YOU BETTER THAN TA BE SO HEARTLESS AND CRUEL-”

“Ma-”

“THE VERY LEAST YOU COULDA DONE WAS SEND A LETTER LETTIN’ ME KNOW YOU WEREN’T DEAD, SO I WOULDN’T HAVETA NEARLY DIE OF GRIEF THINKIN’ I’D LOST ANOTHER SON, YOU BETTER ENJOY THE SCENERY ON YOUR WAY HOME CUZ I AM NEVER LETTING YOU OUT OF THE HOUSE AGAIN, I DON’T CARE HOW OLD YOU ARE-”

“ MA, I FOUND STANLEY!!!! ”

For a moment Ma was startled into silence.  Ford took the opportunity to keep talking, before she could get her second wind.

“I fell overboard and wound up on an island somewhere miles from civilization, and I found Stanley on the same island.  He’s alive.”

“Stanford, if this is your sick idea of a joke-”

“It’s not.  I’ll prove it.”  He held out the phone to Stan-who immediately went pale and took a small step back, bare feet shuffling nervously against the floorboards.

Ford just gave him a pleading look, since he’d always been better at handling her when she was in one of these moods, and besides, he could tell his brother had been missing her.

Finally Stan cleared his throat, and took the phone.

“...Hey, Ma.”

He winced, and nodded.  “Yeah, it’s really me.  Ford wouldn’t do that to you.”  After a second of trying to figure out where to put his spear, he set it against the desk, oblivious to the bug-eyed look the man sitting there gave it, and used his now-free hand to scratch the back of his head.  “What, is my voice not good enough for you?  Okay, okay.  Um-”  He shuffled uncomfortably for a second, and then said, “...You caught me tryna run away when I was twelve, and made me come in for lunch first ta think about where I wanted ta go.  And when I decided ta stick around cuz I realized I wouldn’t get food the way you made it anywhere else, you said…” his eyes darted towards Ford, then away again, “...next time I decided ta run away, ta be a good boy and bring you and Ford with me.”

That was apparently good enough to satisfy her; soon after that she began shouting again.

Of course, once the worst of it was out of her system Ma stopped being angry and actually started sobbing into the phone, which was a lot worse.

Stan wished he could explain more about why he hadn’t been able to come home sooner; or, heck, that he’d just been able to come home sooner.  But right now all he could do was apologize, and reassure her that he was okay, and definitely not occasionally rub his eyes on his arm due to the emotions he was feeling from finally getting to talk to his mom again, and not just his memory of what she was like.

“...Where are you now?” she finally asked, sniffling.

“Um-”  He glanced at the desk guy.  “...Where are we?”

The guy gave him a confused look, but said, “You’re in Monterey, California.”

“Thanks.”  He returned to the phone.  “We’re in Monterey.”

“Good; I’ll call Shermie, have him come and get you.”

“ Ma , we’re not kids, we can find our own-”

“Shermie.  Is coming.  Ta get you.”  It was the tone of voice she used to imply that disobeying it would result in undefined, yet implicitly horrible beyond imagining, consequences.

Stan sighed, with a resigned smile creeping up his face.  “...Okay, Ma.”

“And don’t even think about tryna sneak away, cuz I’ll call Shermie ta make sure you actually get there!”

“Okay, Ma.”

“Now quit stalling and gimme the address so I can tell him where ta drive.”

“Okay, Ma.”

Chapter Text

It wasn’t just the sudden change in temperature that was freaking Stan out.

The colors were different; less green, less vibrant, less…tropical.  And I mean, duh, obviously they were less tropical, but the problem was that he couldn’t blend in with them, he was Standing Out, and that meant he wasn’t safe .

The sounds were different; back on the island, even in the dead of night he could still hear the constant refrain of the calls of birds, along with the occasional scream of something becoming something else’s dinner.  But now the closest equivalent was the “clicka-clicka-click” of the clerk’s fingers on the typewriter as he resumed his work, and the tick-tick-tick of the clock hanging on the wall.  The only sound it had in common with the island was the roar of the tide going in and out, and he knew that once Shermie came and picked them up that would be gone.

Even the smells were different; old scents that he faintly recognized from the pawnshop, or school, but not that he’d been around for a long time.  Things like paper, and ink, and others he could only categorize as “civilization.”

And so far, he wasn’t doing a great job of adjusting to any of it.

Stan’s knuckles had turned white from how hard he was wrapping them around the spear as he huddled in an uncomfortable wooden chair, trying to blend in with it as best he could, and waited for Shermie to come get him and Ford, all the while painfully aware of every nervous look the clerk gave them (or more specifically, him).  He tried offering a reassuring smile at one point, but stopped when that just made the poor guy turn white and shrink back in his chair, and went back to anxious brooding.

Tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick.

Have clocks always been that loud?

How do people listen to that all day long without going insane?  No wonder I hated school so bad.

Oh geez, we’re probably gonna haveta get a clock for wherever we’re living, cuz time actually matters in the real world.  That’s gonna be weird ta remember how to deal with again.

Do they haveta make it so freakin’ loud ?  Hot Belgian waffles, it’s like the ticking’s going right into my brain, like some little woodpecker squirrel is picking away at the side of my skull-

And then his heart leaped into his throat as his ears picked up a distant roar, coming closer and closer by the second.

Not a baboon hyena, or even a pack of them, it was too big for that-but maybe a bearasaurus-or whatever that Thing was that had been in the mist, it definitely sounded loud enough-they needed to get to higher ground, quick, before it caught their scents-

A hand moved into his line of vision, waving to get his attention, and then gently the arm attached to it pressed against his from wrist to elbow.

Warm, grounding contact, followed by Ford’s other arm pointing to the window in time for him to see a semi passing by, blaring its horn again as it disappeared.

Slowly Stan took a few deep breaths, and leaned against his brother as he felt his blood pressure return to semi-normal levels.

Just a big truck making some noise.

Nothing attacking us.

It’s okay.

Slowly he lowered his spear until it was resting on his legs, within easy reach if he needed it again, and let it go.  It wasn’t until he felt his fingers throbbing that he realized how tightly he’d been holding it, and began wiggling them to try and get the blood flowing properly.

We’re safe.

Shermie’s gonna come get us, and take us somewhere safe.

You can relax.

He noticed, though, that Ford was still leaning against him-and hey, wait a second, now his head had flopped all the way down onto his shoulder, and Stan could feel his breathing evening out into a slow, rhythmic pattern against his poncho.

This time, he made no effort to push him off.

An hour, maybe two, passed before Stan was startled out of his thoughts by the rumble of a car pulling up in the parking lot.

The flicker of lights in the window caught him off guard, and he flinched at the loud clunk of the door slamming, feeling his heart starting to race again at the loud, fast scrunch scrunch scrunch of someone hurrying to the door of the office and flinging it open, startling Ford awake as they did-

It was a tall man ( not Pa not Pa he looked a little like Pa but definitely not him no way Pa would ever wear a bow tie like that he thought bow ties were for dorks ), who stumbled to a halt as soon as he laid eyes on them, and made a kinda strangled noise in the back of his throat.

“...Stan?  Ford?” he asked hoarsely.  “Is that really you?”

Ford adjusted his glasses as he straightened up, before murmuring dazedly, “...Hi, Shermie.”

See?  It’s just Shermie, just lookin’ older and a little chubbier than you remember.  Shermie’s cool, even if his fashion sense is worse than Ford’s sometimes and he wasn’t around much after he moved out and got married and junk.  It’s okay, he’s family, just like Ford and Ma.  He won’t bite-

The strangled noise happened again, before Shermie began stomping towards them; Stan’s heart started pounding again when he saw that his brother’s fists were clenched and trembling, and slowly he began to reach for his spear in case he had to fend him off-

And suddenly he was being crushed against what felt like at least three pens that had been stuffed in Shermie’s shirt pocket, while a massive hand made a dent in between his shoulder blades, and all coherent thought short-circuited as Stan tried to figure out what the heck is happening is he attacking us or what?!

“You-” Shermie gasped hoarsely, swallowed, tried again- “you idiots are lucky you already look like crap, cuz otherwise I would kill both of you.”

Stan wondered if he should be concerned that hearing this actually made him feel better; all he did, though, was slowly lean into his brother’s shoulder and hope he wasn’t smearing dye on his shirt.

Because his face was sweaty and making it run, obviously; no other reason whatsoever.

Even in his still sleep-fogged state, Ford was surprised by how happy he was to see Shermie again, as well as by the strength of their brother’s emotion at seeing them.

I mean, while he had always been a good brother to both of them, a ten-year age difference meant they didn’t see much of him after he went to college and even less after he got married, so there had never been the same level of closeness they’d always had with each other.

And yet here he was, clinging to them both like he was trying to make sure they were really there, and oh dear Ford thought he could feel his brother’s shoulders shaking, which was kind of scary because he didn’t think he’d ever seen Shermie this emotional before.

Finally, Shermie pulled back and rubbed his face, before giving them appraising looks.  “What the heck happened to you?  Ma said something about you getting stuck on an island?”

Stan nodded.  “...It was somewhere out in the Atlantic, and I couldn’t sail off again till the tide changed, after Ford washed up.”

“...Wow.  I thought she was just kidding (‘Just kidding’ being the polite term Shermie had always used for one of Ma’s more outrageous lies).”  He reached out and squeezed Stan’s shoulder with a watery smile; Ford was the only one who appeared to notice the way Stan briefly tensed up before the contact landed.  “Nice to know your boat really was seaworthy after all.”

Ford felt a small ache in his chest when Stan didn’t retort something like, “Thanks for the vote of confidence,” like his seventeen-year-old self would have, and instead just shrugged before saying, “So we gonna get outta here or what?”

Fortunately, there was room in the bed of Shermie’s truck for the Stan O’War ; otherwise neither of them would have gone with him.  Shermie looked a little surprised at what good condition it was in, but seemed to accept Ford’s explanation of Stan “taking good care of it” and used some rope to tie it in place, before allowing them to scramble side by side into the back.

Once he was actually in the confines of the back seat, Stan looked a little like he would’ve preferred to be in the truck bed with the boat, but just pressed himself against the window; as they drove, he stared with wide eyes at the buildings and cars and mailboxes and all the other mundane things he hadn’t seen in the last eight years.

Thankfully, Shermie seemed to understand, and allowed Ford to do all the talking for both of them.

The only problem with this arrangement, of course, was that it required Ford to be the one doing the lying, but whenever he started to say something that sounded a little too close to future straitjacket material, a sharp elbow to the ribs helped him to change his words accordingly.

He saw Shermie give them a few funny looks through the rearview mirror, but hopefully he just attributed any strangeness in their story to how long they’d been away from civilization.

Ford had seen a few photos of Shermie’s house, but had never been there in person; it was bigger than the pawnshop, though still not too big for a family of three, and looked a lot less forbidding, somehow.

As the truck’s headlights illuminated the driveway, one of the lower windows slid open and a small figure in bright red and blue Superman pajamas (complete with cape) climbed out, skidding to a halt on the lawn right next to the parking car and bouncing in place.

Shermie muttered a curse under his breath as he opened his door.  “Alexander Herschel Pines, what on earth are you still awake for?!”

“Mom said you were gonna pick up Uncle Ford an’ his long-lost twin, and I couldn’t go to sleep without seein’ ‘em!”  The tiny form tried to jump up on the side of the truck and peer into the back window, but Shermie grabbed him around the middle and hoisted him away.

“No crowding your uncles.”

The boy-their nephew-squirmed, tiny legs kicking.  “But Da-ad-”

“ Xander .”  In a swift motion Shermie twisted his son until he was laying his arms bridal style, apparently in an effort to get his full attention.  “Listen to me, buddy.  Your uncles have been through something serious, and they need time to rest and get cleaned up.  I know you’re excited to see them, but you gotta wait until morning.  Okay?”

“Fine…”  Xander went limp in his arms, and it was hard to tell in the darkness but Ford suspected he was glaring sulkily.  Shermie just pressed a deep kiss into his hair and carried him back to the window.

From the truck, Stan snorted softly.

“Heh.  Cute kid.”

Ford nodded.  “And, I suspect, tenacious as well.”

“If that means we’re probably gonna see him again tonight at some point, then yeah.”

Shermie’s wife, Rebecca, was as surprised as everyone else when she saw the state they were in.  But all she asked was that Stan please leave the spear outside, and then directed him and Ford to the bathroom while grabbing some of Shermie’s spare clothes for them.

“I’m gonna order pizza,” Shermie said as he went to the telephone.  “Any requests?”

At the word pizza , Stan felt himself involuntarily drooling, and licked at his cracked lips.  “Meat.  Lots of meat.”

“One meat lover’s, coming right up.”  Shermie began punching the number into the phone, and they made their way to the bathroom.

Since Ford was comparatively cleaner than Stan, he went first, and came out about ten minutes later in sweatpants and one of Shermie’s old army T-shirts, freshly shaven and once again looking like his old nerdy self.

Stan…took significantly longer.

He’d forgotten what a hot shower was like.  Heck, he’d forgotten what soap was like, not to mention shampoo and loofahs.

It took a little willpower to make himself start washing the dye off, but it wasn’t like the camo would do him any good here, where there was barely any green.

Heh; it’d be nice if he could figure out a way to paint himself house colored.  Or maybe he could figure out a suburban camo, like-like disguising himself as a real estate agent or something.

By the time he was clean and had stepped out of the shower, the air in the bathroom was filled with steam (which, oddly enough, made it feel like home familiar).  After drying off and pulling on another pair of Shermie’s sweatpants (the feeling of something thick and warm covering his legs felt so weird), Stan wiped a spot clean on the mirror, and took a look at himself.

His bare skin was a map of different textures, from brown and leathery to fish-belly white to pink and raised.  And while his hair and beard were comparatively clean now, they were still tangled and ragged, and hung damply around his face like one of those old dogs that likes to fall asleep wherever it lies down.

Instead of looking like a ragged, dirty hobo, he now looked like a half-naked, clean hobo.  Which he guessed was technically an improvement, but-

A tap on the door startled Stan out of his thoughts.

“Stanley?  Is everything all right in there?”

Stan cleared his throat.  “Yeah, I’m fine.”

“Are you decent?”  Ford didn’t sound convinced.

“You oughta know better than ta ask me that.”  But Stan opened the door enough for him to slip inside.

As soon as he did, though, Ford staggered back, and pulled his glasses off with a frustrated huff before wiping the condensation onto his shirt.

“Shut up,” he growled, squinting at Stan.

“I didn’t say anything.”  Stan grinned as he went over to open the window.

Once the steam level had gone down, Ford looked Stan over, and produced a pair of scissors.

“Do you, um, maybe want…?”  He gestured at Stan’s tangled mop.

Stan didn’t know that he did want; or at least, he knew that he definitely did not want someone else holding a sharp object that close to his face and neck and all those vulnerable areas, even if it was Ford.

But he’d probably do a better job of this than Stan ever could, so he sighed and nodded.

“Let’s get this over with.”

Ford went and got a chair from the kitchen, and had Stan sit down before he got started.

The first snip made him jump and flinch, since it was right by his ear.

Ford quickly pulled back, out of grabbing distance, lowering the scissors; once he’d taken a few deep breaths, though, Stan tightened his fingers around the edge of the stool and nodded for him to resume.

Snip, snip, snip.

In a weird way, the rhythmic noise got kind of soothing after a while, even when Ford stopped in between to try and brush out some of the tangles (usually having to just cut them out instead), and as he felt his head getting lighter and the soft ticklish sensation of loose hair falling down his torso.

Finally the brush moved smoothly, and Ford went over his head with it before pulling back.

“...At some point we should probably take you to a barber who can do a tidier job of this, but it’ll do for now.”

“That’s reassuring.”

“Oh hush.”  Ford stepped into his line of vision, and tugged the tip of the beard.  “How about this?”

Stan considered…and nodded.

“Just don’t go all Sweeney Todd on me.”

Ford smirked.  “Don’t flatter yourself, Stanley, there’s barely enough meat on your bones for even one pie.”

After trimming the beard back, Ford grabbed the shaving cream and lathered it up, gently smearing it across Stan’s cheeks and upper lip-and abruptly stopped with a snort, which turned into a giggle, which turned into doubling over wheezing.

“Ford?!”

“Your-your face-”  He straightened up enough to glance at him, and then buried his face in his hand with what sounded like a muffled squeal, gesturing frantically at the mirror with the other one.

In utter bewilderment Stan looked at himself-and immediately realized what was so funny.

“Wow.  I look like a cheap department store Santa that spent the whole weekend at the beach first.”  The choppy haircut only added to the effect.

Stan grinned through the foam.  “Keep laughin’ at me and you’re gonna get coal for Hanukkah!  Ho ho ho!”

“Not…helping…” Ford gasped, now practically on his knees.

Neither of them noticed the door opening a crack, or heard the soft click of a camera shutter, before the door shut again.

When he finally managed to pull himself together, Ford straightened up and grabbed the razor again.

“Okay, I can do this.”  He shook off the last of his giggles and went to work gently scraping the bristles off his brother’s chin.

Ford worked slowly, on the lookout for any sores or injuries that might be hidden underneath, and explaining the process aloud to Stan for when he was ready to start shaving.

Bit by bit foam and hair vanished, replaced by a pale, square jaw that had replaced the acne spots of youth with a few pale scars.  The cheeks were more sunken than he remembered, but without the beard the whole face had become much younger, making him look somewhere in between the Stanley he remembered and the Stanley he’d found in the jungle.

At last Ford patted his face dry with a towel, and stepped aside so he could get a good look at his reflection.

“There; all done.”

Stan blinked, and reached up to trace his jaw as he stared at himself.  His eyes darted back and forth, and his hand shook a few times.

“How are you feeling?” Ford asked softly after a minute.

“...Still waiting to wake up.  Ow!”

Maybe pinching his shoulder was a little risky under the circumstances, but Ford had always been a little bit of a risk taker.  Quickly he stepped out of reach and said in his primmest voice as he adjusted his glasses, “I think that means you’re awake.”

Stan made a certain gesture at him before rubbing his shoulder.  “Jerk.”

Ford grinned and handed him a shirt.  “Let’s go see if the pizza is here yet.”

Chapter Text

The pizza delivery man was very surprised when, at his last address of the night, he knocked at the door and was greeted by a blur of color that took one look at him, snatched the box from his arms and fled into the recesses of the house.

A moment later Shermie stepped up to the doorway with an apologetic smile and paid for the pizza.

“Sorry, he’s really hungry.”

Flavor.

Back on the island, Stan’s diet had been reduced mostly to fruit, a few edible plants he’d discovered by trial and error, and wild pig-rat with the occasional fish or lobster-turtle (even more difficult and dangerous to eat than the separate species).  The latter groups he’d eventually started adding salt and pepper to when they finally washed up on the shore, and for a while he’d had a canister of paprika that had really spiced things up (pun totally intended).  He’d forgotten what it was like to have this much variety of flavor in food.  The warm, tangy tomato sauce, the thick, gooey cheese, the rich, spicy meats, all combined and mixed in with flavors he couldn’t even remember the names for, but were putting him in absolute ecstasy…

Before he knew it he’d devoured two slices of pizza in what felt like two bites each, and he could feel a healthy coating of sauce and coagulated cheese covering his chin and hands and the front of his shirt…and slowly he registered how much he was acting like a wild animal.

Awkwardly, unable to meet anyone’s eyes, he reached for a napkin with a sheepish smile.

“Heh.  Sorry.”

He startled when he felt a hand brush his shoulder, and jerked to the side to see who it was.

Rebecca quickly pulled back.  “Sorry, sorry.  I just-wanted to tell you that it’s okay, Stanley.”  She gave him a reassuring smile; he tried to relax and smile back, hoping it wouldn’t scare her like that desk jockey.

Ford cleared his throat.  “...Believe it or not, Stanley, compared to this one time my friend Fiddleford and I got locked in the lab while working on an experiment you’re eating in a very civilized manner.”

All eyes turned to him.

“Okay, now you have to tell us the rest of this story,” Shermie said with a grin.

The awkwardness slowly dissipated, replaced by warmth and laughter, as Ford told them how he, his buddy and a few other students had gotten trapped in the lab while a delivery of ten large pizzas sat only two feet away, and the ensuing carnage once they finally managed to free themselves.

From there, the conversation drifted to their plans for the future, as Ford enthusiastically explained that they were going to go to Gravity Falls so he could finally study all that weirdness he’d been craving, despite Shermie’s assertion that they were free to stay here as long as they needed, and that before they went anywhere they’d need to meet up with Ma and let her hug all the air out of them.

Stan just sat back and let the conversation happen around him, and helped himself to Shermie’s uneaten pizza crusts (you’d think a grown man wouldn’t be such a picky eater).

He was the only one who seemed to notice the small blue and red form that occasionally peeked around the corner, and ducked out of sight every time it saw him watching.

Shermie really needs to teach his kid about sneaking around properly.

The next time he saw the tiny head, he crossed his eyes and stuck his tongue out.  He was rewarded with a muffled giggle, and a flash of a grin, making something twinge in his chest.  Xander was eight now, right?  Almost the same age Drift had been when he washed up on the island…

“Stanley?”

The head quickly vanished again, and he vaguely picked up the pitter-patter of little feet scrambling back down the hallway.

Stan blinked, and stuck his tongue back in.  “Just-getting more sauce off my chin.”

He got a few strange looks, but everyone seemed to accept his explanation, and returned to debating the cost of getting an apartment vs. building a house.  Personally Stan was all for just buying a tent and living in the woods, but he wasn’t sure how great of a reception this suggestion would get.

Eventually, though, the pizza was gone, and Shermie glanced at his watch.

“Shoot, I gotta get to bed.  I got work in the morning.”  He stood up and yawned, popping his back, before unexpectedly reaching out and ruffling Ford’s hair.  Maybe it was his imagination, but Stan thought his eyes looked a little misty as he did.

“You both better still be here in the morning, or I’m gonna track you down and drag you back by the ear if I have to.”

“Bossy, bossy,” Ford muttered, trying not to grin.

Shermie pointed at himself.  “Older brother.  It’s in the job description.”  Then he looked at Stan, and a touch of uncertainty crept into his expression, before he slowly reached out and performed the same action, a little more slowly and gently, while murmuring, “Good to see you home, buddy.”

Stan was torn between being glad that Shermie was trying not to freak him out, and being annoyed that he was being treated like a feral animal.  But before he could express either of these sentiments, Shermie had headed to bed, and Rebecca had shooed them out of the kitchen while she cleaned everything up, despite Ford’s offer to help.

The guest bedroom was small but cozy, with a four-poster bed, a nightstand, a lamp, and a stowaway who didn’t seem to realize that the tip of his cape was poking out from under the edge of the quilt spread across the bed.

“Sixer?  Do you smell something?”

Ford blinked.  “...No?”

“Well, I do.”  Casually Stan took a step closer to the bed.  “I think we got a mouse or something in the room with us.”

This time Ford’s eyes brightened.  “Your sense of smell is that good?  That’s incredible!”

…Some things were just lost on the occasionally literal minded.

Stan pointed towards the tip of red cloth, raising his eyebrows.

It took Ford a second to get it…but then something clicked, and his eyes widened, before the corner of his mouth twisted into a smirk as he began casually maneuvering towards the other side of the bed.  “Ah…I wonder if we should inform Shermie that there is a rodent problem in this room.”

Appropriately enough, there was a muffled squeak; Stan grinned as he shuffled a little closer.  “Yeah, we could do that.  Or we could just catch it ourselves, like this !”

In a lightning-swift movement he dropped down and lifted the quilt, and one big finger jabbed playfully into a little button nose.

Xander gave a very satisfying squeal, before trying to scoot to the other side of the bed and make his escape; he was stymied, however, by Ford catching him around the middle and lifting him into the air.

“You’re right, Stanley, this is quite a big mouse.  And unless I’m mistaken, one who ought to be asleep.”

“I tried!” Xander squawked.  “I tried and tried and tried really hard, but I was too excited and couldn’t turn my brain off unless I came and said hi to you first!”

Ford gave a small hum, and half-dropped him onto the quilt, where he bounced, giggling.  “I suppose I can’t scold you for that without sounding like a hypocrite.”

“No, you can’t.”  Stan leaned down to be on the kid’s level as he sat up, staring intently at the half-frightened, half-excited face.

The last time he saw his nephew, he had been a tiny pink bundle wrapped in a blanket, who mostly ate, slept and cried.  Stan had gloated about how he had an easier time making him laugh than Ford did, and despite how fragile the little pink thing was he’d gotten a weird kinda thrill out of being allowed to hold him and play with him.

…And now he was so big , and learned how to walk and talk and hide under beds, and had his own ideas and interests, and-

-and Stan hadn’t been there to see any of it.

“Are you really my Uncle Stan?” Xander asked, frowning at him thoughtfully.

Stan swallowed and nodded.  “Yup.”

“...You looked a lot hairier in the car.”

“Yeah, well, I’m actually a werewolf, so I get hairier when I’m out under the full moon.”

Xander tilted his head, and gave him a skeptical look that was a rival for Rebecca’s.  “We just had a full moon.”

“I’m a special breed of werewolf.”  He lifted his hands up, curving the fingers into claws, and growled.

To his slight relief, this just made Xander giggle again-which turned into a big, deep yawn.

“You really should go to bed now,” Ford prompted gently.  “You don’t want to get in trouble, do you?”

“‘m not even ti- yawn -red,” Xander protested, trying to open his eyes as wide as possible and sit up straight.

Ugh, I gotta stick around long enough ta teach this kid howta lie properly too.

Xander pouted when he saw that they weren’t buying it, but finally scooted to the edge of the bed and headed for the door.  “Fiiiiine.  Night, uncles I barely know.”

“See ya in the morning, squirt.”

As the door closed, Ford yawned himself, and scrubbed a hand through his hair, making it fluff up even more.

“We ought to get some sleep ourselves.  We have a lot to do in the morning.”  He went and switched on the bedside lamp, before turning off the main light.

“Like what?” Stan asked; he found himself relaxing the tiniest bit as the room darkened (even if it made him long for the aurora a little bit).

“For one thing, seeing if we can get you a doctor’s appointment.  And a dentist’s appointment.  Make sure you haven’t brought back any strange island diseases or anything.”

Stan scoffed.  “You kidding?  I’m probably in better shape than you are!”  He struck a pose that made sure to show off his muscles.

Ford just rolled his eyes.  “Debatable, considering how underweight you are, but either way you haven’t been to the doctor in eight years, and it doesn’t hurt to take precautions.”  He pulled back the covers and climbed into bed, indicating that it wasn’t up for argument as far as he was concerned.  “We also ought to get new clothes.  And some toiletries.”

“With what money?”  Stan climbed into the other side, deciding to save his intention of arguing anyway for the morning, and immediately let out a small moan of pleasure at how soft the mattress was.

“I have some savings.”  Ford yawned as he tucked himself in.  “...Of course, to get at them I’ll need to figure out how to prove my identity to the bank without a driver’s license, or an ID…maybe the Essex sent Ma my belongings.”

“Hmph.”  Stan stretched out under the blankets…and then glanced at Ford, who was reaching for the light switch.  “...We’re both still gonna be here when we wake up, right?”

Immediately he was embarrassed for asking, but it was too late to take it back.

Ford was quiet for a moment, and then a six-fingered hand found his under the covers, threading all of his fingers around all of Stan’s.

“Too tired to go anywhere right now, except to sleep,” Ford murmured, before turning out the light.

“That’s a nice change.”

“Go to sleep, Stanley.”