Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

There was snow in Oregon.

Stan first started to notice it coming up past the border. Just a light dusting in the ditches turned to drifts against the trees, turned to a slick of grey-white dirty ice over the asphalt. By the time he found the turnoff for Gravity Falls, the snow was howling and battering itself against his windshield. The Stanleymobile slewed and slithered against the highway, her bare tires no match for the ice, the unnerving clonking from her poor overworked heater growing in frequency with each gust that threatened to blow him off the road.

Stan swore quietly at the sight of the sign for the turnoff, braking as gently as he could with feet he could barely feel. The cold had settled in before the first glimpse of snow, burrowing its way down to his dead marrow and refusing to budge. Not for the first time, he cursed his own stupidity. What had made him think it was a good idea to throw everything he owned (which admittedly wasn’t much) into the back of the Stanleymobile and drive a few thousand miles nonstop into the kind of country where it snowed?

He glanced down at the postcard propped up in front of the stick shift, and then cursed his own stupidity again, as the Stanleymobile drifted around the corner and onto - gravel, thank fuck. So he hadn’t just dropped everything and come running halfway across the country, he’d dropped everything and come running halfway across the country because his brother - who hadn’t so much as acknowledged Stan’s existence for the past ten years - had said ‘jump’.

Then again, Stan had to grudgingly admit, there hadn’t been much of an everything for him to drop.

Ford’s cabin was (of course, dammit) out of town, up a series of winding, narrow, treacherous roads. Stan took the corners at thirty, fingers clenched white-knuckled on the steering wheel and back teeth grinding against each other. He hoped he wouldn’t meet a logging truck - his reflexes might be good, but the Stanleymobile’s brakes sure weren’t.

Ford’s place was nestled up in the shadow of the cliffs, surrounded by dark pine woods on all sides. Stan killed the Stanleymobile’s engine and the headlights, and suddenly everything was softly dark and silent, broken only by the quiet sounds of the engine cooling in the snow that still tumbled and swirled in graceful cotton puffs from the grey overhead.

There was one good thing about living in winter country, Stan decided, with one last nervous glance at the postcard before he pulled his hood up and yanked the key out of the ignition. The dark fell early.

He grabbed the postcard, stuffing it into his pocket without another glance as he pushed the door open. The wind caught it and banged it open the rest of the way, sweeping an icy blast into Stan’s face. He had to grit his teeth and force himself up out of the relative warmth of the car and into the snow. He slammed the door behind him, jamming both hands as deep as they would go into his pockets, huddling into his jacket as the wind plucked at it. He’d known the cheapest used piece-of-shit winter coat he could buy wasn’t going to offer much protection from the elements, but it had been a bad month, and if he hadn’t filled his tank he wouldn’t have even been able to think about making it up here.

The air might have been clear and fresh and pine-scented, but the wind and the snow smothered it all with the aluminum tang of cold. The woods stood dark and forbidding, a castle wall rising in jagged turrets behind the peaked roof of the little wooden house with its weird antenna and…boarded up windows? It didn’t look like anyone lived there. It looked like maybe someone had died there.

Stan realised he was staring, and then that he was almost numb from cold. The wind knifed through the thin fabric of his jacket, and he could already feel snow starting to seep into his boots.

“Dammit, Ford, what did you get yourself into,” Stan muttered into the privacy of his hood, and started to trudge through the drifts between him and the cabin.

He paused a moment on the porch to shake the snow off his shoulders, and then another moment for no reason in particular, studying the small window in the door and the fresh board that someone - Ford? - had clumsily nailed over it. The thought struck Stan that not much sunlight would be able to work its way into his brother’s house with all the windows covered like this, but he brushed it aside like he had the snow. Ford was too busy bringing wonderful things out of the realm of possibility and turning them into reality to get himself involved with half-truths and campfire stories.

Stan squared his shoulders, shuffled some snow off his boots. “It’s okay. He’s family,” he told himself, even though saying the words aloud made them feel even more fragile, even less real than when they’d been nothing but a vague reassurance in the back of his mind. He couldn’t help but crack a smile when he added under his breath, as he raised his hand to knock, “He won’t bite.”

His fist made contact with the door with a hollow boom. From somewhere that sounded much farther away than the apparent depth of the house should allow, Stan heard a faint crash, and the sound of running footsteps.

“Ford?” he called, giving a few more light, quick raps on the door for good measure.

There was the thick, too-still silence of someone holding their breath.

Stan stuffed his hands under his arms, even though he knew it wouldn’t do any good, and stamped his feet in a vain attempt to generate some warmth. “Hey, poindexter! You gonna leave your baby brother out here on the porch all night?”

The silence dragged on for what felt like a few more hours, before it was broken at last by a soft shuffling and scraping from somewhere inside the house. Stan heard footsteps again, something that sounded like indecisive pacing, and resisted the urge to pound on the door again.

Finally, there was a drawn out, scraping squeal from directly on the other side of the door, and Stan’s eyebrows shot towards his hairline. Ford had barricaded himself in? Why?

Stan didn’t have time to wonder any further. The door flew open, and he found himself eye-to-eye with the wicked point of a crossbow bolt.

“Whoa, hey, no need for that,” Stan said, slowly raising both hands, palms out, as he took a cautious step backwards. “Would you put that down? I don’t do sharp pointy things aimed at me. Or in my general direction.”

The crossbow lowered, just enough that it was now pointed directly at Stan’s throat instead of his eye. Ford looked back at him over the medieval weapon, and Stan couldn’t help a wince. His twin looked like h- no. Ford looked like he’dseen hell, and hadn’t been able to sleep since. “Fuck. Ford, what happened up here?”

The crossbow shook in Ford’s hands, before he lunged forward and grabbed the collar of Stan’s coat, digging the crossbow bolt up under Stan’s chin. “Are you yourself?”

“What? What’s that supposed to mean?”

Stan was forced to take a stumbling step forward when Ford tugged on the collar of his coat, and froze again at the sharp jab of the crossbow bolt under his chin. Ford didn’t blink, peering intently into Stan’s eyes with an expression Stan had seen on a few street-corner psychics and schizophrenics. “Have you come to steal my eyes?”

“What the hell? No!” Stan fumbled at his pocket with fingers like frozen sausages, managed to pull the postcard free. “You called me, remember? Asked me to come?”

Ford’s wild, red-rimmed eyes flicked to the postcard, and for a brief eternity, neither of them moved.

“Oh,” Ford said at last. “So I did.”

He slowly lowered the crossbow, and Stan breathed out.

“I hope you understand, I can’t be too careful,” Ford said, looking over Stan’s shoulder, his voice almost eerily calm and level compared to the mania of a moment before, his fist tightening around the handful of Stan’s coat he still held. “Did anyone see you come up here? Were you followed? By anyone at all?”

“Don’t think so,” Stan said, and despite himself, glanced back towards the road he’d taken to get here. Ford’s fear was so thick on the air that he could almost taste it, and the worry was contagious. “I mean, there’s a couple people who want me dead - okay, maybe more like a couple thousand - but they’re all back in -”

“Good,” Ford said shortly, releasing Stan’s coat only to grab his arm, dragging him towards the open door. 

“Uh, Ford,” Stan started, but Ford had already stepped inside and Stan couldn’t shake off his grip before Ford tugged him in after him - 

There was a searing flash of agony all along Stan’s front, like he’d been yanked up against a grill instead of the threshold of a moldering wooden cabin, and he let out an involuntary howl of pain as he stumbled backwards. His eyes stung, his whole front felt as raw as a fresh burn, and the wind throwing ice crystals against his back was anything but soothing. The familiar weight in his mouth told him his fangs had come down, but he didn’t have an ounce of concentration to spare to retract them. If Ford had a problem with that, he’d just have to - 

Ford.

Stan’s head snapped up, the momentary haze that the pain had cast over his thoughts clearing abruptly. His twin was standing just inside the shadows of his hall, his eyes fixed on Stan and wide with horror.

His voice was little more than a whisper when he said, “He got to you first.”

It felt like Stan had just swallowed a knife.

“Thith -” Stan stopped, clapped a hand over his mouth, concentrated, swallowed. He worked his jaw a few times to make sure everything had settled back into its proper place, wincing at the crackle of bone. “Ford, this isn’t - ah, hell, it’s exactly what it looks like, but it’s not - not what you think.”

Ford adjusted his glasses with his left hand, his eyes still wide and haunted and the crossbow dangling from his right hand as though forgotten. “You can’t cross the threshold.”

“Not without an invitation, yeah - look, what the hell is going on? Why’d you ask me to come here? Who’s 'he’ and what’s he got to do with -” Stan gestured down at himself. “If you got yourself tangled up in some undead underworld shit, maybe I can help, but you have to tell me what’s -”

He took a step forward, and the crossbow snapped up again as Ford took a step further back into his house, aiming shakily at Stan’s chest. Ford’s voice was as steady as his aim wasn’t. “Stay away from me.”

“Okay, first of all, you shoot that thing right now and you got, like, a point-five percent chance of actually staking me and a ninety-nine-point-five percent chance of hitting me in the ribs and pissing both of us off,” Stan said hurriedly. “And second…” He bit his bottom lip. “Ford, it’s me. I know -" 

He had to stop and swallow again, the cheap fabric of his coat suddenly too constricting across his chest, and a flare of annoyance at his own sentimentality rose like bile in his throat. "I know we’ve had our problems. And sure, I’m not - not exactly human anymore. But that don’t mean I’m not still your brother, and I’m definitely not gonna let you down again.”

Ford shook his head, and for a moment a frightened little boy looked back at Stan from his twin’s wild eyes. “You can’t help me. I was an idiot to think anyone could.”

“Ford,” Stan said, as gently as he could, and just like that the spell was broken. Ford’s eyes narrowed, his finger tightening on the crossbow trigger.

“Go back and tell him he won’t get at me this easily. I have protection here. I’ve covered them all up. I can wait him out.”

“Ford, what the hell are you talking about?” Stan repeated, for what felt like the hundredth time, and just barely resisted the urge to tear out his own hair. “Just who are you so scared of, anyway?”

“Nice try,” Ford mumbled under his breath, and Stan had a flash of sudden, inexplicable certainty that his brother wasn’t talking to him. “Nice try, nice try, but you won’t fool me…”

“…please,” Stan managed, the word falling from his lips like lead. “Ford, you asked me to come. I came. Just - invite me in, tell me what’s going on, we’ll figure it out. Together. You and me, just like old times -”

“Stop,” Ford barked, clenching the stock of the crossbow like he wanted to throttle it, “talking like you’re still my brother.”

“I am your brother!” Stan protested, but he was starting to get the same sick feeling in the pit of his stomach as he had when the Stanleymobile had first started to slide across the highway.

Ford’s eyes were cold and briefly, shatteringly, sane. “My brother betrayed me over ten years ago. He broke my trust. And now he’s dead.” He finally, finally lowered the crossbow, but Stan didn’t feel an ounce of relief. “And you are not welcome in this dwelling.”

Stan didn’t even have time to move. The pain struck him like a battering ram, throwing him off the porch and flat onto his back in the snow, driving what little air remained in his lungs out in one long gasp. He lay there, unable to move, for he wasn’t sure how long, his back a block of solid ice and his front the slowly fading ache of a deep burn, before he could gather the energy to push himself up again.

The front door was shut. Ford was gone.

Stan flopped back down in the snow and laid there a moment longer, until the cold started to numb the pain and he dared to try to get up again. He pushed himself unsteadily to his feet, dusting snow from his back as best he could. He took a cautious step forward, nudged the bottom-most porch stair with the toe of his boot, and was meet by a sharp zap of pain. He bit back a curse. Somehow Ford had extended the threshold to include the porch. Stan wasn’t going to have another chance to knock.

He stood a moment longer, with his hands tucked into his pockets, looking up at the house as the wind tore at his exposed hair and the ratty fake fur trim around his hood, cut right through his clothes, through dead flesh, down to the hollowed-out cores of his bones.

Finally, he mumbled, “Well, same to you,” at the house, and turned and began the cold trudge back towards the Stanleymobile.

The postcard that had brought him here, that had made him cross seven state lines in two days and come driving straight into a blizzard, lay where he’d dropped it on the porch behind him.

Chapter Text

Stan Pines was just a few days shy of his nineteenth birthday the night he woke up in a dumpster in Santa Cruz with a ragged gash in his neck and every cent he’d had on him missing.

His ID - well, Sten Pinesson’s ID, which, same difference - had vanished too, as he discovered when he finally managed to haul himself out of the dumpster, aching in every joint and the cut on his neck throbbing like a second heartbeat. He had no idea where he was, and a quick look around the alley didn’t provide any clues. The dumpster stank overwhelmingly of rotting meat, so maybe the back of a grocery store or a butcher’s? He didn’t recognise the streets beyond.

At least he hadn’t chosen to sleep in the dumpster. He wasn’t that low yet.

Although, he realised, he had no idea how he had ended up in the trash. The last memory he had was heated, dark, arms around his waist, a body pressed close against his, a warm haze filling his head, lips pressing softly against his throat - 

“Son of a bitch, he robbed me,” Stan said, out loud, in disbelief, to the empty alley. And then, with a flash of panic, “Shit! Where’s my car?”

...

The door of the local greasy spoon stuck. Stan had to force it with his shoulder before it scraped across the floor, the wind curling around it and driving a flurry of snow into the warmth of the diner.

Eight pairs of eyes fixed on him.

Stan shouldered the door shut behind him, hearing it squeak against the snow that had piled up around his feet. The wind howled through the cracks, pushing back against him, pouring like icewater down the back of his neck. One good shove pushed the door as close to shut as he could manage without breaking the hinges.

Seven pairs of eyes turned away, back to their meals and their conversations. The waitress, a dumpy, plump woman wearing too much makeup, flashed a smile in Stan's direction before turning back to take the order of the elderly couple seated at the booth in front of her.

Stan stamped off his boots, shaking the snow from his hood before he took another step inside. The heat washed over him in a wave, sending trickles of icy slush slithering down out of the fake fur trimming his hood. He breathed a sigh of relief at the warmth as he walked over and sat down at the counter.

The waitress was at his elbow in a minute, a pen and pad of paper clutched in her blunt acrylic talons. "What'll it be, hon?"

Stan glanced briefly at the menu, making a show of deciding. He already knew he wouldn't be ordering food - the smell of grease and scorched dead meat was already making him vaguely nauseous - but it wouldn't look right to come into a place like this and not at least consider it. And the only convenience store he'd passed on his way through town had closed at sundown. More like an in-convenience store, he thought to himself, pushing his hood back as he looked up at the waitress. "Just coffee, doll. Black."

The waitress didn't move for a moment, her false lashes fluttering as she blinked incredulously at Stan.

"What?" Stan asked, loud and brash to cover the unease that shivered up his spine. "I got something on my face?"

The waitress gave herself a little shake, her thick brown curls bouncing as she plastered her smile back on. "All right, hon. Lemme just grab you a mug." 

She vanished behind the counter and into the kitchen. Stan leaned forward, resting his elbows against the counter and folding his hands together, and considered his options.

He could leave. There was nothing keeping him here. Ford had been the only reason he'd come, and Ford had turned him away, had effectively locked him out. And it wasn't like there was a hell of a lot he could do about it. The only way he could get past the threshold without an invitation would be if Ford somehow got it into his head to open the place up to the public, which, yeah, that was gonna happen. And the only thing that'd break that protection would be if Ford -

Stan squeezed his hands tight together. That was the opposite of what he wanted.

So. He could leave. Ford didn't want him around, big surprise there. And unless Ford suddenly realised he was being a paranoid jerk and offered Stan an invitation, there wasn't much Stan could do to help him. And besides, it was cold in Oregon. Oh, sure, it wasn't like he was going to freeze to death, but the thought of spending any more time out in that blizzard made Stan want to find the heater in this diner and curl up under it for a few weeks - no, months, stench of cooked meat or not. There would definitely not be snow in California, or New Mexico...

But there would be sun, Stan reminded himself. And there were still Rico's clowns, and mobs of angry rubes who'd bought whatever he'd been selling, and Thistle and his seethe, and who knew who else waiting for him down where it was still warm. And while Stan was lounging on a beach with a huge umbrella and a high SPF, Ford would be up here, in the cold and the dark, barricaded in his lonely little house that stank of fear, with who knew what dogging his heels and waiting only for the right moment to strike.

Stan reached out and straightened the salt and pepper shakers, pushing them to stand side by side, carefully lining up their edges.

He'd always protected Ford. Even from bullies that were much bigger than either of them.

Stan sighed, leaning heavily on the counter, and reached out and flicked the salt shaker with his index finger. It slid across the counter with a whisper and toppled over the edge. The shattering sound of impact made him wince.

At least he could warm up a little, maybe even manage a few sips of coffee without his digestion rebelling too much, before he had to sleep a day out in his car in this weather.

The swinging door into the kitchen banged, and the waitress swept out, a white ceramic mug in one hand and a tray loaded down with platters of limp fries and watery gravy in the other. She paused in front of Stan, glancing down at the remains of the salt shaker on the floor behind the counter before plopping the mug down in front of him. "There you go!"

Stan could smell it, his mouth starting to water even before he looked down and saw steam rising off the surface of the dark red liquid. Sure, it was reheated, at least a day old, was starting to congeal around the edges, and had come from - Stan took a deep breath - huh, elk, pretty adventurous for a small-town truckstop burger joint - but it was definitely -

"Scuse me," Stan said, lowering his voice, and the waitress paused with her free hand on the flap that would let her out from behind the counter. "This isn't what I ordered."

The smile she flashed in his direction was conspiratorial. "It's the eyes, hon. Dead giveaway."

Before Stan could say anything else, the cook yelled, "Order up!" and the waitress turned to snatch the plate with its unappetising dry disc of steak from the order window with her free hand. She nodded towards Stan, then toward the flap in the counter. "Mind grabbing that for me?"

Stan reached over and lifted the flap, and she slipped through. He watched her for a moment, depositing plates in front of the motley rabble of customers, stopping to chat here and there, her laugh braying across the narrow diner. There didn't seem to be anything out of the ordinary about her.

Stan turned back to look down into the mug of blood she'd just casually set down in front of him. He deliberated for a moment, then shrugged, and took a long drink.

She'd put coffee in it.

...

Stan lingered in the restaurant for as long as he dared, trying to decide what the best way to get through to Ford would be, nursing his cup of bloody coffee and occasionally watching the waitress who had given it to him - Susan, according to the name tag pinned to her apron strap. It actually wasn't half-bad, as terrible coffee went. Stan had almost forgotten the taste of cheap burnt, tarry, left-on-the-burner-all-day brew, and awful as it was, it brought a flood of nostalgia crashing over him. He'd been disgusted at first that she'd mixed it into perfectly good plasma, but now he was wondering if she wasn't some kind of evil culinary genius. He'd had half the mug and his stomach hadn't shown the slightest sign of rebelling. Maybe the blood was enough to fool his system into accepting something it wasn't meant to handle. Or maybe he'd just be throwing up on the side of the road later. 

He wondered if that trick would work with beer.

His attempts to figure out what to do next were cut short when he realised the other diners had started to trickle out, in ones and twos. The elderly couple the waitress had been serving when Stan walked in were the last to leave, waving cheerfully on their way out the door. Stan eyed the tip money they'd left on the table, before the waitress - Susan, right - swept into his vision and blocked his line of sight. "So. What brings you up here?"

"Uh," Stan said, wisely. The cook was behind him, somewhere in the kitchen, and Susan was between him and the door. He was fast, but not all that fast, and if she wasn't human either - "I came for the beautiful weather."

Susan's laugh was horsey and surprisingly loud in close quarters. Stan took it as a good sign, pushing forward. "So, you said something about my eyes giving me away, but how'd you know what to look for in the first place? And, uh, no offence, but people usually break out the stakes and garlic, not hot drinks."

That got another laugh, but thankfully a shorter one. "This is Gravity Falls, hon," Susan said. "Trust me, we've all seen weirder."

"I opened my door one mornin' and there was a giant nose blockin' it," the cook agreed, from somewhere behind Stan. "You ain't even in the top ten."

"So! Where're you staying?" Susan asked brightly, putting one hand on her hip and looking expectantly at Stan. 

"I," Stan started. "Uh. I'm - I actually - I gotta piss."

He launched himself up from the stool and brushed past Susan, heading for the door on the back wall with the cheery wood-burned 'HIS' sign over the door.

...

The bathroom was much like the rest of the diner, cheap, old, and in poor repair, but scrubbed to a shine. Stan barely spared it a glance, looking around for an exit. 

There was a window above the toilet that looked like he could just squeeze through. He wasted no time clambering up on the tank, hissing under his breath when the lid wobbled under his feet with a porcelain clatter, and forced the window open. It was a bit of a stretch to get up to it, and if he'd still been human he knew he'd've been feeling it the next day, but he managed to slip through and land safely in a snowbank.

"Fuck Oregon," Stan muttered to himself as he pushed himself up, or tried to. All he got for his troubles was a sleeveful of snow. He finally had to roll out of the drift that had built against the back of the diner, and got to his feet, brushing snow from where it had caked itself onto his jeans and trying to shake it out of his sleeves. "Fuck Oregon, fuck snow, fuck winter, fuck Gravity - fucking - Falls -"

He stopped.

One of the things it had taken him a long time to figure out was that his sense of smell was significantly better than it had been when he was alive, and not just in the presence of fresh blood. It didn't seem like something that should be all that hard to figure out, except that humans didn't have a particularly good sense of smell to begin with. They weren't used to getting that much information through their sniffers. So - as best he could figure, based on some half-remembered sciencey crap he was pretty sure he'd heard Ford spewing once - his brain had been funneling all that information through the nearest part instead. The part that handled memories. And gut feelings.

Right now, his gut feeling was saying that something in the forest that the diner backed onto was watching him.

Stan took another step towards the treeline, and froze. The feeling had only intensified, and he couldn't see any reason for it. He scanned the trees, their white bark glowing like ghosts in the silvery dark, black scars like eyes covering them all. The wind had thankfully died down, only a steady trickle of small white flakes floating down from the clouds overhead, but he still couldn't see anything in the shadows of the trees.

He looked up, and the small black eyes of a squirrel looked back at him for a moment before the creature ran off, clattering through the branches. Stan gave an uneasy laugh, casting one more suspicious glance at the forest before stuffing his hands into the pockets of his coat and heading out around the diner to the lot where he'd parked his car.

The feeling of eyes on his back didn't go away.

Chapter Text

Stan Pines had been homeless for about two weeks before he'd figured out that it was easier to catnap during the day and move around at night. No one looked twice at someone napping in a parked car for an hour or two while the sun was up, but every time he tried to find a place to park for the night, someone was rapping on his car window telling him to move along. He knew to the bone that it was only a matter of time before he was arrested. And no matter how far south he went, it was always colder than he anticipated at night, especially as winter came on. He didn’t want to risk freezing in his sleep.

So he slept in the day. He'd gotten used to it. But  he'd never been comfortable with it until the night, a few days shy of his nineteenth birthday, that he woke up in a dumpster in Santa Cruz. He’d gone looking for his car and found it, and the asshole who’d stolen it along with everything else he’d had on him, outside a nightclub a lot like the one he could just barely remember having met the guy at a few nights earlier. One good left hook later and Stan was driving like a bat out of hell, nearly wrenching the wheel clean off as he dodged through traffic just ahead of four overdressed punks on motorbikes. 

He must have lost them somehow, but most of that night was nothing but a blur of adrenaline and silver terror in his memory.  He did, however, remember parking shortly before dawn and the next thing he knew, he was waking up to a sky that was purple with sunset.

He hadn't had any trouble falling asleep during the day after that.

...

When Stan woke up, the Stanleymobile’s windows were covered in a fine film of white. He was a little amazed ice hadn’t formed all over the seats - and himself. The windows shouldn’t have frozen over in the heat of the day, which meant he must’ve slept in. Well, no surprise there - he hadn’t been able to get to sleep the morning before, and not just because of the cold. He hadn’t been this caffeinated in nearly ten years.

His hands felt like blocks of ice, nerveless and clumsy as he fumbled with the door handle. He wasn’t sure what he’d try to scrape the windows off with once he actually got out, but he wasn’t going anywhere with his windows looking like this. And he had to get moving. A good day's sleep and even just a little something to eat had made a huge difference, and even the feet of snow shining in the silvery-pale moonlight seemed less completely depressing.

So Ford had overreacted. So what? Ford was a smart guy. And he'd had a day to think about it and realise he was being ridiculous, not hearing Stan out. Ford wouldn't make a rash decision, wouldn't do something drastic as cutting Stan out, without all of the facts. A much-worn memory tried to get Stan's attention, but he shoved it angrily away. Ford hadn't done anything that time (though that had been the problem, hadn't it?). And that was ten years ago now. They weren't a couple of kids anymore. Besides, Ford had done pretty well for himself. Surely he couldn't still think Stan had ruined his life?

No, Stan thought, as he scratched viciously at the frost over his windshield with his keychain. Ford had always been the sensible one. Even Ma had always said so. Ford wouldn't really have held onto his grudge for this long, the fact that he'd called for Stan in the first place was proof enough of that. If he was really in trouble, the kind that involved things that went bump in the night, he'd have to be a real idiot not to accept Stan's help. And if there was one thing Ford wasn't, it was an idiot.

The Stanleymobile's engine wouldn't turn over at first, whining and spinning as Stan hammered the clutch to the floor and whispered vague, undirected prayers into the freezing air. It took him three tries to get her up and running, and the sigh of relief he let out when the engine finally cut in with a throaty rumble felt like it had sucked every bone out of him on the way out and left him a puddle of jelly.

He peeled out of the back parking lot of the church he'd parked behind as carefully as he could, avoiding the icy patches as best he could, wincing when the undercarriage scraped over a snowbank. There were a few more scrapes as he headed out of town, back along the road he'd taken coming in, and many, many more icy patches. Stan had to force himself not to speed around the hairpin turns, to take it slow and careful through the shadows of the trees. He couldn't, somehow, summon up the worries that had dogged his heels all the way north, the despair that had filled him at the diner the night before. 

Ford was his brother. He'd called for Stan. That was a good sign, right? And he'd recognised Stan, recognised what Stan was, and hadn't even tried to get off a shot from that crossbow he'd been carrying. And he was here in the middle of a town that, it sounded like, knew weird when it saw it, and welcomed it with open arms. Yeah, maybe Ford would still be upset this evening, but he'd had a little time to get that enormous brain of his working, and he'd never been able to leave a good mystery alone. If Stan could just get him to listen for five minutes, everything would be just fine -

Stan rounded the corner into the clearing where the cabin stood, and stamped on the brake, the engine sputtering and stalling out.

Splashed crudely across the front of the house, right under the peak of the roof, over a hastily-boarded window, was a massive red cross.

It took him a long moment to gather the strength to open the Stanleymobile's door, to push himself out into the snow, to take the few steps up towards the house. It wasn't only the one cross - sacred symbols from at least three religions Stan recognised and many more he didn't were also painted in red across all the windows and doors. Some kind of stick was nailed to the door, branches that Stan guessed from half-forgotten memories of a childhood encyclopaedia of monsters were probably hawthorn or ash. A string of something foul-smelling was draped over the door, as well, and Stan didn't have to see the white cloves to know it was garlic. Ford had really covered his bases.

The hollowness that had been gathering at the pit of Stan's stomach since he'd first laid eyes on the cross deepened and widened. It wasn't like most of this would even hurt him - although the Star of David Ford had painted near the door seemed strangely, uncomfortably bright, and the garlic really did reek - but that wasn't what mattered. What mattered was that Ford had obviously thought it would.

Stan hadn’t intended to keep walking, but it was suddenly more effort to stop than to keep going. He circled around the house, not sure what he was looking for and not finding it. Every window, every door, every possible point of entry was the same. Ford hadn’t missed a trick, hadn’t taken a single chance on his brother being able to get inside.

Stan had finished a full circuit around the cabin before his numb footsteps slowed to a halt. He felt like he should be shaking, vibrating with frozen rage. If he’d still had a heartbeat, it would have been rushing in his ears, drowning everything but the remembered sounds of his bags hitting the pavement, of a door slamming heavily shut, looping in his ears like a skipping record.

He wanted to break something. Maybe a few windows. Maybe Ford’s stupid nose.

Instead, Stan stared up at the house until the anger died back from a boil to a simmer. All right. Fine. So Ford was being a jerk. It wasn’t like he didn’t have good reason. Stan didn’t know what Ford had been through in the past ten years any more than Ford knew what had happened to Stan. Hell, for all Stan knew, Ford had gotten in it deep with some fangbangers and that was why he’d reacted so badly - although, a treacherous thought reminded him, Ford hadn’t had all these symbols and junk up until Stan had showed up.

That wasn’t the point, though, Stan reminded himself. Something had happened, something bad, something that had Ford scared of his own shadow. And it wasn’t like it was a complete overreaction to try to keep him away. Even if the thought left a sour taste in his mouth, Stan still had to admit he did sort of bring this on himself. After all, he was literally a monster.

But - 

“This is Gravity Falls, hon. Trust me, we’ve all seen weirder.”

Stan started to turn away, but a flicker of movement caught his eye. It was gone by the time he whipped around, but he could swear he’d seen a shadow shift through the crack between two boards over the highest window.

The anger he’d managed to tamp down flared up hot and bright, so fierce Stan was almost surprised he didn’t melt a circle in the snow around him. “You asshole!” he yelled, up towards the face he could all too easily imagine staring down on him, just waiting for him to go away, to disappear. “You called me!”

There was no response. Just the moonlight, and the snow, and, from the trees surrounding them, the sudden, inescapable feeling of eyes fixed on Stan from every direction.

“Fine,” he mumbled, pulling his hood up. “See if I care.”

He managed not to break into a run on the way back to the Stanleymobile, but it was a close thing.

...

The bar in Gravity Falls (the only bar in Gravity Falls, sheesh, this really was the boonies) was right on the main street. On the one hand, it didn't bode well for the town. On the other hand, it was open and warm and serving alcohol.

The bar was warm in a different way than the diner had been, the heater on low but a fug of cigarette smoke and sweaty bodies filling the small, dark space with an animal warmth that Stan could feel settling into his bones. The place smelled better than a barbecue, strong liquor getting people's hearts pumping and faces flushed, and Stan hunched down in his jacket and hoped to hell his fangs wouldn't drop. He must've been hungrier than he'd thought. 

"Getcha anything?" the bartender, a mountain of a man barely wedged behind the counter, rumbled in Stan's direction, and Stan considered for a moment.

"Coors," he said, at last. "And maybe a punch in the face, if you got it."

The bartender didn't so much as look over at Stan. "Rough night?"

Even though he knew the man wasn't looking, Stan shrugged as best he could with his shoulders already hunched up around his ears. 

The bartender slammed a can of beer down in front of Stan, glancing briefly at him with a look of perfect disinterest. "You new in town?"

"Just visiting my stupid brother." Stan wrapped both hands around the can in front of him, staring down into the foam at the mouth. He'd have to thank that waitress - if he ever saw her again - for the trick with the coffee; he hadn't had a beer in what felt like forever and he was looking forward to this. "You wouldn't know anybody around here who might be able to tell me anything about Stanford Pines, would ya?"

He was sure it wasn't his imagination that the volume in the bar dipped for a moment.

The bartender met Stan's eyes for the first time since Stan had sat down. His cauliflower face twisted into an approximation of concern as he said, "Word of advice, kid?"

Stan nodded, resisting the urge to look back over his shoulder.

The bartender didn't seem to have as much self-control, narrowing his eyes as he scanned the room before turning his attention back onto Stan. There was nothing but the purest sincerity in his voice as he said, "Be careful where you throw that name around."

"Why?" Stan asked, leaning forward. "What kinda trouble is he in?"

The bartender just shook his head, with a wary glance over Stan's shoulder. Stan looked back himself, but he couldn't see anything suspicious, just people drinking, playing pool, laughing. When he turned back, the bartender had already turned away, resolutely cleaning a glass as if Stan weren't there.

Stan shrugged to himself again, and bit his thumb. He had a beer to figure out how to drink.

Chapter Text

It was about three days - three nights? - after Stan Pines found himself waking up in a dumpster minus his earthly possessions that he started to realise he was coming down with something.

All he'd had to eat in that time was about half a sandwich he'd snagged from an abandoned tray in a mall food court, which hadn't stayed eaten (though it had tasted kind of rancid in the first place), and a handful of peanuts he'd swiped off a squirrel feeder (and honestly, anyone who put up a squirrel feeder was kind of a nut themselves), and his stomach was still complaining. It wasn't that bad yet, though. He should be able to make it another day or two, and in that time he could definitely pick up some jobs, or at worst some spare change. Just get his feet back under him.

He could still do this, even after as shitty a welcome as Santa Cruz had given him. It wasn't like he hadn't ever been homeless before. And even living in his car was so much better than the errands Juancarlo's 'friend' Rico had been having him run in exchange for crashing in an empty apartment in the building he owned. There had to be other options, ones that didn't involve stealing scraps to eat and living in the back of the Stanleymobile, and Stan was gonna shake California until they fell out.

He was fine. He'd be fine. He'd be better than fine. He'd be incredible, and he'd show them all. Stan Pines didn't lie down and give up. Stan Pines couldn't be licked.

But that was before he was woken up in the middle of the day by a sharp rap on the Stanleymobile's window, and opened his eyes to a world that blinded him instantly. Stan couldn’t see anything outside the car for glare, and the white light stabbed at his eyes, a headache blooming just behind them and swelling to pound against the entire inside of his skull. 

He unfolded himself carefully from his position curled up in the backseat, and had to bite back a whine. Every joint protested, with a burning soreness that he realised, with a sickening jolt, felt like fever. It took him three tries to get the window rolled down, fumbling blind at the crank with fingers that felt about sixty years older than he was.

The person standing outside was little more than a slightly dimmer shape against the sunrise glare of the road and the sky. “Move it along, son.”

Stan let out a breath of relief - one of Rico’s guys or those biker punks would’ve probably shot first, made small talk later, but the little seed of worry had still been there. “Of course, officer.”

He managed to drive almost half a block without hitting anything, before he turned down an alley and into another parking lot, locked his doors, and curled up in his seat again, unable to bite off the small noise of pain that slipped out. He’d expected the ache in every bone to keep him up, had expected the fear that loomed over him to crash down and smother him with the knowledge that he could actually die out here, sick with no money and no food and no one to look for him, nowhere to go. 

But instead, he was asleep again in minutes.

...

“Last call, buddy.”

Stan looked blearily up into the bartender’s eyes, which, despite being heavily shadowed by his overhanging monobrow, were surprisingly soft. “Already? I just sat down.”

“Sorry, pal, I gotta close up sometime tonight.”

Stan nodded morosely, staring down into the dregs of his beer. He glanced up and around the bar, confirming what he’d already noticed - he was the last person left in the room, apart from the bartender. “Where’d everybody go?”

The bartender shot Stan a sympathetic look. “ ‘s only Wednesday.”

Stan made a face, and downed the last of his beer. He gave the bartender a searching look, trying to decide whether to chance pushing his luck. The waitress had known what he was on sight, she’d’ve known what he was trying and then there was no way it would’ve worked. And what she and that cook had said made it sound like the rest of the town might recognise him, too. But then, the bartender hadn’t said anything, hadn’t given any sign that he knew...

Well, only one way to find out. Stan cleared his throat, and then, when that failed to catch the bartender’s attention, said, “Hey.”

The bartender half-turned, catching Stan’s eye, and Stan turned on the charm. The man stopped in the middle of reaching for Stan’s empty beer can, a faintly unfocused, content smile settling over his face, like he’d just remembered where he knew Stan from. “Hey,” he repeated, his smile widening. “Hey, it was good to meet ya. You take care out there.”

Stan nodded to himself, glad to see a bit of intoxication hadn’t affected this talent of his. “Great to meet ya too. Say, before I go, you wanna tell me what’s the deal with Stanford Pines? Why’m I getting cryptic warnings? He mixed up in something spooky?”

“I don’t know,” the bartender said, a look of concern drifting across his face. “Nobody knows. Anybody who did forgot.”

“What?” Stan asked, flatly. So maybe the beer was affecting his whammy, after all.

“Anyone who knew anything about him forgot,” the bartender repeated.

“You wanna get more specific than that?” Stan asked.

“Can’t,” the bartender said, with a shrug of perfect indifference.

“Yeah, I think you can,” Stan grumbled. When the man’s eyebrow began to furrow, he plastered on his best salesman smile and leaned in, conspiratorial, cranking up the charm as far as he dared. “Come on, you gotta have at least a little sympathy for a guy who’s new to town, just trying to help his brother out.”

"Sorry," the bartender said, reaching over and grabbing Stan's empty can. "Can't tell you anything, don't know myself. Maybe I did once, but not anymore. Stanford Pines, that name's bad news. You mention that around the wrong people, you might forget why too."

"All right, fine. Who're these wrong people?" Stan asked, then held up a hand. "Wait, don't tell me. You forgot."

The bartender held out both hands, palms up.

Stan pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger, rubbing to try to dispel the headache that threatened to settle in behind his eyes. "Great. Thanks. That was less than helpful." He looked up at the bartender, who had turned his unfocused smile on the far wall of the bar. "Yeah, okay, buddy, you can snap outta it any time."

The bartender blinked, gave himself a shake, and then narrowed his eyes at Stan. "Why did I just tell you - Did you just do something?"

"I got one of those faces people wanna trust," Stan said, with a shrug of his own. "Thanks for the beer. And the tip, such as it was." 

He pushed himself up from the bar stool and zipped his jacket closed, giving the bartender a short wave as he headed for the door. He had maybe a minute before the last of the charm wore off and the bartender realised Stan hadn't paid for his beer.

...

"Forgot, huh?"

Stan leaned back against the statue at the end of Main Street and chucked another pebble up into the air. This one bounced off the bearded chin of the bronzed beaver-cap and buckskin-wearing bastard towering over him. 'Nathaniel Northwest', whatever kinda idiot name that was. All he was really good for was blocking the wind while Stan tried to decide what to do with the few hours remaining before dawn.

Ford could still be tangled up with the undead underworld. Some of the old ones were real good at that mind bullshit. Stan threw another pebble with more force than necessary. It ricocheted off Nathaniel's left cheek with a loud metallic clang and shot back down to thwack Stan on the top of his head. He hissed and pressed a hand to the sore spot until it stopped throbbing.

So, he wasn't ruling them out. But there was something weird about the whole situation. If one of the old ones wanted Ford dead, they would've killed him. Or he would've had holy symbols, garlic, whatever, up before Stan had got there, and he would've been a hell of a lot more trigger-happy with that crossbow. This whole memory-wipe thing didn't sound like them, either. They were more likely to make you think you were in love with them and steal you away from the people who really cared about you -

Stan threw another pebble, hard. Didn't matter. This was different. This didn't look like somebody wanted Ford, or wanted him dead.

This looked like somebody wanted him to vanish like he'd never existed in the first place. 

Stan shook his head, letting out a sigh that turned into a chuckle halfway through. He'd only spent two nights in this burg and he was already catching Ford's crazy.

"First you think somebody's in the woods watching you, then you're making up conspiracies." Stan reached down and picked up another pebble, tossing it up and down in his hand. "And now...now you're talking to yourself." 

He let out a short laugh, before looking up and flinging the pebble. It flew straight and true, whizzing up through the air to lodge firmly in one nostril of Nathaniel Northwest's pompous, upturned nose.

"Ha! Bullseye!" Stan crowed, and then froze. He'd definitely just heard something.

He paused, looking around at the buildings that surrounded him, before letting himself relax, reaching down to grab another pebble. He didn't look up, but listened, hard, as he slouched back against Nathaniel's feet.

There it was again. There'd definitely been a noise of something on stone, from somewhere to his right. Stan managed to make himself turn slowly, casually, instead of darting after the sound. Didn't want to scare whatever it was away.

He was just in time to see the flapping edge of some dark fabric and the sole of a boot as someone disappeared around the back corner of the museum and into the trees.

Stan was on his feet in an instant, flinging the pebble he'd been toying with over his shoulder and running across the square. The person was gone by the time he skidded around behind the museum and found himself faced with a wall of dark pines and pale aspen, rustling softly in the early-morning wind. 

He ground his teeth together, and plunged forward, brushing aside heavy branches loaded with scratching needles, thin, whippy branches covered in eye-shaped scars, working his way after the fading scent of hot blood and sharp adrenaline. He was out of his element, though - the woods were too full of unfamiliar smells and sounds, the moonlight through the branches cast too many shifting shadows, and before he knew it, Stan had lost the trail. And, he realised, with a sinking feeling in his gut, the way back to town.

He'd gone mostly uphill chasing shadows, Stan remembered, trying to retrace his steps and for the first time cursing the sparseness of the snow underfoot, sheltered by the thick branches of the pines. If he made sure to keep heading downhill -

He stopped in his tracks. Someone was watching him.

Stan spun in a slow circle, trying to pinpoint the feeling of eyes on him, breathing deeply and listening carefully, trying to sort some meaning from the forest noise. 

Somewhere to his left and near by, something crunched against the snow. Stan shut his eyes and listened, hard. Under the chatter and rustle of small creatures and trees, there was a heartbeat, deep enough to be human, a little faster than usual but that was to be expected, if whoever it was had been running. 

Stan didn't wait this time. He threw himself in the direction of the sound, slamming into something warm and solid. Limbs flailed at him, but Stan bore it to the ground, landing in a breathless heap with scared eyes staring up at him.

Stan looked down at the doe. The doe looked back at Stan.

"Shit," Stan muttered to himself. The doe bleated in terror, and he absently patted her neck, feeling her pulse thrum under his fingers even as she kicked and writhed, desperate to get back on her feet - hooves?

Stan looked around, briefly, before letting out a huff of frustration. He'd lost whoever had been watching him, and probably his best chance at getting to the bottom of whatever was going on here. But he had a feeling, somehow, that he'd be getting another chance. He hadn't shaken his tail. Someone would be watching.

They could wait. Right now, he wasn't going to turn up his nose at a free meal.

Chapter Text

Nineteen.

It was nearly midnight before Stan realised it was his birthday. He was nineteen years old. Still two years too young to drink and living in his damn car. Some birthday.

His traitorous mind wondered what Ford was doing now, how he was celebrating, before Stan clamped down hard on that line of thought. Sitting here feeling sorry for himself wasn’t going to make this night any better. He just had to -

There was a police car pulling up behind where he’d parked.

Stan twisted in the driver’s seat, throwing his head back and groaning when the cruiser’s side door swung open and a man stepped out. He rolled down his window, plastering on his biggest, best smile as the cop approached, shining a light down in his face. “Evening, officer! What can I do ya for?”

The flashlight bobbed, and a voice that sounded almost confused said, “We’ve had a few reports that...you’ve been parked here for the past couple days?”

“Oh yeah. That a problem?” Stan asked, trying to sound innocent, ignorant. He aimed his smile in the direction he guessed the cop’s eyes must be, squinting against the flashlight beam and hoping he was making eye contact. Couldn’t hurt.

He was hoping to maybe be let off with a warning instead of being arrested for vagrancy. He wasn’t expecting the cop to lower his flashlight, shake his head, and say, “No, I don’t think so. Don’t really know why people are so concerned.” He gave the Stanleymobile’s roof a couple of pats, smiling in at Stan. “You have a good night, sir.”

Stan looked around, but he couldn’t see anyone with a camera. “Uh, you too, officer.”

He watched until the cop had got back into his car and pulled away.

...

Grey light was starting to filter through the thickly-growing trees by the time Stan found something resembling a trail. It led vaguely downhill, and even better, it smelled freshly-used. Somebody took this path with pretty regular frequency. Which meant it probably wasn’t about to peter out and leave him stranded like the last three had done.

Stan pulled his hood up as he hurried along the trail, wincing as the trees grew sparser and the pale sky more and more visible between their trunks. He checked all of his pockets, with no luck. His sunglasses were probably right where he’d left them, sitting in the Stanleymobile’s glove box, somewhere back in town.

He muttered a curse towards the forest floor, keeping his eyes down as the light slowly grew pinkish, ruddy, a red glare that yanked involuntary tears to his eyes. Stan tugged his hood as far forward as he could without blinding himself, hoping to catch some shadow, even as the familiar ache of too much sun started to settle into his joints.

So the first warning he had that he’d stumbled onto an outpost of civilisation was when something gave a sharp, metallic click close to his ear, and a John Wayne voice said, “Not one more step, boy.”

Stan froze in his tracks. He’d been around long enough to get a feel for when someone was bluffing, and whoever this voice belonged to wasn’t.

He winced as he pushed back the hood, squinting against the rising sun, and made out two figures ahead of him. Boys, by the look of them, a weedy one who couldn’t have been more than about fifteen and looked sour, and a burly one who could have been anywhere between fifteen and twenty-five, with a more impressive crop of facial hair than Stan had ever been able to cultivate or probably would’ve even if he’d lived, an axe tossed casually over one shoulder and a full-grown buck over the other. Both of them were violently red-haired and dressed in worn jeans and flannel, and neither of them looked very happy to see him.

The older-looking boy gave his axe a casual, effortless swing, and said, “You got blood all over your face.”

Stan swiped the sleeve of his coat carelessly over his mouth, silently cursing his confidence that nobody he didn’t want to see that little display would be around in the woods at this hour. “You can relax, it ain’t human.” He eyed the buck, forced himself to fall into a more open posture. “Looks like we've both been doing some poaching -”

“This is my land, I got a right to what lives off it,” the cowboy voice from before said, from somewhere to Stan’s right, and Stan took a deep breath, forcing himself not to whip around to face the sound. He turned, slowly, making sure his hands were visible the whole time. Yep. Shotgun, aimed point blank at his head. Held by another ginger, though the man looked like he’d earned every grey hair sprinkled throughout his hair and trim beard. More flannel and denim, too. It suddenly struck Stan that he knew exactly where the elk at the diner must’ve come from.

“These your boys?” Stan asked, nodding towards the other two still watching him balefully. “Apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, huh?” 

“I ain’t seen your face around before, so I’m going to give you some advice for free,” the old man said, his voice perfectly level. “Gravity Falls is weird enough without your kind. Keep on moving.”

“Hey, you won’t catch me sticking around,” Stan agreed. “I’m just passing through.”

The old man nodded, but still didn’t lower the shotgun. “Good. Just remember. I may not always have a stake handy, but most things die if you blow their damn heads off.”

“Thanks,” Stan said, taking a cautious step backwards and wincing. Yep, the sun was definitely coming up now. “I will definitely not forget that you said that.”

“Pop?” the smaller boy said, and there was a metallic noise as the older boy hefted his axe in one hand.

“That sounded kinda like a threat -”

“What? Threat? Hah, no way, kid, I like being alive. Sort of. Sort of alive.” Stan jabbed a thumb over his shoulder, in the direction of the trail he’d been taking. “I left my car in town, you mind pointing me in the right direction so I can get outta here faster?”

The old man nodded in the same direction Stan had pointed. “Keep following that hunting trail, boy. You’ll find it.”

“Thanks.” Stan took another cautious step back, and another, and when no one moved, pulled up his hood again. “ ‘ppreciate it.”

He turned around, facing the glaring sun, and promptly walked into a tree.

...

The sun had crept all the way up over the horizon by the time Stan stumbled out of the woods, blinding as it reflected off the snow. He had walked into a few more trees on the way back to town, one of which had dumped a ton of snow on his head. It was still dripping in chilly rivulets down his back.

Stan held up a hand to shield his eyes, squinting hard to try to get a glimpse of where he’d ended up. A groan slipped out of him as he made out the shape of the diner from a few nights before. Hell. His car was clear across town from here, and even though it wasn’t really all that far to walk, he was already moving like an arthritic eighty-year-old and he couldn’t see a damn thing. He wasn’t going to make it before noon - and he really didn’t want to be out in noon sunlight. It probably wouldn’t kill him, but he’d rather not find out for himself.

He glanced over at the shadowy outline of the diner again, and had to squeeze his eyes shut. Shit. He was out of options, and time.

He’d just have to hope the day shift were as understanding as the night shift had been.

The diner was a little less overwhelmingly brilliant than outside had been, but the large windows along the outside wall still made it uncomfortably bright. Stan managed to drag his aching bones over to a booth and flopped down in it. He couldn’t remember ever feeling quite so much like the walking corpse he was.

A shadow passed between him and the light from the wall of windows, and Stan barely managed to bite back a sob of relief. He didn't recognise the voice that spoke at first. "What can I - oh, it's you. Gonna pay your tab this time?"

Stan shut his eyes and slumped back against the seat. "Thought you were on nights."

The waitress - Sharon, Shannon, something like that - let out a snort of laughter. "Thought you were too."

"Ha ha," Stan said, wearily. Now that he was out of the worst of the sun, tiredness was creeping up and making his eyelids droop. "Look, I'll pay for -"

"Oh, don't worry about it," the waitress said, and judging by the lilt in her voice, Stan was pretty sure she'd just winked. Her voice dropped a few decibels and the cheerfulness vanished as she went on, "I saw your car parked behind the church the other day. Don't worry about it."

Stan let out a groan, deep and heartfelt, and burrowed farther into his hood. "I can pay for a damn cup of coffee," he muttered into the collar of his coat. "Wouldn't be sleeping in my stupid car if my stupid brother would stop being stupid and invite me in."

"Brother?" the waitress asked.

Stan opened his mouth to brush the words aside, tell her to forget it, and stopped. She'd been the only person he'd meet so far who actually seemed willing - even eager - to talk to him. She didn't give a damn that he had fangs.

And - he didn't know where else to start.

"Yeah," Stan grunted, lowering his voice as well. Something told him someone would be listening. No wonder Ford was so paranoid, living in this town. "My twin. Stanford Pines. You know him?"

"Sorry, hon. Doesn't ring a bell."

"Come on, you've gotta have heard of him. He's a certified genius. Real big shot. And he's gotta have been here - what, something like six years now?" Stan thought for a moment, about the road up to the cabin, about the wild look in Ford's eyes when he'd opened the door, and said, "Think he turned into a bit of a recluse, but -"

"Wait, is that the guy who owns that shack out of town?" 

"That's him, yeah!" Stan pushed himself upright in his seat, trying to make out the waitress' face. She'd sounded kind of hesitant, and he wished he could read her expression, but to his eyes she was little more than a darker shape against a blur of white. "I think he's in some kinda trouble. You got any idea what kind of stuff he was messing around with? Hell, even ridiculous urban legends would be more than I've got to go on right now."

He couldn't be sure, but Stan thought the waitress glanced over her shoulder before she said, "Oh, I've heard a few urban legends. You heard the one that anyone who says his name forgets anything they ever knew?"

"Something like it," Stan answered.

"Can't tell you more than that, though, sorry," the waitress went on, raising her voice slightly. "Nobody knows anything about what goes on up there. I'd pay a fortune to get a peek inside."

"You and me both," Stan sighed. Back to square frickin' one.

"You're not going anywhere anytime soon, right?" the waitress asked, and though that flirting lilt was back in her voice, it didn't sound as easy as it had before, almost like she was forcing it.

"Not until sundown," Stan mumbled. If she thought she was getting a better tip if she pretended to like him -

"Good." She leaned in, close enough that her shadow all but shut out the light, and said, in an undertone, "I get off work at two."

Stan pressed himself so far back into the booth that he thought he might slip through a crack in the fake leather. "What? What is this?"

"You wanted to hear some scary stories," the waitress said, and then, a little louder, with aggressive cheer, "I'm sure there's a few local legends who might interest you! Wink!"

"Did you just say -” Stan started to ask, but the shadow had already whisked away.

Chapter Text

It was nearing midnight when Stan found a payphone. He approached it like it was a wild animal likely to bite, a sweaty fist clenched tight in his pocket around the handful of change he’d swiped from a coffeeshop tip jar. He’d promised himself he wouldn’t do this, had done everything he could to forget the number, but - he was low enough to be stealing leftovers and loose change. He hadn’t been able to scrounge up a single odd job since arriving, and the closest thing he’d had to a decent meal all week had come up again just minutes after he’d choked it down. 

He was sick and helpless and alone in a strange town, and he’d never really realised it before, but California was cold as hell at night.

Stan gripped the phone cord like a lifeline as he dropped glinting coins through the slot, listening to them rattle all the way down into the belly of the machine. The number danced off his fingers like lightning, and he pressed the receiver to his ear almost reverently, listening to the harsh, grinding ring, holding his breath.

She picked up on the third ring, her voice distant like she was facing away from the phone, and suddenly Stan could see her as clear as day, inspecting her nails with a pinched frown as she effortlessly snowed the rube on the other end of the line. “Madame Fortuna. All the secrets of space and time revealed.”

Stan slumped back against the wall of the phone booth, clapping a hand over his mouth to keep a sob from escaping. It had been so long, too long, but still, it had been barely more than a year. 

He shouldn’t have been surprised that his mother’s voice sounded exactly the same.

“Hello?” ‘Madame Fortuna’ asked. “Anybody there?”

“Sheila? Who the hell’s on the phone this time of night?” a too-familiar voice from the background called, and Stan froze. He might be clean on the opposite side of the country, but just the sound of his father’s voice still sent ice shooting down Stan’s spine.

There was a shuffling sound as Stan’s mother wrapped a hand around the receiver. “Shut the fuck up, willya? I got a client.”

“At this hour?” There was a thump, and then Filbrick’s voice was coming down the line, cold and just as unimpressed as ever. “Who is this?”

Stan slammed the receiver back onto the cradle.

The entire telephone booth shook.

Stan stared at the shower of sparks spitting out of the hole in the phone box where the cradle had been a moment before. He looked down at his own hand, still wrapped around the black plastic of the receiver, and slowly, carefully, uncurled his fingers.

They’d left dents in the plastic.

...

“Hey there, sleepyhead.”

Stan blinked his eyes open, and quickly squeezed them shut again as silver light lanced through his skull. Bruise-coloured fireworks bloomed against the inside of his eyelids as he curled farther down into the booth, throwing his hood up over his face.

Something sharp poked Stan in the shoulder, hard, through his coat. He cracked one eye open, pushing his hood back just enough to see through the film of tears that sprang up at the light. He could just make out that he was being jabbed by a finger tipped with a wicked-looking acrylic claw.

“Hey. My shift’s ending, the evening girl’s coming on any minute. You don’t wanna get kicked out, you shouldn’t hang around.”

Stan grumbled quietly to himself as he levered himself out of the seat, every muscle protesting at the slightest shift. It was going to be a nightmare trying to get across town and back to his car. He wondered just how long he could linger before the new waitress figured out something was wrong and gave him the boot. It could only be two, three hours until sunset, right?

He started to slide out of the seat, and stopped. A hand had wrapped around his elbow. “What is this? What’re you doing?”

The waitress snorted. “You’re wandering around with your eyes shut and you look like you’re about five seconds away from toppling over,” she said, with her usual cheerful tone. 

“I don’t need you to carry me around like I’m some kind of geezer,” Stan grouched, pushing himself up out of the booth and onto his feet, ignoring the burning in each joint and ligament. “See? I - ack!”

He toppled forward as both knees abruptly gave out. Hands on his shoulders stopped his fall, and he slumped ungraciously on the waitress’ arm. “All right, fine. Just don’t say you told me so.”

“Sure, hon,” the waitress said, leading him forward. “Here, we’ll go through the back, I gotta get my coat.”

Stan counted about thirty steps before he heard a click and a hiss, something like a large door opening, and a blast of cold. Instead of stepping out into the snow, though, he stepped into a dim space, and then heard an ominous rush as the door closed behind him.

Stan whirled, ready to fight despite his aches and pains, but as his eyes adjusted quickly to the dark he saw that the waitress was standing in the small space with him. She raised both hands, palms out. “Whoa, calm down. We’re in the walk-in freezer, it was the only place I could think of that would be dark, and we probably won’t be overheard in here.”

Stan relaxed slightly, but he didn't take his eyes off the waitress.  It was a welcome relief not to be blinded, though, he had to admit, even if he was already starting to lose feeling in his fingers. "Okay. Whaddaya got to talk about that's such a big secret?"

The waitress - Susan, her nametag said, and Stan tried to stamp it onto his memory - let out a puff of breath that steamed in the cold air. "Well, I don't really know anything about your brother."

"Of course," Stan sighed. The waitress - Susan - gave him an odd look, but then gave her head a little shake, before raising a hand, index finger extended.

"Hey, I didn't say I didn't know anything at all!" She beamed. "Your brother didn't come into town much - don't think he ever does anymore. But his assistant's a different story."

Stan looked around for something to sit on, pulling up a milk crate. Just because he was out of the sun didn't mean he couldn't still feel it, didn't still feel like he should be asleep right now. "Assistant? I didn't know Ford was working with anybody else." He tried and failed to hold back a bitter laugh. "Didn't think anybody was smart enough for him."

Susan shrugged, but her eyes softened. "He seemed pretty smart to me. Friendly enough guy, too. He used to drop by on Sunday mornings and try to convince us to put grits on the menu. Never happened, of course, we couldn't get them just right." She grimaced. "He stopped coming around after something went wrong up there. The last time I saw him, he was in a real state - just said something about some kind of terrible mistake and that he wished he'd never come to Gravity Falls. But if anybody'd know what happened to your brother -"

"Yeah," Stan breathed. "Thanks, that’s - what’d you say his name -”

Susan snapped her fingers, cutting Stan off in the middle of his question. “That’s what wasn’t right! Your breath doesn’t mist!”

“Yeah,” Stan repeated, flat, stuffing his hands deeper into his coat pockets and glaring at a tub of mayonnaise on the wire shelf beside him. “I’m a dead guy, I ain’t exactly got much body heat. You know anything else? Maybe this assistant’s name? Where I can find him?”

Susan, to her credit, recovered quickly after the words ‘dead guy’. “Well, if I’m remembering right, his name’s Fiddleford McGucket -”

“Because that don’t sound made up at all.”

“ - but I’m not sure where you can find him.” Susan planted a hand on one hip, squeezing one eye closed in thought. “He’s got a place a few streets over from the dump, used to live there while his wife and kid were still in town, but I don’t think he’s been staying there since he went off the deep end.”

“Oh good. I’ve got one lead and he’s a nutcase,” Stan grumbled, pushing himself up from the milk crate with a wince. He was going to have honeycomb patterns imprinted in his ass for nights. “You got an address?”

Susan whipped a pad and pencil from the front pocket of the apron she still wore under her puffy winter jacket, holding them up with a smile. She motioned for Stan to turn around, pressing the pad up against his shoulder and starting to scribble. “Jesus, you’re shaking like a leaf.”

“Dead guy,” Stan sighed again. “We don’t do so good with the cold.”

“Huh.” There was silence from Susan for a few moments, the soft scratch of pencil against paper and the whirring of the freezer fans the only sounds. Finally, she pulled the paper away and tapped Stan on the shoulder. “All right, I’m done.” Stan turned, and Susan pressed the slip of paper into his hand. “Just be careful, hotshot. You never know who might be watching.”

It was entirely possible, Stan decided, that Susan was the only person in the world who thought that sentence could be flirty. 

He decided to ignore it in favour of asking the question that had been at the forefront of his mind since she’d first plopped a mug full of bloody coffee down in front of him. “If it’s so dangerous to go sticking your nose in weird shit around here, then why’d you decide to help me out? I’m a total stranger, and a bloodsucking one. And you’re probably never gonna see me again after I get things straightened out with Ford. So why -”

“This used to be a nice, friendly town,” Susan said. “And I don’t see any reason for that to change.” 

She shot Stan a bright, brittle smile, before reaching out and grabbing the handle on the inside of the freezer door. “Come on. I’ll give you a lift back to your car.”

...

The Stanleymobile was still parked exactly where Stan had left it, behind the church at the end of Main Street. Susan pulled up beside it, throwing her battered blue Pinto into park and turning to face Stan. “Here you go. I’d invite you to stay with me, but -”

“Yeah, yeah,” Stan sighed, dredging up a smile. “Don’t worry, I get it.”

“Are you gonna be all right?” Susan asked, and Stan could make out the way her eyebrows furrowed. Must’ve been nearer dark than he’d thought.

“Yeah, I’ll be fine,’ he muttered, as he pushed the door open. “Always am.”

Susan didn’t look reassured, so Stan put on his best salesman smile, all teeth and sincerity. “Don’t you worry about me. Stan Pines always lands on his feet.”

He flashed both thumbs up in her direction as he stepped out of the car, slamming the door behind him to cut off whatever she’d been starting to say. Stan turned his back on the Pinto, gritting his teeth as he took the two agonizing steps over to the Stanleymobile’s driver’s side door, and stopped. Something white was fluttering under one of his windshield wipers.

“Oh, come on, nobody even uses this lot except on Sundays!” Stan complained to the clear air as he reached over to snag the scrap of waving paper. It nearly slipped from his clumsy, aching fingers as he tried to unfold it.

It wasn’t a parking ticket. Most parking tickets didn’t say, in clean, black block letters, YOU WERE WARNED.

“What the -” Stan started to say, and the paper ripped in two. He thought for a split second that he’d torn it without realising, but then there was a thunk and he looked down to see a crossbow bolt quivering in the packed snow between his feet.

Something shot past his ear with a whine. It took a moment before he even felt the sting.

By then, he was already moving, dropping to a crouch beside the Stanleymobile as he tried to work out where the bolts were coming from. The sky was still too bright to see anything against, and whoever was shooting was either too well-disguised by the forest and all of its unfamiliar scents and sounds or too far away for Stan to be able to pick them out of the seemingly innocent landscape. Another bolt hissed just over his head and he ducked down further, swearing quietly as he fumbled through his pockets. Where were his damn keys -

The Pinto’s engine farted to life, and Susan swung up around the front of the Stanleymobile, boxing Stan in as another bolt clattered off of her fender. She swung the passenger-side door open, nearly smashing it into his face, and ordered, “Get in!”

Stan didn’t have to be told twice. He clambered up into the passenger seat and pulled the door shut behind him as Susan peeled out of the lot, narrowly avoiding tearing the Stanleymobile’s front bumper off.

“Where d’you think you’re going?” Stan yelled, as they bumped into the shadow of the trees behind the church. “You want somebody to stop shooting at you, you don’t drive away from civilization!”

“Couldn’t you tell?” Susan snapped back, glancing in the rearview mirror as she swerved to avoid a fallen branch. “Those shots were coming from the church roof! I wasn’t putting us any closer in range!”

“You -” Stan started, before blowing out an angry huff. “Fine. So I couldn’t tell. So what? The sun was right behind them. Couldn’t see a damn thing.”

“Whoever did it must’ve known that,” Susan said, quietly, with another, less frantic glance in the rearview mirror, as the Pinto lurched out of the woods and onto actual pavement. “Somebody set you up. You must’ve really pissed them off. They don’t just want you to stop sticking your nose in. They want you dead.”

“Then they’re gonna have to try harder than that,” Stan said, with false bravado.

"Seriously!” Susan pulled the car to a rolling stop on the side of the road, turning to face Stan. “What have you been doing for the last two nights to make somebody want you dead when you haven’t even been in town a whole week?”

“Dunno. But I got a couple ideas,” Stan said. An ugly, uneasy feeling was starting to settle heavily into his chest. But Ford had - had barricaded himself in, had said something about waiting a mysterious ‘him’ out. Susan had even said he hadn’t been to town in as long as she could remember. Ford wouldn’t have left his fortress just to come after Stan if Stan wasn’t bothering him, would he? 

He wouldn’t want his own twin brother dead, would he?

Stan reached up to touch the cut on his ear where a bolt had grazed him, wincing at the sting. His fingers came away slick and cold with blood, so thick and dark it was nearly black. He bit down on his lip and looked out the window, trying not to meet Susan’s patient but piercing look.

...would he?

Chapter Text

Something was wrong.

Stan had already known something wasn’t right with him, by the feverish chills that shook him every time he opened his eyes to blinding daylight, by the way his energy was slowly bleeding away (though not his strength, judging by the sparks he couldn’t forget spitting from a ruined payphone). Most of all, he’d known it from the way his stomach turned at even the thought of food, even though the gnawing in the pit of his stomach was growing sharper and harder to ignore with each passing day.

But this was worse.

The pain had started out sharp and stabbing, like needles driven up underneath his eyes, but now it was pulsing all through his head, burning a line right across his face and radiating in a dull throbbing up through the dome of his skull. He couldn't sleep for the pain, even though his whole skeleton had turned to lead encased in jelly, even though he was so exhausted with hunger that he'd actually been idly considering the edibility of everyone who passed too close to the Stanleymobile. It felt like the time he'd broken his nose in a bout, but everywhere along his upper jaw and around his eyes, constant and agonising. Smashing his face repeatedly into a cinderblock might hurt less.

He knew what Ford would say (would have said, once), could hear his brother's voice as clear as if he'd been right there in the passenger seat. "Don't be an idiot, Stanley. You can't just ignore every problem until it goes away."

"Can it, poindexter," Stan mumbled to himself, shifting in the backseat to try to find a position comfortable enough that he might be able to snatch some sleep.

He stuffed his fist in his mouth to muffle a whine when the stabbing started along his lower jaw.

...

“Would you cut that out?”

“Cut what out?”

Susan gestured vaguely in the direction of her collar. “Staring.”

“Ah, shit.” Stan turned away, pressing his forehead against the cool window glass as he glared out at the darkening road ahead. “It’s a small car, you got a heartbeat...” He shrugged. “Didn’t even realise I was doin’ it.”

“I thought you were gonna start drooling on my dashboard.” Susan’s gaze was like a laser beam boring into the side of Stan’s head, but he managed not to turn. “When was the last time you -”

“Ate?” The hint of a waver in Susan’s exasperated tone needled Stan into interrupting. “Relax, you’re safe, I had venison last night.”

“And how long do you usually go between, uh, meals?”

Stan huffed out a breath. “Little late to start using your brain now you got me in the car with you.” He waited for a long moment, hoping Susan was letting that sink in, before he let her off the hook. “It’s usually a couple days, maybe a week. Depends what I can get. ‘s gotta be sooner if I get hurt or something.” He leaned forward, staring down the sunset street as best he could. “Where’re we going, anyway? You got a plan, or we just trying to get out of crossbow range?”

Stan could practically feel how eager Susan was to ask another question, but instead, she leaned over and turned on the radio. “I thought maybe we should go see if Fiddleford’s home. If somebody’s trying to kill you, you’re probably on the right track.”

“What? What the hell kinda Mission Improbable shit is that?”

“Isn’t this just a little exciting?” Susan shot Stan a small, proud smile. “Never thought I’d be on the run from assassins.”

“Trust me, the charm wears off real fast,” Stan grumbled. He sank down in his seat, glaring out the window at the passing streets, the rich oranges and purples that washed every trim little house as the sun bled out of the sky, basking in the intermittent blasts of warmth from Susan’s aging heater.

They’d gone little more than a block before Susan’s voice asked, over the quiet pop music from the rattly speakers, “So do you have any idea who -”

“No,” Stan said, shortly.

“Well, I just thought if you had some clue -”

“I don’t.”

The little sniff Susan gave sounded less than impressed, but Stan couldn’t bring himself to care. There was no way he was right, so there wasn’t any point in even voicing the awful, impossible suspicion churning in his gut. 

He really, really wished Susan would just drop it. But instead, she went on, with several pointed glances in Stan’s direction that he did his best to ignore. “Really. You can’t think of one person you met in the handful of nights you’ve been here who might’ve been less than delighted to see you.”

“Nobody’s delighted to see me, okay? You don’t show up most places looking - and smelling - like you been living in your car for months and get a warm welcome. And that’s without the fangs -” He stopped, snapping his fingers. “Shit. That’s gotta be it.”

“What?” Susan asked, taking a right with a little more enthusiasm than necessary.

“Fangs. I ran into some backwoods weirdo and his runts in the forest just before sunup, just after I ate. Guy caught on quick. He had a serious issue with me being in town, offered to blow my head off if I stuck around.”

Susan thumped the steering wheel. “Redheads?”

“Yeah. You know ‘em?”

“Sounds like Albert Corduroy and his boys.” There was a note of uncertainty in Susan’s voice as she went on. “It’s not really their style, though...”

“Yeah, I got the feeling they go more for unmarked graves on the back forty.” Stan leaned forward to press his hands over the heater vents. “Wouldn’t have to come after me in public in broad daylight, though. This drags on much longer, I’m gonna have to head back into the woods sooner or later. And I got the feeling he was kinda looking forward to it.”

“You’re right,” Susan said, drumming her fingers against the wheel thoughtfully. “They wouldn’t do something like this unless they were desperate.”

“It was one deer!” Stan protested.

“That’s not -” Susan sighed, though it sounded suspiciously like she was trying to smother a giggle. “That’s not what I meant,” she managed to say, once her voice was back under control, still smiling into the teeth of Stan’s glare. 

“Well, I ain’t done anything else yet,” Stan grumbled, slouching down in his seat. Susan’s smile faded, and she shook her head.

“I think it’s got more to do with who you’re here for.”

“What? I thought you said Ford was some kinda recluse. What’s he got to do with old Duelling Banjos?”

Susan clapped a hand over her mouth to muffle her snort of laughter, her eyes sparkling. She didn't say anything, though, only pulled over to the curb. 

Stan squinted out into the purple dark. "We here already?"

"Yeah. Come on, let's go see if anybody's home."

"Could this town possibly be any smaller?" Stan muttered under his breath, pushing the door open and wincing when it scraped across the sidewalk.

The house was an unassuming two-storey that looked a couple times older than Stan, white trim and a green front door. The whole street was similar, one side lined with little old houses in neat rows, the other lined with scrubby brush that probably hid vacant lots where little old houses had stood, all leading down to the metal maw of a scrapyard at the far end.

"No lights," Stan noted, looking up at the house as he tried to fix his collar to keep the icy breeze from pouring down his neck.

"I know," Susan said shortly. "You got a better idea?"

"We could go get a drink and forget the whole thing," Stan suggested, half-heartedly.

"He's your brother, not mine."

"I know. I'm just deciding whether he's really worth all this," Stan grumbled, starting up the stairs. He stopped in front of the door. The paint was peeling, and the trim was starting to rot away, the stairs sagging alarmingly under his weight. Through the small window set in the door, he could just make out a battered screen door choked with dust, but nothing but darkness beyond it. "I don't think anybody lives here."

"Well, are you gonna stand there staring all night, or are you gonna knock and find out?"

"Yeah, yeah," Stan grouched, reaching up to knock. He rapped twice, with a hollow booming, and then everything fell quiet. Behind him, a car drove past, its headlights chasing Stan's shadow across the door.

Susan stamped her feet, letting out a long breath as she hugged herself. "Try it again, there might be somebody upstairs."

"I'm telling you, nobody lives here. Nobody’s used this door in years." Stan tapped the side of his nose, and then added, "I'm not feeling a threshold here. I could probably just walk on in if I wanted. Nobody lives here."

Susan's eyes narrowed thoughtfully, and she said, "Can you?"

"Can I what?"

"Walk on in." She shouldered past Stan, the stairs bouncing and bobbing as she grabbed the doorknob. "Is it even locked?"

“Come on, there’s no way they woulda just -” Stan started, and Susan gave the doorknob a twist. There was a click, and it swung outward, nearly bashing Stan in the face. “Holy Moses, this town’s even smaller than I thought. Hey, does anybody lock their doors around here? And uh, what do you know about the local law enforcement? Asking for no particular reason, just curious.”

Susan let out a barking laugh, swatting Stan on the arm as she reached for the screen door. “You are such a joker!”

“Heh. Yep, that’s me. But seriously, do people just not lock their doors out here?”

Susan just kept laughing as she shouldered the screen door open. It gave way with a shriek and a puff of dust, its hinges moaning as it swung inward. “So! Even if there’s nobody here, there might be something that could tell us where Fiddleford is now, or what happened to -”

“Yeah, yeah, it’s a great idea,” Stan grumbled. Even without an active threshold in place, something about barging into a house that wasn’t his was giving him an uneasy feeling, and though it could just have been bad memories, he’d learned over the last ten-odd years to listen to his gut. “Let’s just get this over with and get out, okay?”

A puff of dust rose from the floor as soon as Stan set foot inside the darkened house, stinging his nose and forcing a sneeze out of him. He sniffed, rubbing his nose against his sleeve and squinting into the dark as his eyes adjusted. “Shit, this place is bare. How long did you say this guy’s been out of it?”

“Not sure,” Susan said, stepping cautiously around the side table that stood beside the door. “Things really only started going downhill in the last year - what’s wrong?”

Stan paused, looking up at the ceiling. “Thought I heard something.”

Susan froze in the middle of the hall, arms held up like she was prepared to protect herself, eyes darting around as if she’d be able to see in the dark. “What? What kind of something?”

Stan shook his head. The heartbeats he could hear were distant, or at least heavily muffled, probably from other houses along the street. These little places were practically shoulder-to-shoulder anyway. 

But the crawling feeling of suspicion hadn’t stopped rising up his spine.

“I’m gonna go check out the rest of the house,” Stan said, pulling his hands from his pockets and letting his arms hang loose, ready to swing if necessary. “Stick around here, stay close to the door, see what you can find, and if you see anything, yell.”

Susan nodded. The last Stan saw of her before he started down the hall, she was dragging a finger through the dust on the side table and looking at it curiously.

The little office beside the living room wasn’t very forthcoming, the bookshelves stripped, the drawers of the large desk yanked out and tumbled across the floor, tiny bits of broken or dismantled machinery that Stan couldn’t make heads or tails of scattered across the pile. Loose papers fluttered in the faint chilly breeze from the open door, moonlight shining blue through the gauzy curtains. Stan pulled a few pages free; one was covered in ones and zeroes, the other in incomprehensible equations, most of which were scratched out in red pen. He flicked through a few more pages, but they were all the same - strange equations, graphs, codes, a lot of red-pen scribbles and drawings of a single staring eye. 

“Yeesh,” Stan sighed, looking at one particularly unnerving eye for a moment before slamming it down face-down on the desk. “No wonder you and Ford got along.”

Nothing in the office, weird and nerdy as it was, cast any light on what might have happened, though, so Stan moved on. Moonlight spilled in silver squares onto the cracked linoleum of the kitchen floor ahead of him, shifting silently as he slunk down the hall. The house was quiet around him, the faint hiss of a breath of wind from the open front door and the soft sounds of Susan’s breathing in the front room all that broke the silence. The carpet of dust on the floor muffled the sound of Stan’s footsteps as he -

Stan froze with one foot in the air. There was no dust where he’d just stepped.

He carefully lowered his raised foot, peering down the hall towards the kitchen. It looked more swept clean down the middle than a single chain of footprints, almost like something light had been dragged through it, and a memory of a flapping piece of dark fabric and the sole of a boot vanishing around the corner of a stone building bubbled up to the surface of his thoughts.

Stan paused where he stood, taking careful stock of his surroundings, his heart sinking as he realised that the faint, cool breeze from the open front door had stopped. The dust that had made him sneeze had masked the scents of recent use, but they were there. And the heartbeats he'd pegged for neighbours -

"Shit," Stan hissed between his teeth, just as Susan shrieked from the living room.

Stan turned, only to find himself face to shadowy hood with two figures in dark red robes, gliding soundlessly down the hall towards him. They could have been nothing but empty cloth, floating in midair. He spun back to face the kitchen again, to see two more hooded figures blocking the doorway. He glanced toward the door to the little office, remembering the window and its fluttering gauzy curtains, but the thought flew out of his head at the sound of another shout from the living room.

"What do you think you're doing? Cut that out!"

"Susan!" Stan yelled, launching himself down the hall. The two hooded figures blocking his way drew together, one of them moving to pull something free of their robes, but they didn't have time before Stan's fist met the side of their head. They hit the wall hard and slid down it, flopping limply on the hallway floor as the second hooded figure tried to tackle Stan from behind. A weight slammed into him, and he staggered back, falling against the wall with his back to it, pinning his assailant. A faint ‘oof’ was his reward, and Stan pulled away from the wall and bashed the robed figure back into it again. He didn’t have long to savour the feeling of the arms around his neck slipping away before the two from the kitchen were on him as well, one of them drawing a little vial from their robes and splashing its contents over Stan’s face.

Stan wiped his eyes with the back of one arm, blinking rapidly to clear his vision before they jumped him - but they didn’t. Instead, both robed figures stood there looking at him, giving off an aura of befuddlement, and a grin broke across Stan’s face as he realised what they’d been trying to do.

“Nice try, boys,” he laughed, “but a little holy water isn’t going to do much more than get me cleaner than I’ve been in at least a couple weeks.”

He turned to bolt before they could process what he’d said, and promptly tripped over the prone form of the robed figure he’d just knocked out against the wall.

Stan was back on his feet in an instant, scrambling up and away from the thumping footfalls of the two robed figures in pursuit, towards the shouts from the living room. Susan still sounded more indignant than scared, but it wasn't like he was just going to run off and leave her with a bunch of people who’d been shooting at them less than an hour earlier.

He skidded into the living room with the two hooded figures hard on his heels, and stopped. 

The first thing that met his eyes was the front door, slammed shut, heavy and dark and no doubt locked.

The second thing was Susan, staring down another, taller figure in red robes, the look on her face so full of sheer irritated indignation that under any other circumstances, Stan would’ve laughed. She was still berating the hooded person when Stan slid into the room, and Stan could tell somehow that they were rolling their eyes. “What about ‘no harm to the harmless’? What happened to protecting the innocent? You ought to be ashamed of yourselves -”

“Susan Wentworth, our quarrel is not with you,” the hooded figure intoned, in a voice that would have been imposing and authoritative if it weren’t so heavy with exasperation.

Susan aimed a kick at the figure, and they had to do some inelegant scrambling to avoid her feet.”Well, you just started one with me! Just because you’re related to -” She broke off at the sight of Stan, her eyes widening. “Get out of here! I’m fine, these - bozos - wouldn’t dare -”

“Wouldn’t dare? They shot at us! One of them just tried to give me a holy water acid burn! They’re weathered assassins, not a herd of misbehaving cats!”

“What?” Susan froze for a moment, before she started yelling again. “No. No, I know you’re not stupid enough to try to kill an innocent man just for being undead.” The look she shot at the hooded figure was as pointed as the kick she aimed at their shins. They sidestepped with more grace this time, and even though Stan couldn’t see their face in the shadows of their hood, he could still feel their eyes fixing him like a moth pinned to a corkboard.

“You.”

Stan froze. Something about that voice had totally bypassed his thoughts and gone straight to the roots of some of his less-than-treasured childhood memories, snapping him to attention before his brain could catch up. Behind him, he heard his two pursuers shuffle to a halt, breathing hard, and before he could move, felt something sharp digging in just under his ribs, right where a strong, quick thrust could pierce through to the heart.

But even though his head filled with memories of switchblades and knuckledusters and worse, he didn’t move, his eyes fixed on the robed figure that towered over Susan. He couldn’t see, but could feel, the disapproving gaze focused on him from deep in the shadows of that hood emblazoned with its crossed-out eye.

“What about me?” Stan shot back, reaching for but not quite finding his usual bravado. 

The figure remained impassive, unreadable. “You should not have meddled in affairs that do not concern you.”

Stan had to grind his teeth together to keep his fangs from dropping. Something about that voice, like the speaker had just stepped in something mildly unpleasant and a little bit smelly, was getting right up his nose, and he suddenly itched to tear a strip or two off of its owner. “Sorry. Didn’t realise my own brother doesn’t concern me.”

There was a scoff, from somewhere deep in the hood, and Stan jerked forward, stopping his own lunge only when the point at his ribs dug in just enough to smart. 

The hooded figure didn’t turn their eyeless gaze from Stan's face. “By your interference, you have put all of us at risk. You have stirred forces that were better left slumbering -”

“What, by...asking what my idiot brother’s been up to for the past ten-odd years?” 

“Yes.”

“What?” Stan bit back the handful of choice words he was longing to say. “Oh, come on!”

The hooded figure continued as though Stan hadn’t spoken, raising one pale hand and beckoning to one of the figures who’d chased Stan into the living room. “You have endangered the good people of Gravity Falls by your presence and your actions. You have been given every opportunity to remove yourself from our town, and have not done so. And you have attracted...” The voice actually wavered, a note of fear bleeding in as it said, “Unwanted attention. For these reasons, and in the interest of the safety of the town...” 

The figure gestured, and the smaller hooded figure drew, from their robes, what looked like nothing so much as a Nyarf gun with some extra cogs and dongles stuck on and a lightbulb screwed into the muzzle, passing it reverently to the taller figure. 

Stan couldn't help a laugh of pure relief. "What..what the heck is that thing supposed to be?"

By the stony silence of the hooded figures grouped around him, he gathered that this was not the correct response.

"Look," Stan sighed, with a quick glance around the room, trying to fix the position of everyone in the room in his memory. "This has been a blast - seriously, thanks for the laugh - but I’ve got shit to do, so...”

“You aren’t going anywhere,” the tallest of the hooded figures intoned, raising the contraption and aiming the lightbulb, point-blank, into Stan’s face.

Chapter Text

It took a week and a half for Stan to swallow his pride.

It was longer than he’d thought he might last, honestly. But the first few times he’d picked up a payphone, the memory of his father’s voice ringing in his ears had made him carefully place the receiver back in the cradle. He could just imagine what choice words Filbrick Pines would have to say about a son who dropped out of high school, ran away from home, and got mixed up with gangsters. 

No, there was no way Stan was giving up just yet. He was headed for bigger and better things than this. He’d show them worthless.

It took a week and a half for him to admit to himself that if he didn’t do something soon, the only thing he was headed for was a hospital. But after his legs had started buckling under him unexpectedly, it was pretty clear that he wasn’t getting better on his own.

He couldn’t afford a hospital - hell, he couldn’t afford to fill his tank, and that was gonna be a lot more pressing soon - and he’d lost his fake ID, so skipping out on the bill wasn’t as attractive an option. Stan considered, for maybe a split second, calling home and throwing himself on his father’s mercy, but he laughed that idea off as soon as it came to him. That wasn’t even an option.

Which meant that there was only one thing left that he could do.

Juancarlo had picked up on the third ring. “I told you I’ll have it by Saturday, what, you can’t wait three days?”

“Juancarlo, it’s Stan.”

The angry whine had vanished from Juancarlo’s voice instantly. “Stan? Stan Pines? Oh man, just the guy I wanted to hear from! Where are you, man? What the hell did you think you were doing, taking off in the middle of the night like that?”

“Yeah, it was stupid,” Stan managed, and coughed. “Look, we’ve been friends for how long now?”

“A year is not long enough for another favour, Stan. Not after I set you up in that nice place with Rico and you -”

“Yeah, about that. Listen, I’m - I’m in a spot of trouble down here - nothing bad, just got robbed, caught something nasty from the dumpster they tossed me in, I just -” Oh shit, he was about to cry. Stan pinched the bridge of his nose and stared up at the ceiling of the phone box, trying not to let his voice shake. “I just need to get my feet under me. You know anybody in Santa Cruz? Anywhere I could crash for a couple nights?”

Juancarlo’s answer was slow in coming. “I - know some guys, yeah. I’ll let ‘em know you’re down there, eh?”

“Thanks, pal,” Stan said, and hung up, before the choking sob sitting in a lump in his throat could escape.

Finally, something in his miserable life was going right.

...

If there was one thing Stan had learned from the last ten years, it was that just because something looked harmless, didn’t mean it was.

He dove forward, driving his fist into the gut of the hooded figure with the weirdo lightbulb-gun pointed at his face. The figure flailed, the gun going off with a flashbulb-pop in his hand and throwing everything into stark black and white just as Stan threw another punch. His fist connected with the side of the hooded figure’s head, just as the room was plunged back into darkness.

Stan struck out blindly towards the sound of breathing, unable to see past the huge blooms of searing purple and red flashing before his eyes. They’d taken away one of his major advantages - was that all the gun had been meant to do? Blind him? Seemed like way too much work, a flashlight would’ve done the trick. That gun did something, and Stan wasn’t interested in sticking around to find out what.

He took a few panicky, wild swings from the hooded figure who’d just tried to shoot him. Thankfully, the hooded person seemed to be at least as blinded as Stan was, and their blows landed harmlessly, mostly. Stan managed to get a few lucky punches to connect himself, forcing a wheeze out of the hooded figure, and Stan drove forward, still raining blows as he listened for the sound of footfalls and deftly stuck a foot out where he judged the hooded figure would take their next step.

He judged right. The hooded figure tripped over Stan’s foot and went over backwards with an undignified squawk, just in time for Stan to lash out with an elbow and catch the guy who’d been coming up behind him in the gut. He was just spinning to face the guy behind him, hoping to use his momentum to turn the spin into a haymaker, when a sharp pain exploded in the side of his head.

Stan stumbled, tripping over the legs of the hooded figure he’d just tripped himself, and landed hard on the floor, swallowing a shout when he landed on the point of his elbow and a lance of pain shot up his left arm. Through the flashing afterimages still clouding his vision, he could make out one of the other hooded figures, probably the one who’d just hit him in the side of the head, advancing on him.

“I don’t know why or how the holy water didn’t work on you,” a familiar voice said from under the figure’s hood, and Stan struggled to place it. “But ain’t been the bloodsucker turned yet could survive a foot of sharp stake through the heart.”

Stan launched himself forward, not bothering to rise to his full height. Instead, he threw himself at the hooded figure’s legs, about where he judged the knees must be, wincing as he wrapped both arms around the man’s legs and tackled him to the floor with a thud like a cut tree falling. Landing on his elbow like that had definitely done something painful and lingering to Stan’s arm, but he didn’t have time to worry about it. The hooded figure he’d just knocked to the ground was slashing wildly at Stan’s face with the stake he’d mentioned earlier, and Stan didn’t really feel like finding out if he could regrow eyeballs.

“How dare you!” Susan yelled, from somewhere behind him. Stan bobbed his head to avoid a particularly vicious swipe from the stake, and rolled out of the way of the kick another hooded figure aimed at his side. The figure who’d been about to kick Stan overbalanced when his foot didn’t make contact, and Stan heard them yelp as they toppled over onto the man Stan had tackled. 

Stan could hear them yelling at each other as he got to his feet, cradling his injured arm close to his chest. He didn’t have time to assess the damage, though - it wouldn’t take long for the bozos he’d just put down to untangle themselves and get back up, even if the one with the funny-looking gun was out for the count, and there were still two - no, three - wait, had there been four or five of them to start with?

Another outburst from Susan made him spin. “And just what are you planning on doing with that thing, huh? Is this what the Society’s come to? Viciously assaulting defenseless civilians? When people hear about what you’ve been up to -”

“No one’s gonna hear anything about anything,” the hooded figure aiming one of those ridiculous lightbulb-guns at Susan’s face said. They nodded to the other hooded figure holding her arms behind her back, and the other hooded figure nodded back. “Because you won’t remember anything even happened. Now, hold still and look at me -”

They pulled the trigger just as Stan’s fist connected with the back of their head.

The shot went wide, a sizzling bolt of white light smashing through the front window as the hooded figure fell. The crash of glass mingled with the tinkle of the lightbulb in the gun smashing as it and the hooded figure hit the ground. Stan managed to shut his eyes this time, but he could still see the light flaring through his eyelids. 

The figure still holding Susan’s arms let out a quiet squeak and tried to duck behind Susan. She pulled her arms free with a disgusted noise, stepping toward the fallen hooded figure and stamping on the sparks spitting out of the broken bulb. A few had already caught in the carpet and were licking up in tiny tongues of flame. 

Stan feinted forward at the hooded figure who had held Susan’s arms, and they gave another squeak and collapsed in what looked like a dead faint. Stan nudged the sole of one of their sensible white trainers with his toe, letting out a little snort. “What a buncha schmucks. Think I see why they tried shooting at me from a distance first -”

Susan’s shout of “Stan!” came too late. Stan was already frozen, the hand on his right shoulder holding him in place almost friendly, almost steadying against the pulsing waves of searing heat and burning cold radiating from the stake jammed between his ribs from behind.

Stan coughed, tasting copper in the back of his throat. It hurt too much to hurt, whiting out his vision in bursts, and it took him a few seconds to realise that he was still al- well, what passed for alive for him. The hand on his shoulder dug its fingers in, pulling back as whoever it was gripped the stake, shoving it roughly farther in and twisting, and it was only because he’d had ten-odd years of learning to deal with crippling pain that Stan only let out a high keening whine instead of a scream. His fangs had to be down, his face felt too heavy and all wrong, but he hadn’t even noticed the weird ache of a shifting jaw through the waves of agony from his chest.

“Shouldn’t let yourself get so cocky, boy,” the hooded figure with the familiar voice said from behind Stan, voice full of grim satisfaction, and a flicker of red hair and flannel crossed Stan’s mind before the pain wiped it clean. The hand on Stan’s shoulder opened, letting him go, and Stan saw rather than felt himself fall, ungracefully, like a sack of wet concrete or a corpse. He couldn’t really feel his arms or legs - but he definitely felt it when his chest made contact with the floor and exploded.

This time, no amount of experience handling pain could have kept the scream back.

“You still kickin’?” the familiar voice asked, from some fantastical distance, dim and unimportant. The carpet scratched at Stan’s cheek, and he noticed vaguely that the little tongues of flame over by the broken lightbulb-gun were still flickering merrily. Something was making an annoying whimpering noise, and Stan was horrified to realise it was coming from him. Or some of it was, at least, he thought Susan might’ve also - 

A weight pressed into the middle of his back, the stake jerked a little back and forth, and then there was a quiet noise a little like someone stepping in a mud puddle as the red-haired man pulled the stake out of Stan’s ribcage. Through the pain that tore through him, Stan realised, irrationally, that he was most pissed off about the fact that his one and only winter coat would now have a gaping hole in the back.

“This’s a better angle anyway,” the red-haired man said, his foot in the middle of Stan’s back shifting. “Now hold still, or I’ll miss again -”

There was a scream, one that sounded more angry than scared or hurt, and a clonk, and the weight vanished from Stan’s back. Something thumped to the floor behind him, sending a jolt and a flare of pain through his chest, and then there were warm hands on either side of his face and Susan’s voice very near his ear saying his name over and over and sounding more irritating every time. After what he’d just been through, Stan just wanted her to shut up and let him take a nap. Maybe for a week.

“Stan? Don’t you go dying on me, I just hit Albert Corduroy in the head with a lamp to save you - wake up!”

She must’ve slapped him, but the tiny jolt barely registered for a moment against the background noise of pain. She sounded more serious than Stan had ever heard her when she said, “Stan, if we don’t get out of here, we are both going to burn to death.”

That got him to crack an eye open. “Wha?” he managed, which was nowhere near the full What are you talking about, that thing barely sparked, let me take a nap here for a couple hours and have a large mammal handy for when I wake up and I’ll be fine, probably that he wanted to say. It didn’t matter, though, because just cracking one eye open was enough for Stan to see. The little, harmless flames that had been smoldering in the carpet had spread to the drapes, and the rush of air from the broken front window must’ve blown them out into the room. Half the far wall was on fire. If he concentrated on ignoring the wound in his chest, Stan could feel the heat against his face.

He groaned, and shifted to try to push himself up on his deadened right arm. The first try was a failure; he fell back, onto his injured arm, and had to apologise to Susan for the string of creative and multilingual curses he let out. On the second try, he managed to get up onto his hands and knees, his left fist bunched up in his shirt over the hole in his chest, trying to put pressure on it. Stan tried not to look at the puddle of tarry black blood below him, or at how much of it there was. 

“Okay, up we go,” Susan said, kneeling beside him and slinging his right arm over her shoulders, then pushing them both to their feet. “Jesus, you’re heavy. Didn’t think a dead guy would weigh so much.”

“You thould - ge’ ou’a here,” Stan managed, around a mouthful of fangs, spitting something that might’ve been saliva or might’ve been blood on the carpet as he tried to retract them. 

“That’s what we’re doing, silly!” Susan said, a little too brightly for the situation they were in, giving Stan’s hand draped over her shoulder a pat. “Now, can you walk, or am I going to have to drag you?”

It only took them a few steps to get to the front door, Susan glancing uneasily at the way the flames licked across the ceiling the whole way, but it felt like an eternity. Susan let go of Stan’s arm to fiddle with the doorknob, and Stan slumped heavily against her. The immediate, ripping, burning agony in his chest had already started to fade, but now it was replaced by a deep, insistent ache as muscle and viscera started the long, slow, miserable process of knitting themselves back together. 

“Dammit,” Susan growled in frustration, peering down at the doorknob. “They just had to lock it, and I don’t know when the last time this lock was used -”

She was cut short by an explosion.

The heat slammed into Stan at the same time as a soft bloom of solid sound filled the world. The floor rocked, and he lost his footing, dropping to the floor with a jolt that sent little silver spirals of pain throughout both his injured arm and the wound in his chest. Flaming beams and chunks of ceiling rained down on him and around him, and he threw himself over Susan as best he could, raising his good arm to protect his head and hoping his cheap winter jacket wasn’t flammable.

Finally, the thumps and thwacks of bits of burning debris smashing down slowed enough that Stan risked a look up. The ceiling was gone. So were the door and several large chunks of the walls. 

Stan just had time to realise that the fire must’ve reached something explosive upstairs before a moan from underneath him drew his attention back to Susan. He pulled back as best he could, pushing a smoldering beam off of his legs to give her space to sit up. She let out another little moan, thumping the side of her head with the heel of one hand. “Did ya get the number of the train that hit us?”

“No train, the top floor went up like a Chinese rocket,” Stan said, and Susan laughed.

“Well! When I went in to work today, this was not how I was expecting the day to end!” She kept laughing, and before Stan could say anything the laughter had melted into sobs, blending together with her horsey, braying snorts. She brought a hand up to wipe her eyes, and Stan grabbed her wrist.

“You’re hurt.”

“Oh, it’s just a scratch.” Susan pulled her hand back, pressing it against her chest. “Can we get out of here? I don’t feel like being barbecue tonight.”

Stan shook his head, with a little snort of his own. “Yeah. Yeah, I think I can make it on my own now.” He stood up, and abruptly dropped back to his knees. “Or maybe I might still need a hand.”

Susan gave him a rueful smile, and took his arm.

Chapter Text

Even years later, Stan wouldn't be sure how they'd found him so fast.

Sure, he'd told Juancarlo where he was, but Santa Cruz wasn't small and it wasn't like Stan had a fixed address. And yet, it felt like no time at all before a big old boat of a Caddy had pulled up behind the Stanleymobile and parked.

Stan had just pulled over himself, not wanting to empty the contents of his stomach all over the leather interior of his pride and joy. He hadn't eaten anything that could have caused the sudden wave of agonising stabbing all through his guts - hadn't eaten anything at all, really - but here it was anyway. He'd already thrown up so many times tonight that his throat was burning from the bile, and he couldn't tell anymore what was nausea and what was hunger. It really hadn't been his day.

And it didn't look like it was going to get any better, as the Caddy's doors swung open and four guys spilled out onto the pavement. Stan had never seen them before, but he recognised them instantly - brawlers, the kind of guys who ate brass knuckles for breakfast.

"Evenin', boys," Stan started, with a broad grin, and then doubled over as his insides twisted again.

"You Stan Pines?" a voice called, as footsteps crunched over the gravel in the shoulder. Stan clapped a hand over his mouth, leaning heavily on the Stanleymobile's hood with one arm as he held his stomach with the other. It felt like something living was trying to claw its way out of his intestines.

When he could finally straighten up, Stan was sadly unsurprised to see that the four bruisers had circled, casually, around him. He recognised the flanking pattern, had been part of it himself on the one sickening occasion that had convinced him starting over from scratch was better than running any more 'errands' for Rico. So he was even less surprised when one of the four, his back to the road, shifted his jacket slightly so that Stan could see the handgun tucked into the waistband of his jeans. "You wanna come with us, Pines?"

Stan wasn't sure he could open his mouth to deliver a witty comment without hurling on the guy's fancy sneakers. So he didn't bother. An uppercut spoke louder than a cutting remark, anyway, and it wasn't like he had much left to lose.

The tough's nose crunched satisfyingly under Stan's knuckles, and the man staggered back, both hands clapped over his face to hide what was almost definitely a broken nose. Shouts exploded all around Stan, but he barely noticed between the strange roaring that filled his ears and the burning in his gut that had finally, firmly solidified into ravenous hunger. All that really seemed real, all that seemed to matter, was the single slow trickle of almost cartoonish red creeping down under the other man's hands, down over his upper lip and the peach fuzz there.

The man grabbed at his gun just as Stan lunged forward.

There was an explosion of sound. Everything, very briefly, went red, before sinking away into black.

...

"Can I just say for the record that I thought this was a bad idea to start with?"

Susan slammed the Pinto into park and let her head thump back against the headrest, letting out a long, deep sigh. "What, for the fifth time?" She glanced over at Stan, clutching his side in the passenger seat and probably oozing blood all over the ugly plaid upholstery, and a bubble of weary laughter forced its way between her lips. "Surprised you can even talk with that massive hole in your lung."

"Hey, I'm just the walking dead guy, I don't pretend to know how any of this works." Stan tried to lean back against the seat himself, only for a slow, deep throb to radiate out from the weeping hole in his ribcage and force him to bite down hard on his tongue as he let it wash over him.

Susan's laugh was high, shaky, and brittle, the kind of laugh Stan had only ever heard just before the laugher started screaming. He cracked open an eye he hadn't realised he'd let slip closed, saw Susan with one hand pressed over her eyes and an exhausted, wavering smile on her face.

"Shit," she said, and then again, with feeling, "Shit."

"Pretty -" Stan broke off, grinding his teeth against another pulse of pain. "Agh - pretty much."

"Sorry," Susan said, and there was a gasp in her voice that sounded like it wouldn't take much to turn into a sob. "Shit, I - anything I can do to help with that?"

" 's fine, it'll heal." Stan curled his fingers in the fabric of his jacket, clenching his fist until he heard a rip. He sucked in a breath between his teeth and tried to hold it, listening with disgusted fascination to the faint hiss of air leaking out through the puncture in his lung. "Should - should go grab a bite, though -"

"Oh no you don't, mister," Susan said, clicking the locks on all the doors just as Stan reached for the door handle. "I may not ever have seen anybody hurt that bad, but I can tell you running around like an idiot's just gonna make it worse. And that's without people trying to kill you. No, we're heading straight back to the diner and I'll getcha something there."

She put her hand on the shift, but didn't move to put the Pinto into gear. "Shit," she repeated, quietly, as though to sum up the whole evening.

Stan managed a grunt that must have sounded vaguely agreeable. Susan pressed a fist against her mouth, and Stan realised her shoulders were shaking.

"What?" Stan asked, and Susan shook her head, her hand still pressed against her mouth. "If you're gonna hurl, roll down the window or something -"

"How can you sit there talking like that?" Susan snapped, rounding on Stan. He would've been more alarmed if the hole in his chest hadn't chosen that moment to flare. "We both just nearly died!"

"Wouldn' - ow - be the first time," Stan muttered, and Susan slammed the palms of both hands flat against the steering wheel.

"For real, not just to - to come right back around!"

"Yeah, yeah, got it." Even though it sent slivers of pain shooting through his ribs, Stan shifted to turn away from Susan.

"What do you think this is, some kind of joke? Albert Corduroy just nearly killed you! Dead!" Susan's voice went quiet again, more like she was talking to herself than Stan. "The Society just nearly killed both of us."

"The what now?"

"Well, the Society of the Blind Eye, of course!" Stan couldn't see Susan's face from his new angle, but he imagined her expression looked about as bitter as her voice sounded. "The least secret secret society in the world! Protectors and defenders of the innocent from the forces of weirdness!" This time, her laugh was a snort.

"You lost me," Stan admitted.

"Town founders started a secret society to keep us helpless townsfolk safe from all the monsters and magic in the woods. Course, in a town this size, half the town's in it, and Nathaniel Northwest was one of the founding members, so of course the Northwests can't resist bragging about it. It mighta stayed secret for all of five minutes." Her voice lost its sarcastic edge as she went on, "They had a better track record with keeping us safe. 'No harm to the harmless', they used to say. Meant even if you were weird, they'd leave you alone so long as you didn't hurt anybody. This tonight? This wasn't the Society I knew, or the Gravity Falls I love. I knew thing's'd been going downhill, but I can't believe they'd do this. Can't believe even Ivan would let this happen."

Stan scratched at the edge of his wound. "Yeah, I have no idea who that is."

Susan let her head flop forward to rest against the steering wheel. Her voice emanated from behind a curtain of chestnut curls, looking somewhat the worse for wear after the night's misadventures. "Oh, it doesn't matter. Might as well just pack up and move on, Gravity Falls as we knew it is over anyway."

"Okay, just what is your investment, anyway?" Stan asked, and Susan reached up to lift the cascade of curls just enough to fix him with a one-eyed stare. "Cause I think I woulda noticed by now if you were anything but human -"

A snort of laughter burst out of Susan's mouth, and she let her hair flop back over her face, pressing it against the steering wheel again. "Oh, I'm human, all right."

She fell silent, and Stan decided not to push it. Well, and another wave of bone-deep pain made it impossible to speak. When it finally ebbed some, he gingerly pressed two fingers to the wound, sucking in a breath as he tried to gauge the size of the hole. It was still closing relatively quickly, but that only meant he didn't have much more time before the pain faded enough for the hunger clawing up his insides to get really pressing. "Look, not that I haven't noticed you're having an existential crisis, but could you do it while we're moving? If I don't get some o neg in me fast, you're not gonna wanna be stuck in a car with me."

Susan's head snapped up, and for the skin of a second, Stan saw fear flash through her eyes. He shuffled down farther in his seat, the fake fur trim on his hood tickling his cheeks as he stared at the molded plastic of the dashboard. She'd already risked her life for him twice tonight. It was probably a good thing that she was cluing in that hanging out with him could be hazardous to her health.

But instead of doing anything a rational person might do, like kicking Stan out of her car, Susan just threw the Pinto into gear with a sad attempt at a smile. "All righty! Next stop, Greasy's Diner!"

"You got a deathwish, kid."

Susan's jaw set in determination, and as she pulled away from the curb, she said, "You try living sixteen years with your little brother turning into a hairy little monster - well, more of a hairy little monster than usual - every full moon, and then come back and tell me this is any worse."

Stan drew in a surprised breath, wincing as a slight dip in the road jolted the gash in his side. "So that's your angle."

"What?"

"That's why you care so much - about me and Ford, about this Society or whatever going rogue and trying to run me out of town. Your baby brother's a damn werewolf." 

Susan tossed her head back and fixed Stan with a glare that was only amplified by her heavy blue eyeshadow and thick mascara. "So what? You got a problem with -"

"Watch the road!"

Susan yanked the wheel hard to the right, pulling them out of the path of the fire truck that screamed by in the opposite direction, sirens blaring. Stan heard its horn blat twice behind them as they sped past.

They drove in silence for a while. Stan was just starting to recognise some of the buildings they drove past when Susan finally said, "We moved here the year Eustace got bit and it's been home ever since. We didn't have to hide anything, and maybe not everybody was happy about it, but nobody ever said boo. That's the town I grew up in. That's what Gravity Falls oughta be."

"Okay, sheesh. Didn't ask for your life story," Stan muttered into the collar of his coat. The heat still hadn't come on, the vent blowing icy winter air into the small car and directly over his nose, and the throb in his side had turned into a constant low ache. "So I'm what, the poster child for persecuted supernaturals now?"

He knew - or maybe hoped - that Susan had turned the glare back on him. Eventually, she said, "I'm just trying to let you know I get it. It's not a very nice world out there, and -"

The rest of what she was saying was lost in a bang and a shower of glass as the driver's side window shattered. Susan's scream was almost overpowered by the screech of her brakes as she jerked the wheel hard to the right and ploughed up onto the sidewalk, the Pinto's undercarriage scraping against the curb as they ground to a stop. The impact threw Stan across the parking brake and into Susan's shoulder, and he felt something rip in the tender new flesh around the hole in his chest, a spurt of cold blood leaking between his fingers.

He straightened up slowly, hissing in pain as the raw edges of the wound rubbed against each other. Beside him, Susan raised her head, shaking the glass out of her sausage curls and squinting as she raised a hand to her head. "What the -"

"Get down!" Stan yelled, grabbing the back of her neck and pushing her back down behind the door. There was a short sharp whine and a ripple of air passed overhead, and a second later, the passenger side window shattered too.

Stan slowly lifted his head to peer out of the now-empty window frame. The slim figure in black leathers and mirrored helmet who he'd noticed pulling up beside them had parked their motorbike, and was just climbing off of it, what looked like an overlong pistol in one hand. 

"Move," Stan muttered, reaching across Susan to try to restart the stalled engine and sucking in a gasp as his whole left side lit up with pain. "Move it! Get us out of here!"

Susan straightened up again, an affronted expression on her face and a piece of glass dangling from a fallen curl, just below her left eye. "What -"

Stan pointed. Susan half-turned her head, saw the black-clad figure raising the pistol-looking thing, and stomped the clutch to the floor, jerking the key in the ignition. The Pinto sputtered to life, and Susan threw it into reverse, looking back over her shoulder as the wheels spun uselessly against the sidewalk she'd high-centred it on when the first shot had been fired. "Who on Earth is that?"

"Don't know, don't care, trying to kill us," Stan said, taking a deep breath to brace himself before he threw the passenger side door open. "If I get this hunk of junk off the curb, can you get us out of here?"

"I -" Susan started, then let out a shriek and ducked her head as another shot whizzed through the car. "Go! Go go go!"

Stan more fell than rolled out of the car, keeping low so that the figure in black hopefully wouldn't get a clear shot at him - and, he had to admit, because he didn't have the energy to get himself upright. His entire left side felt like it was on fire, and he had to hope that he'd be able to push the car far enough to get the wheel back in contact with the ground. Normally it'd be no problem, he could do it without a second thought, but when he was already injured and had lost so much blood -

Thankfully, the Pinto had high-centred fairly quickly, coming to rest with its front right wheel only a few scant inches above the pavement. It wouldn't take much of a push to put them back in contact.

Stan pressed his back against the offending tire, bracing his feet against the sidewalk, and stopped for a moment he knew he couldn't spare, just breathing and feeling the waves of agony that lanced through him, knowing that what he was about to do would only make them ten times worse.

Then he gripped the tire behind him with both hands, pressed the soles of both feet firmly against the sidewalk, and pushed.

As he'd expected, his left side exploded in pain, like he'd been torn neatly from his neck down to his waist like a paper doll. Stan could feel his left hand shaking, his grip slipping, and he gave another heave, grinning despite everything when the undercarriage screeched against the concrete. The car shifted slightly, just enough for Stan to lose his balance and sink down, until he was no longer bracing himself against the wheel but sitting on the sidewalk, leaning back against it.

It came at just the right time, too - something pinged off the Pinto's hood just by Stan's ear and clattered to the sidewalk beside him. He half-turned his head, just enough to see a crossbow bolt rolling to a stop nudging one of his fingers. It looked identical to the ones that had been shot from the church roof.

Even though it still felt like his left arm was being torn off and the black-clad figure had almost definitely seen his head over the hood and was shooting at him, Stan couldn't help the wave of relief that washed over him. Whoever it was in the black leathers, they were too slender and too short to be Ford.

"Stan!"

It took Stan a moment to muster the energy to look back over to his right. Susan was leaning out of the open passenger-side door, hissing his name as she gestured for him to come back. "I think I can get it going now! Get back inside!"

Stan rolled onto his right side, but had to stop and shut his eyes, grinding his back teeth together and counting the crossbow bolts that hit the Pinto's hood as the pain ripped through him. Dimly, he realised they sounded like they were getting closer. Then there were hands on both his shoulders, and a little moan he couldn't quite hold back escaping him as someone pulled him upright, pushing him back against the Pinto's tire. 

Stan managed to crack open an eye, and saw his own face reflected back at him.

The black-clad figure in the mirrored helmet, crouched in front of Stan, raised the crossbow pistol and aimed it towards Stan's right, probably at Susan. They kept it steady as they reached up to their belt and pulled something free. It took Stan a moment to register that it was a stake.

A burst of breath escaped Stan's lungs, and he let his eyes slip closed again, only for them to snap open again when a familiar voice said, from behind the mirrored visor, "Say goodnight, twinkle-toes."

It was a voice Stan had thought he'd never hear again.

The black-clad figure reached up with the hand holding the stake, and pulled off their helmet, shaking out a cascade of dark hair. She put the helmet down on the sidewalk beside her, before raising the stake again, balancing it carefully in her hand as she looked down at Stan.

The word seemed to stick in Stan's throat as he tried to force it out. "Carla?"

The smile that crossed Carla McCorkle's face was brief but brilliant. "Hi, Stanley."

Chapter Text

The night wind was hot and sticky with humidity, whistling at the Caddy's windows as though searching for a way in to the crisply air-conditioned interior and the four men inside. Orange shadows flickered across their faces as the streetlights passed overhead, lending an infernal quality to the chatter filling the car as all four spoke over the radio and each other.

"- city limits, it's a great dump site, nobody'll find him for weeks if anybody even bothers to look."

"We gotta at least send something to Rico to prove what we did, man, or it's gonna be our asses. Weren't even supposed to kill him, just teach 'im a fuckin' lesson -"

"Who the fuck cares? Rico's not gonna care so long as everybody knows what happens to guys who fuck him over -"

Every voice in the Caddy fell abruptly silent, cut off by a muffled thump from overhead. Handguns appeared, seemingly out of nowhere, eyes turning warily to windows.

"Did you hear that?"

"Sounded like somebody landed on the fuckin' roof."

"Who in the fuck coulda landed on the fuckin' roof in the middle of the interstate at this fuckin' hour? What kinda goddamn idiot -"

"Guys."

Two heads turned in the direction the speaker was looking, the driver's eyes rising to the rearview mirror so that all four of the car's occupants were able to see the lid of the trunk, which had been locked shut with a corpse inside the last time anybody had checked, flapping up and down with each bump in the road.

The driver reached over, without taking his eyes from the rearview mirror, and killed the radio. The silence that fell over the inside of the Caddy wouldn't have been out of place in a church.

When no more unusual noises broke through the quiet rumble of the engine and the whirr of the air conditioning, all four men visibly relaxed, the driver's eyes returning to the road.

"Maybe -" one of the passengers started, but the rest of the sentence was lost when a fist smashed through the windshield, grabbing the driver by the throat and dragging him out of the car.

...

"Carla?"

Carla gave another incandescent grin and waved the hand holding the stake. "Surprised to see me, Stan? I was surprised to see you! When'd you join the legions of the damned?"

Stan grunted. "What the hell happened to you?"

Carla's smile went tight around the edges. "Got brainwashed by a scumsucking no-good undead jerk in flowery bellbottoms. You should know, you were there." The smile dropped off her face completely, replaced by slow realisation, and she gestured towards Stan with the stake. "Is that how you ended up like this? Did Thistle -"

"No, no, that's not -" Stan started to shake his head, only to stop himself with a wince. " 's not exactly a clear shot from 'brainwashed' to 'badass'. How'd you end up here?" Carla hadn't taken her first chance to stake him, and either her aim with that crossbow pistol was shit (which, knowing her, Stan doubted), or she hadn't really been trying to hit him. Maybe he could still talk her out of it. And even if he couldn't, if he could keep her talking long enough to get some of his strength back... 

"Badass?" Carla's laugh was exactly how Stan remembered it, and the pang that raced through him wasn't due to the literal hole in his chest for once. "Stan, I own a flower shop. This is just what I do on weekends."

"Really? Hey, good for you, I remember you mentioned you wanted to start your own business while we were dating," Stan said. He was just gathering his breath to ask another question when Susan's voice interrupted, from somewhere to Stan's right.

"Dating? I'm sorry, but just what the heck is going on here?"

Stan turned, testing the limits of how much he could move as much as trying to get a look at Susan's face. She'd obviously stepped out of the passenger side door, and was holding a combination window scraper and brush raised like a baseball bat, clearly frightened but also clearly not giving up without a fight. "Oh, yeah. Susan, meet my ex-girlfriend, Carla McCorkle. Carla, this is Susan..." He stopped. "What is your last name, anyway? Did you tell me already? I'm gonna pretend like you didn't."

Susan shrugged. "Susan Wentworth," she said, holding out a hand to Carla, who was still crouched on the sidewalk. Carla gave an apologetic smile and held up both the stake and the crossbow pistol, indicating that her hands were too full to shake. "You and your ex-boyfriend seem to have an...interesting relationship."

"She still misses me," Stan said, hoping as he did that it was true.

Carla gave a short huff of laughter, her finger tightening on the trigger of the crossbow gun as she replied, "I guess so." She looked down, and Stan followed her line of sight to the crossbow bolt that had hit the pavement next to him. Carla reached down and picked it up with the hand that still held the gun, waving the bolt under Stan's nose with a wicked grin. "But it looks like my aim's getting better."

Susan's groan was almost entirely drowned out by the bark of laughter Stan let out. He had to catch his breath and hold it afterwards, clutching his side, but already the pain was less debilitating than it had been even a few minutes before. "That's my girl."

Carla's smile turned into a wince for an instant before vanishing. "About that. It's been great catching up, but Stan, I'm sorry, I really am going to have to stake you now."

"What? Hey, no, hang on, let's not - let's not be too hasty here." Stan hurriedly searched Carla's face for any sign that she was joking, that maybe she didn't mean it, but all he saw were a few new wrinkles and that her face had grown subtly less rounded since he'd last seen her, revealing her cheekbones more. "I'm not hurting anybody here, I'm just trying to get Ford through a bad patch - you remember my twin brother Ford, right?"

Carla's frown deepened. "Of course I remember Ford. He was the one who called me."

Stan felt his brain stutter to a halt.

"What? Stan, you told me you were trying to help your brother," Susan said, the shock in her voice almost comical. Carla turned in her direction, the look on her face like she was about to tell someone their loved one was dying. 

"I'm sorry, Susan, he's been using you." She leaned forward, setting the pistol down on the sidewalk beside her before she stood and put her hand on Susan's shoulder. Stan reached over as far as he could without obviously moving to grab the gun, but couldn't quite snag it. "They can do that, make you think you want to do anything for them. Think about it, you can snap out of it if you try. Does it really make any sense that you'd risk your life for a stranger?"

Susan set her jaw, but Stan saw her eyes flick in his direction uncertainly.

"What? Come on, Carla, this is crazy," Stan protested. "I'm not - I'm not fucking Thistle Downe, I wouldn't - you know me! You know I wouldn't do something like that -"

"The Stan-Vac?" Carla said, pointedly, looking down at Stan. 

"Uh."

"Your entire livelihood as a door-to-door salesman was based on convincing strangers to trust you, Stan. And I know you well enough to know you'll use any advantage you can." Carla let go off Susan's shoulder. "Also, I just saw you two blow up a house. Honestly, I wouldn't put anything past you anymore."

Susan looked like she'd just been slapped, staring at a nondescript patch of sidewalk.

"Susan - look, something weird's going on here, but I'm not - I haven't lied to you!" Susan still wouldn't meet Stan's eyes, and he turned to Carla instead. "Please, I don't know what's going on, but Ford's not in his right mind. You - you musta talked to him, if he called you up here, you've gotta have seen - the guy's a wreck, he found out what I am and lost his shit, decided I was working for some guy he's really scared of. That's gotta be why he called you, I promise I haven't done anything. I'm just trying to look out for him."

Carla shook her head, tightening her grip on the stake. "He sure seemed like he was in his right mind to me. He remembered me, even though it's been ten years, he laughed a lot more than I remember him doing in high school - maybe he looked a little tired, but he told me he's been working on his PhD, I'm not surprised." She met Stan's eyes, and for the smallest sliver of a second, Stan saw sympathy shadowing her expression, before it hardened. "Stan, the only thing your brother seemed scared of was you."

Stan shut his eyes, letting out a long, resigned breath. He could hear the creak of Carla's gear as she knelt back down, her heartbeat slow and steady underneath, could smell the gamey scent of leather and thick motorcycle exhaust and, underneath the heavier scents, the lightest touch of something floral and sweet.

Carla's hair brushed against his cheek as she aligned the tip of the stake over Stan's heart, and her voice was quiet enough that no one human would have been able to hear when she said, "Sorry, twinkletoes."

Stan moved.

He slammed his head forward, saying a silent apology as his forehead collided with Carla's with a sickening crack, knocking her backward. Before she or Susan could react, he lunged for the crossbow pistol Carla had discarded, grabbing it and raising it as he pushed himself to his feet against the Pinto's hood. It still hurt, still felt like a meathook was ripping through his ribcage, but he'd had enough time to recover that he didn't instantly drop to his knees. He wouldn't be able to stay upright for long, he knew, but he didn't need to. The Pinto's engine was still idling. All he had to do was get in.

He looked from Carla, scrambling to her feet with a glower on her face, to Susan, who was staring at him like she'd never seen him before.

"Sorry," Stan said, and then swung himself in the Pinto's passenger side door, yanking it closed after him. He flopped across into the driver's seat, ignoring the shouts as he flung it into reverse and stomped the gas pedal to the floor.

For one heart-stopping second, Stan thought he'd stalled it. For another, equally heart-stopping second, he thought it was still too high on the curb to drive away. Then the engine gave the closest thing to a throaty rumble that Stan figured he was going to get from a compact car, and ground its way off of the sidewalk. 

Stan shifted straight from reverse to third, ignoring the pained noises the engine made, and took off like a shot, leaving the girls behind. He'd drop the Pinto off in the parking lot where he'd left the Stanleymobile, get out of town and find something to eat before he headed back to Ford's.

His brother had some serious explaining to do.

Chapter Text

The Cadillac that limped into the service station parking lot was missing its front windshield and front left headlight, the bumper dangling from its crumpled nose and scraping along the asphalt, the trunk lid flapping as it rolled to a stop. The man who stepped out didn't look in much better shape, the front of his white t-shirt soaked in blood that appeared to have fountained out of his nose and down over his chin and neck while simultaneously spattering over his cheeks and even as high as his forehead, cradling his jaw in one hand like it pained him, his jeans speckled with dark droplets that might have been more blood or might just have been motor oil.

The bell over the door to the all-night convenience store jangled as he pushed it open, casting a look that was almost frightened around the empty store before setting his shoulders and walking up to the counter. Under the quietly fizzing fluorescents, his complexion put the night shift clerk in mind of his nana's funeral, the corpse's waxy, greyish pallor that some well-meaning mortician had tried to dress up with violent blush. The stranger's expression was challenging, almost defiant, as he asked the clerk, "You got a bathroom key?"

The teenager behind the counter took in the blood soaking the stranger's shirt and staining his face, the look in the stranger's eyes, and reached wordlessly beneath the counter for the long wooden bar with the keyring dangling from the end. Some suicidal bravery made him ask, as he held the key at arm's length, "You need a first aid kit?"

"No." The stranger crossed his arms over his chest, and the clerk set the key down on the counter, on top of the glass case full of lottery tickets, taking a step backwards with both hands raised. It may have been his imagination, but he thought the stranger looked...relieved.

The stranger grabbed the key and turned away from the counter, but stopped and looked back over his shoulder after only two steps. "Which way's the john?"

The clerk pointed a thumb.

"Thanks." The stranger didn't move for a long moment. The clerk noticed reddish stains blooming under his fingers where they held the wooden bar. "Hey, kid. You wanna car?"

The clerk shook his head.

The stranger shrugged. "Eh, whatever. Take it, call the wreckers, call the police if you want. I don't care." He dug in the pocket of his leather jacket for a moment, pulled out a keyring with a charm in the shape of a pair of red plastic dice, and tossed it onto the counter. It slithered across the glass and came to a stop right in front of the clerk. One bloody thumbprint stood out on the silver head of the single key.

By the time the clerk mustered the courage to look up again, the stranger had already locked himself in the bathroom. The clerk considered, very briefly, calling the police, and then happened to glance out the window at the Cadillac outside.

There was a handprint, stamped in something red and dripping, smeared across the inside of the back window.

The clerk carefully reached under the counter for the other keyring, then slipped out from behind the counter and made his way to the locked door with the 'Employees Only' sign behind the freezer case. He shut it behind him as carefully as he could, trying not to make a sound.

The car keys remained, untouched, in the middle of the unmanned counter.

...

The clearing where Ford's house was hidden was just as silent as it had been the night Stan had first arrived in Gravity Falls, even though the muffling blanket of stormclouds had cleared away, a net of shimmering stars glinting with cold light in their place. 

There was something unusual about the silence, Stan reflected, as he slammed the Stanleymobile's door behind him and listened to the way the trees swallowed the sound. It wasn't like the quiet of the streets in town, wasn't like the quiet he knew from long nights in the desert, under stars even more brilliant than these. Sound sank into this quiet like a bowling ball into a foam mattress. This wasn't just the absence of sound. This was a silence that listened.

And watched, Stan thought, as he crunched his way over the snow up to the front steps. He stopped just before the porch, not wanting another zap from the threshold, and knelt down, balling snow into a rough projectile with both hands. The chill of the snow stung his bare fingers, and the hastily-knitted hole in his chest gave a vicious twinge as he wound up and threw. The snowball smacked into the door with a satisfying wet thwack, and, to Stan's grim delight, stuck, obliterating whatever creepy squiggle Ford had painted over the board on the window.

"Ford!" Stan yelled, as loud as he could, ignoring the twinge from his chest. The damn thing had closed over after the buck whose carcass was now starting to decompose somewhere behind Ford's house, but it still hadn't properly healed. "Stanford Pines! We need to talk! And don't try and act like you're sleeping because I know you're not!"

There might have been movement somewhere in the depths of the house. Stan couldn't really tell amidst the soft breath of wind that set the pines sighing. He did feel certain, somehow, that the eyes he could feel on him had shifted position. He crouched down again, shuffling more snow into a fist-sized ball, but saw nothing that could be watching him but the blank, deadened windows of the house and the silver-dollar face of the moon.

The second snowball slammed into the door about a foot below and a little left of the first.

"I can keep this up all night!" Stan yelled, huffing on his rapidly-numbing fingers more out of habit than hope that it would soften the sting of the cold. "And the next night! And the night after that! I'm not going away this time!"

The house stayed stubbornly still and silent.

The next two snowballs didn't hit the door, going wide, one striking a boarded-over window, the other hitting near the porch. "Foooooord!" Stan yelled up at the cabin, holding both hands up in front of his mouth in a makeshift megaphone. "Dammit, I'm not trying to hurt you, if that was what I wanted I woulda thrown a Molotov cocktail, not a snowball! You don't even have to leave your stupid protections, just get down here and talk to me!"

He wasn't expecting a response, so the lack of one didn't come as any surprise. Stan knelt, rolling another snowball and weighing it in one hand as he tried to decide what his next target should be. Maybe that massive cross over the peak of the house? Or - no, he had a better idea.

The Star of David by the door hurt too much to look straight at for very long, Stan found out, as he tried to take aim. Finally, he pointed himself in the general direction of the door, wound up, and threw without looking.

He wasn't expecting the door to open, and for his brother to stick his head out through the opening just in time for the snowball to explode against his ear.

The look of absolute shock on Ford's face was too much, especially with snow slowly sliding down the side of his face and melting into the collar of his coat. Stan clapped a hand over his mouth, trying valiantly to swallow the laughter trying to escape his mouth. "Shit, I was aiming for the star -"

"The Romanians were right," Ford said, his eyes still wide and fixed on nothing in particular, his expression still frozen in comical shock. "The undead really do return just to plague their former families." His gaze finally settled on Stan, without so much as the smallest flicker of emotion. His voice was flat with exhaustion when he said, "What do you want."

An eddy of icy breeze plucked at the furry trim on Stan's hood and the ragged edge of the tear in his coat.

"We gotta talk," Stan said, the laughter slowly dying in his chest. "Seriously, Ford, it's not bad enough you kicked me off your porch when I came all the way up here just because you needed help, you gotta put a hit out on me too?"

Ford adjusted his glasses, his eyes narrowing almost imperceptibly. They looked almost bruised with sleeplessness, Stan noticed. He could smell stale sweat and coffee even from the drive. Carla's words came back to him, and Stan almost scoffed. A 'little tired'? "I have no idea what you're talking about. I had hoped you'd finally decided to leave me alone." His voice dipped in volume, like he didn't mean for Stan to hear what he said next, but had been living alone for too long to remember to keep his thoughts inside his head. "Not that I would ever be so lucky."

Stan's hands, still stinging from the chill of the snowballs, clenched into fists. "Look, I don't care if you wanna cut me off because you think I'm not your brother anymore -"

"You're not."

Stan's fingernails bit into his palms. He let out a long huff of breath that he didn't strictly need, shutting his eyes for a moment as he forced his hands to unclench. "Like I said. I don't give a shit if you decide you never wanna see me again. I can take it, this ain't the first time." He couldn't deny the vicious satisfaction that flooded through him at the way Ford flinched. "But calling Carla? You crossed a line there."

Ford gave his head a little shake, and there was genuine confusion in his eyes as he ran a hand through his already-messy hair. "Carla McCorkle? What on earth does your high-school crush have to do with anything?"

"She's a fucking hunter, Ford! What did you think she was gonna do, throw rose petals at me?" Stan crossed his arms over his chest, resisting the urge to stamp his foot like an angry kid. "Don't play dumb. You wanted me out of the picture, you made it happen. Fine. Fuck, I can even respect that. But - Carla? That's a low blow, and you know it!"

"I don't -" Ford's right hand clenched in the front of his sweater vest, curling in on himself. "No, no, I thought - he can't, I made certain I -"

"You okay there, sixer?" Stan asked, and Ford, with what looked like enormous effort, wrenched himself upright, squaring his shoulders and raising his head. 

Stan was expecting the next words out of Ford's mouth to be defensive, but he wasn't expecting Ford to let out a long, soft exhale and ask, "What did I do?"

"Wh- you know what you did!"

"Pretend I don't," Ford said, his eyes sinking closed as he turned his face towards the expanse of stars overhead.

Stan opened his mouth, and then shut it again. "I don't fucking believe this," he growled, and this time there was no satisfaction in the way Ford flinched. "You -dammit, she told me she saw you, so don't try to act like you didn't -"

"Stanley."

Stan stopped in the middle of an angry gesture. 

"Thought I wasn't your brother anymore," he said, tucking both hands under his arms and fixing Ford with an accusatory glare.

"You - you don't understand."

"Then explain it to me!" Stan actually did stamp his feet, this time, shedding snow from his sneakers. The few yards of distance between him and Ford felt like millions of miles of freezing air. "I've been all over the world, I've seen bits of it most people don't even believe exist. I'm not stupid, no matter what you think! And I'm not gonna - laugh at you, or think you're nuts, or whatever. Just tell me what's going on, because two separate people have already tried to kill me for trying to find out, and I'm not sticking around for number three!"

"I never asked you to!"

Stan took a step back. Even Ford looked surprised at the words that had snapped out of his own mouth. The sucking silence suddenly felt as brittle as thin ice, crackling in the air between them.

"Fine," Stan said, at last, stuffing his hands into his pockets.

"No, that's not -"

"You don't gotta tell me again." Stan fumbled in his pockets for his keys with nerveless fingers, nearly dropping the whole keyring into the snow. "You know, I was only hanging around because I had this dumb idea that you'd be grateful. That I could track down whatever has you all messed up, take care of it, save your bacon just like I always used to, and you'd actually thank me for it. That you might even -" 

He broke off, with a laugh that felt like a ball of spikes in his lungs, turning away from the cabin, away from Ford, away from the look of shock on Ford's face that was slowly turning to anger. "You might even be grateful enough to forgive me."

The stillness was nearly suffocating. Stan found himself rambling just to fill it. "I know, dumb as shit. But whaddaya expect from the idiot brother of a super-genius? Shoulda known better than to hope for anything from the guy who watched me get kicked out as a seventeen-year-old kid and wouldn't lift a damn finger to help -"

"You weren't supposed to die!"

Stan paused, half-turning back towards the cabin, to see his brother, drawn tight as a garrote wire, both hands balled into fists and the shock from before nowhere to be seen in his glare.

"Oh yeah," Stan said, feeling curiously lightheaded, like he was standing at the edge of a very high roof with a gun held to his head, about to die no matter what he did and with nothing to lose but a few seconds of freefall. "Forgot, I was supposed to make a million bucks instead. Excuse me for screwing that one up just like every other damn thing I ever did in my short, sorry life."

"Do you ever listen to anyone other than yourself?" There was a hoarse rasp in Ford's half-shout, a rasp Stan knew only came from too much screaming. "Have you ever cared about anyone other than yourself? That's all Dad was trying to teach you - to consider the consequences of your actions for once!"

"Yeah?" Stan was suddenly all too aware of the weight of the row of fangs hidden in his jaw, itching to come down. "He tell you that?" 

Ford faltered, blinking several times in quick succession as he nervously adjusted his glasses. "Well, no, but - you know how he is! If you'd just come home and admitted you couldn't make it on your own, couldn't keep coasting on impossible dreams and 'personality' in the real world - but you always have to be so stubborn, don't you? And you can't ever admit when you've taken on a fight you can't win!" He pointed an accusing finger at Stan, taking a step forward out of the house as he did so. "So you didn't come home, and you didn't learn a single thing, and you - it wasn't supposed to be like this! You weren't supposed to - alone, out there, thinking we didn't - you were just supposed to learn your lesson, learn not to take it for granted that you'd always have it so easy, not...you weren't..."

His voice petered out, and Ford finished his tirade simply by mutely and angrily gesturing at Stan. He pressed a hand to his forehead, curling fingers in his hairline and making his hair stick up more than usual. He wouldn't meet Stan's eyes.

"Ford, I..." Stan shook his head, trying to stir his outrage back to life in the face of the way his twin was crumpling. It was surprisingly simple. "You really think I had it easy?"

"Why, do you think you didn't? Sure, they were hard on you too, but - they didn't expect so much of you. I haven't spoken to either of them since graduation, you know that?" Ford let out a bitter laugh, sinking back to lean against the wall of the cabin, hand still clenched in his hair. "Maybe if I'd only listened when Dad said all this was a waste of my talents, we wouldn't be in this situation now."

Stan sighed. He should have seen this coming, should have known that his brother would be self-absorbed enough to think something like this. He knew he was angry, furious even, could feel it in the press of fangs against his gums and the slow, bitter boiling in his blood, but, Stan realised, he was just too tired to care. Ten years. Ten years, and not a single damn thing had changed.

"You're an idiot," he said, shortly.

A weary, defeated smile flickered across Ford's face as he glanced up at Stan. "No more than you," he said, after a moment's silence. "You still haven't learned when a fight's too big for you to win." Ford took a deep breath, closing his eyes as he said, "You should leave. It'll be better for the both of us."

"Fuck you," Stan snapped back, automatically. "Do you even know how much shit I've been through for you just this week?" He yanked up his coat, exposing the still-healing knot of scar tissue on his chest to the shock of winter air. "See this? This is from a stake, poindexter. Half an hour ago it was a hole that went clean through my chest. You still think I got it easy?"

"That's not what I meant, if you'd just listen for once -"

"I've been threatened by more people than I can count! I nearly got blown up tonight! Not to mention that the only woman I've ever loved is trying to kill me, on the orders of my own twin brother! Still sound easy to you?"

"That wasn't me," Ford said, his eyes still closed.

"Oh, fuck you, Carla -"

"May very well have spoken with someone she had reason to believe was me. It may even have been my body. But I can assure you..." Ford finally looked up, meeting Stan's eyes. Even with the porch between them, Stan could tell that Ford was telling the truth - or, at least, thought he was. "It wasn't me."

Stan reached up with the hand that wasn't holding onto the Stanleymobile's keys and pinched the bridge of his nose. Part of him wanted nothing more than to just give up, turn his back on this whole sordid mess and walk away, do like Ford had convinced himself their father had done and let Ford fight his own battles for once. Teach him a lesson about what happened when he turned his back on his own family. 

And yet...he'd been through more in the last few nights trying to help his ungrateful idiot brother than he had in the last month put together. He was already sunk into whatever this was up to his stupid neck. It'd be a waste to just walk away now.

And after the fight they'd just had, there was no way he was giving Ford the satisfaction of seeing Stan turn his back on his own twin brother.

So, against all his better judgement, Stan found himself saying, "Fine, I'll bite. Just what the hell is going on here?"

Chapter Text

The lock on the bathroom door stuck. Stan gave it a few rattles, pulling his hands away with a start and stepping back when he felt it start to shift under his fingers. Better not to break anything else tonight.

He pulled off his jacket and yanked his shirt over his head, the front sticking to his chest where the blood had started to dry and pulling at his skin with a sensation like the prickling of a thousand tiny pins. He threw the shirt into the sink, turned on both taps, and then realised what he'd forgotten to do.

The fluorescent bar over the mirror took a few seconds to sputter to life, casting a greenish gallows glow over the dingy room. Turning away from the lightswitch, Stan caught his own eyes in the mirror, still wide from staring into the dark. Somehow he hadn't noticed the way they now glinted like a cat's in the flickering light.

He had to let go of the sides of the sink when the porcelain gave a worrying creak under his grip.

Pinkish drops plashed against the grimy tile as Stan tried to scrub the stiffening rusty stain out of the front of his white tee. He'd scrubbed one of his knuckles raw when he felt the light fabric rip. Stan lifted the shirt out of the sink, holding it by the shoulders to get a better look. It had torn from the collar down to the opposite arm, the front hanging pathetically and still sporting an uneven brownish-red ring.

Stan balled the shirt up and flung it back into the sink, cursing when bloody water splashed up to spatter his face and chest. Before he'd really thought about what he was doing, he'd plunged both hands into the sink and splashed the murky water over his face, feeling it dribbling down his neck and leaving clean tracks in the dried and cracking coating of human blood that drenched his whole front.

Red swirled in the sink, nearly black in the dim underwater light, as the fluorescent buzzed and crackled like a swarm of angry hornets overhead. Stan threw water on his face over and over, scrubbing at his neck and chest with the useless t-shirt until he no longer felt like he'd taken a shower in gore. He pulled the plug, watching the dark water glug away down the drain until all that was left were a few long streaks of crimson against the white porcelain basin, before he dared to look up again.

His reflection stared back at him from the depths of the mirror, wide-eyed, scared. Stan took a deep breath in, blew it out slowly, before opening his mouth.

A set of ordinary chompers stared back at him. Maybe a little yellower or more crooked than some, but hardly teeth to inspire terror. But his jaw still ached, like it had been taken out and clumsily reattached just out of joint, and there was an unfamiliar weight to his face. And his eyes still glinted strangely in the flickering, failing light.

Stan ran a hand through his hair, ignoring the way it flopped right back into his eyes. There was a scream somewhere, building in the lungs that had already spat out a bullet and knit themselves together tonight, crawling up the throat that had gratefully swallowed - god, how much blood was there in four adult human beings? How much had gone to waste? How long had he been starving -

"Moses' holy boxer shorts," Stan whispered instead, to his reflection, who didn't seem to have anything more constructive to say. He ran a hand through his hair again, reddish droplets flying up to spatter the mirror and slowly starting to drip down the glass. "Stan Pines, what the hell'd you get yourself into now?"

...

"Fine, I'll bite. Just what the hell is going on here?"

Ford blinked, goldfish-like, and it struck Stan that his twin hadn't been expecting this turn of events at all. He recovered quickly, though, a hand coming up to adjust his glasses, clearing his throat with such a pompous expression that it took everything Stan had to bite back a groan. "That is a long story, too long to relate now. Suffice it to say that I placed my trust...misguidedly." He adjusted his glasses again, straightening up and squaring his shoulders. “And now I am reaping the consequences.”

“Okay, now I’m just more curious.”

Ford didn’t seem to have heard Stan, raising a hand to stroke the week-old scruff decorating his chin. “However, if he’s going to such lengths to get rid of you...” His eyes fixed on Stan, and Stan wished he didn’t suddenly get the distinct impression he’d just swum out to help a drowning man without bringing a life preserver. “Maybe you can help me after all.”

His eyes bored into Stan as he took several quick steps forward, coming to a halt just before the stairs leading up to the porch. This close, Stan could see the flecks of scabs from what looked like puncture wounds scattered across the back of Ford’s hand as Ford pointed an index finger vehemently in Stan’s face. “But I need to know that I can trust you.”

“I’m your brother, Stanford.” Stan held out his arms, as if offering Ford a hug, and tried not to think about how exposed the pose left him. “If you can’t trust me, who can you trust?”

Ford’s hands clenched, as though he were trying to grip the crossbow he wasn’t carrying. 

“No one,” he said, shortly. “Wait here.”

“Wh-” Stan started, but Ford had already turned on his heel, his coat swishing as he slammed the cabin door behind him.

A breath of wind rushed through the clearing, kicking up a fine glittering dust from the snowdrifts around Stan and carrying a faint hint of bitter smoke. Stan stuck his hands under his arms, stamping his feet and huffing out a breath halfway between a laugh and a scoff into the starry silence. He wasn’t sure if the feeling that gripped him was the sensation of interested eyes fixing on him from the dark silhouette of the woods encircling the clearing, or just deja vu. 

That wasn’t fair, though. Last time, Ford had made it crystal clear that he was turning Stan away. This time, at least, it sounded like Ford might actually be willing to talk. Like he might even be willing to listen. 

The wind died down slowly, its whistle and moan no longer drowning out the sounds that were just audible through the walls of the cabin. It sounded like Ford had only increased his fortifications since he and Stan had first spoken. From the amount of banging and scraping that was going on, Stan guessed that whatever Ford had gone back inside for was pretty well barricaded into wherever it was hidden. 

For a moment, Stan's thoughts flicked back to sea air and salt, sand and sunburns, secret, shared codes and forbidden horror comics hidden inside pillowcases. He shook the memories away, but he wasn't quite able to shake the little thrill that came with the thought of sharing secrets with his twin, just like they used to.

And, morbid as it was, Stan couldn't deny that he was curious about just what had unhinged his brother so badly. He gave his feet another stamp, shaking off the snow that had blown over the tops of his sneakers, in hopes that it would keep his feet from getting any colder. Ford had always been the sensible one to Stan's wild, overexcited dreamer - even if Ford had some pretty funny ideas about what kinds of things were 'sensible', Stan still remembered the scale-model starship they'd built a tiny chemical engine for and launched off the pawnshop roof. For anything to make Ford react this badly, fearing things that went bump in the night and, from the sound of it, possession - well, it had to be something big. And real enough to convince Ford, who'd always been eager to consider the science in science fiction, that it was a serious threat.

The woods surrounding the cabin seemed darker than a few moments before. Stan looked up, to see a plume of black smoke drifting lazily across the face of the moon.

He jumped when Ford banged open the cabin door and stepped outside, planting his feet wide like he was squaring up for a fight and looking all around him, his eyes darting over the woods with clear suspicion before they landed on Stan. Ford strode across the porch and down the steps, stopping on the final stair, just before the protection of the threshold ended. 

An eddy of wind blew a swirl of snow between the twins.

Stan was just about to ask what was going on, when Ford reached into his coat and pulled out something roughly rectangular and dark red - a book. He held it like it was stuffed with hundred-dollar bills instead of pages, close to his chest and with a white-knuckled grip.

"What the heck is that?" Stan asked, gesturing towards the book, and Ford pulled it closer protectively.

Ignoring Stan's question, Ford asked, instead, "Do you remember our childhood plans to sail the world?"

It had been nearly ten years since Stan had last had a real heartbeat, but he could swear he could feel the fist-sized organ thumping hard in his throat.

"Yeah," he grunted, trying not to give away too much emotion. This - well, it wasn't even a 'this', yet. Just a high-wire kind of hope, one that it felt like the slightest breath of wind could break.

Ford's arm shot out, snake-fast, and pressed the book into Stan's chest. The scar in Stan's ribcage gave a twinge as he reflexively grabbed the book, pulling it in close to his chest much as Ford had held it to his. Ford drew his arm back behind the protection of the threshold just as quickly as it had darted out.

"If you really want to do something useful," he said, shortly, "then take this, get on a boat, and get as far away from here as you possibly can."

The high wire snapped.

Stan took a good look at the book in his hands for the first time, to avoid looking at Ford, letting Ford see his face. The book was bound in what felt like real leather, dyed a rich, burgundy red, a few shades darker than fresh blood, and bound in gold. He turned it over, and even in the dark, the gold-foil six-fingered hand on the cover winked brightly.

Stan flipped open the cover instead of flinging the stupid thing down into the snow. He rifled through the pages, unsurprised to find that they didn't actually contain any hundred-dollar bills, just page upon page of dense handwriting and illustrations. It wasn't fair that Ford had got both the brains and the artistic ability.

Then again, if there was one thing Stan knew, it was that nothing that involved him was ever fair.

"So that's what this is?" Stan said, shutting the book with a clap and turning it over and over in his hands. "After everything I've gone through, everything I've done for you...this is just another way to get rid of me?"

He could feel Ford's frown fixing on him, but Stan still didn't look up. The gold bindings on the book flashed, over and over, as he twisted it around.

"Stanley, you don't understand! The fate of the entire world may rest on that journal being hidden so that I - so that no one can ever find it." An edge of impatience worked its way into Ford's voice as he said, "I'm giving you a chance to do something worthwhile for once in your - for once."

Stan stopped turning the book over, staring down at the leather. It didn't look like much of anything special.

Finally, he looked up, looked Ford in the eye.

"You wanna get rid of this so bad," Stan said, shoving a hand into his pocket.

Ford's eyes widened in stark, unreasoning terror as Stan pulled out his lighter.

"No!" he all but shouted, lunging forward before clearly realising that, in order to reach Stan, he would have to leave the threshold's protection. Ford took a staggering step back, up onto the next stair, the fear in his eyes turning haunted. "Give it back."

Stan took a step back himself, snow crunching under his heel. "Yeah, don't think so. You gave it to me."

Ford's eyes narrowed, and Stan saw his hands ball into fists. "I was right about you from the start."

There was something sick churning in the pit of Stan's stomach, some poison that slipped between his lips before he really knew what he meant to say. "Yeah? Well, I was wrong about you."

As he stood watching Ford's jaw work and trying to hold back the press of fangs against his own gums, Stan realised that his earlier words about throwing Molotov cocktails suddenly seemed like a really good idea. One bottle, one rag - hell, he could even use a page from this fucking book - and boom. Ford's precious house was holier than Jerusalem, missing chunks of walls and floors and ceilings -

But.

But it wouldn't matter. 

Ford would bounce back. Ford could bounce back. He'd just use his enormous brain, get another grant, fix up his house, go on just like before. Nothing would change. Maybe Ford would hate Stan a little more. That was all. That was all that ever happened.

Nothing would change.

Stan waited until the overwhelming but pointless urge to punch his brother straight in his smug genius face had ebbed. He stuck his lighter back in his pocket with one hand, raising the book with the other. "Fine, poindexter. You got what you wanted."

He fished the Stanleymobile's keys from his jacket without breaking eye contact with Ford.

"I'm taking your stupid book," Stan said. "And you'll never see me again."

"Don't you dare," Ford growled, as Stan turned and started to shuffle back towards his car. "Get back here! I'm going to get the crossbow, and I will kill you where you stand if you don't return my journal immediately!"

Stan considered flipping Ford off, before realising it would take far too much energy. He unlocked that Stanleymobile and slipped into the driver's seat, tossing the book carelessly onto the seat beside him without a glance. He jammed the key into the ignition and the Stanleymobile rumbled to life.

Stan pulled out of Ford's drive without looking back.

Trees seemed to appear out of the darkness as his headlights hit them, and vanish back into a featureless black mass as they fell away behind him. Stan sped past the turn that would have taken him back into town, heading for the highway. He'd done enough damage here, wasted enough time. He wasn't spending another minute he didn't have to in the state of fucking Oregon, in the fucking snow, in the goddamn fucking middle of fucking nowhere, Gravity fucking Falls -

He almost didn't see the tree fall, he was so focused on the turnoff onto the highway. It crashed across the road only feet from crushing the Stanleymobile's nose. Stan half-swore, half-screamed, wrenching the wheel hard to the right and stamping on the brakes. The Stanleymobile spun, skidding out of Stan's control, the top of the tree whapping against the windshield as the car tumbled into the ditch.

The last thing Stan could remember thinking was that he really hoped the Stanleymobile wasn't going to need major repairs.

Then the Stanleymobile ploughed nose-first into a snowbank, Stan's head snapped forward, and everything went black.

Chapter Text

The stool squeaked as Stan sat down at the soda shop counter, looking over the menu boards over the counter with awe. It had been years since he'd seen a place like this last - he'd have been, what, nine or ten? - and already the cheery pastels and sugary scent of the place were filling his chest with a faded, sweet nostalgic ache. He wished he'd appreciated the soda shops more when they'd been everywhere. But then, there were a lot of things he wished he'd appreciated more now.

Including egg creams. Stan really shouldn't be here, he wasn't planning to buy anything, anything he could buy here would by definition be something he couldn't eat. But he hadn't been able to resist the allure of the jukebox, the wafting smells of syrup and soda, the sounds of laughter carried on the warm evening air. 

Maybe it'd be okay if he just had a little of his old favourite treat...?

"Stan? Stanley Pines? Is that really you?"

The cotton-candy cloud of nostalgia hovering around Stan's head popped, only to drop him straight into another memory. Stan blinked at the familiar face looking back at him from the stool beside him. 

"Holy sh- Carla?"

Carla McCorkle's curious frown broke into her signature grin, huge and white and gleaming. "Of all the people to run into! Last I heard, you'd dropped out and started scraping taffy on Glass Shard Beach. How'd you end up out west?"

Stan shrugged, hunching his shoulders forward and leaning his elbows against the counter so that the collar of his leather jacket brushed his chin. "Long story. And you! You look fantastic, what are you now, an actress or something?"

Carla giggled, and it must have been Stan's imagination that she was blushing as she took a sip from the straw in her milkshake, darting a glance in his direction from under her thick, dark lashes. "I wish. No, I - I actually came out to audition for a dance troupe." Her eyes dropped towards her milkshake, and she gave an angry slurp on her straw.

"Ahh," Stan said, understanding dawning. "Well, forget them. They don't know what they're missing out on."

Carla shot him a grateful smile, and crossed one magnificent leg over the other. Stan couldn't tear his eyes away from the stretch of burnished skin her hot pants revealed, the sinuous way she moved, the obvious strength in her shapely calves and thick thighs. He'd never have dreamed that this was what was under the layers of pouf and petticoats she'd piled on in high school, and suddenly he felt like a sweaty-palmed teenager again, all nerves and acne.

Carla followed Stan's line of sight, and gave another brilliant grin. She tossed her hair back over one shoulder, leaning across the counter to give Stan a smaller, more understanding sort of smile. 

Stan felt his mouth go dry as she said, "Well, stranger, can I buy you a soda?"

...

The first thing that ran through Stan's mind when he started to break the surface of consciousness was Ford's stupid fucking book. 

He tried to reach out, to pat the passenger seat, find out if the book had survived and where it was, but his arm wouldn't move. A flash of panic yanked Stan abruptly the rest of the way awake, enough to take stock of his surroundings. 

He was underground. It took him a moment to know how he knew, but there was something about the chill in the air, the hint of damp, the soft sounds of water loud in the echoing stone silence, the pipes and wires criss-crossing the ceiling that all added up to 'basement'.

He was restrained. This one took Stan a little longer to realise, because he was seated in a fairly comfortable recliner, tilted back so he could see the copper piping that ran along the sandstone-coloured ceiling. But when he tried to move, heavy, padded cuffs locked his wrists and ankles in place. He'd be able to break out of them, of course, given time. But getting that time was going to be a problem.

Because he was being watched.

The hooded figure standing a few paces away from the foot of the chair gave a start and a squeak when Stan slammed both arms up against the cuffs holding him in place, swearing loudly when they didn't break. "D-don't you go a-hammerin' on those. This won't take but a moment if you just hold still -"

Stan rattled the cuffs, drowning out the tail end of the sentence. "Thought you fuckers woulda learned to leave me alone after I blew up that house!"

"Please, I know you're confused, but this-all'll be over in two shakes of a...of a...well, of something's tail, anyway." The hooded figure raised a lightbulb-ended gun much like the one Stan had broken earlier that night, fiddling with a dial fixed just above the stock with deft but shaking fingers. Stan noticed, with the kind of clarity of detail that only stomach-clenching panic can bring on, the bandage wrapped tightly around the hand that turned the dial, the dark reddish-brown stain spreading out from the palm. "Just a quick zap, and all this nastiness'll go right away. That is, if'n I can remember what it was I was erasing from your memory..." The words faded into a vexed muttering, in which Stan could only make out the odd word. What he could hear, though, wasn't much more comforting.

"Whoa, hey, nobody's touching my memory." Stan rattled the cuffs again, but they wouldn't budge. The wood of the chair arms they were bolted to, however, gave a woeful creak. Stan managed to hide a smile, turning a look of worry towards the hooded figure instead. "Look, why don't we talk about this? Why d'you wanna erase my memory anyway? I was leaving town, wasn't that what you all wanted?"

Stan couldn't see the figure's face, but he was somehow sure their brow had furrowed. " 'You all'?"

"Yeah. Your...society of the mind's eye or whatever."

Society of the..." The hooded figure scratched their head, just above the symbol of a crossed-out eye on their hood. "Nope, that don't ring a bell. But a secret society to wipe memories? What a good idea! I oughta start one!"

Stan surreptitiously rattled his cuffs, hoping to loosen the screws fastening them to the arms of the chair. Obviously this guy, whoever he was, had a few screws loose himself. He might do anything, and Stan didn't want to be stuck here if the hooded figure suddenly changed his mind about erasing Stan's memories and went for a stake instead. "What's your problem with memories, anyway?"

"My  problem with..." The figure paused for a moment, before throwing up both hands, waggling the gun in a careless way that set Stan's teeth on edge. "Well, I can't seem to hang onto 'em! Slippery devils!" 

He reached up and pushed his hood back, revealing a thin, chinless face with an unusually prominent nose, on which perched a pair of gold-rimmed glasses. Stan noticed that one of the lenses appeared to have cracked straight down the middle, though their owner didn’t seem to notice or care. An enormous, beaming smile crossed his face, and he took a few steps towards Stan, gun forgotten in his left hand as he held out the right as if for Stan to shake. “Speakin’ of, I can’t seem to recollect your name...?”

Stan looked from the bloodstained bandage around the man’s proferred hand, to the cuffs around his own wrists, to the desperately eager smile straining at the corners of the man’s mouth.

The only thing he could think of to say was, “Sorry, I don’t think we’ve met.”

The man stopped midstep and drew back, smile vanishing. He looked down in thought, turning away from Stan, as he mumbled, “Don’t think...but that face...”

“You, uh,” Stan interrupted. He took a deep breath. If this guy was wiping people’s memories, then he was probably the reason no one in this town remembered Ford. But if he’d known Ford, then maybe he had some clue about what the hell was going on. Not that Stan cared, anymore. But - “Maybe you’re thinking of my twin? Stanford Pines?”

“Stanford? I don’t know any -” the man started, and then stopped. Stan could see it hit him, watch as his eyes widened, pupils shrinking to terrified pinpricks as his heart rate and breathing skyrocketed.

“Name rings a bell, huh?” Stan said, only to nearly bite through his tongue when the man suddenly rounded on him, wild-eyed and now clearly aware of the gun in his hand.

“I remember now,” the man said, almost conversationally, levelling the gun in Stan’s direction. Stan gave up all pretense, slamming both arms against the cuffs holding him in place with as much force as he could muster. “Stanford Pines is the reason why I created this.” He gestured towards the gun, giving the dial a few more twists.

“Is. Uh. Is he.”

“Oh yes.” The man paused, looking up and to his left thoughtfully. Some of the menacing purpose seemed to ebb away as he said, “Can’t reckon why, now I come to think of it, but that’s the name, right ‘nough.” It sounded more like he was talking to himself than Stan, like he was reminding himself of some basic fact, as he went on, “Stanford Pines is trouble. Or maybe in trouble...?”

“Both,” Stan muttered, apparently just loud enough for the man in the hooded robe to hear.

“Both! Well,” he said, spinning the dial with one final flourish and turning his eyes back to Stan’s face, “let’s see if we can’t do something about that.”

Stan hammered against the cuffs with increasing desperation as the silly-looking lightbulb attached to the muzzle of the gun came up to level with his eyes. He could get these off in a minute if he just had room to move his arms, get some leverage, but as it was, the cuffs only rattled against the arms of the chair. 

Stan shut his eyes, on the off chance it would help. Over the whine of the gun charging to fire, he thought he heard the man in the hooded robe say, quietly, “I’m sorry, Stanford.”

Just when Stan was expecting a flash and an introduction to oblivion, though, a new voice demanded, “What are you doing?”

When nothing happened for a few seconds, Stan dared to crack an eye open. The man in the hooded robe had, to Stan’s immense relief, let the memory gun droop in his hands, and a look of puzzlement crossed his face as he half-turned toward the door behind him and the figures entirely hidden in hooded robes who entered.“I - well, I don’t rightly know.” He glanced down at the gun in his hand, and the light of realisation dawned across his face. “Just a-testin’ of the prototype!”

Stan had heard a lot of lies, and had told more than he’d heard. Even though it directly contradicted everything else the man had said so far, Stan was somehow sure that that hadn’t been one.

The figures still wearing their hoods raised seemed to reach the same conclusion. The tallest of the three crossed the room to place a hand on the shoulder of the man holding the gun, gently taking it from his slackening grip. “Your memory gun passed all of your tests, Fiddleford. It works very well. Your invention has been invaluable to the Society.”

The look of genuine, absolute confusion on the man called Fiddleford’s face was almost enough to make even Stan feel a twinge of pity. “It has? Well, knock me down and call me Betsy! Could you, possibly, tell me...which invention is that?”

The tallest of the hooded figures gently guided Fidleford - not a common name, Stan’s suspicions had to be right, this had to be Ford’s old assistant, and now Stan was almost glad he hadn’t found the man sooner - back towards the doors. Another of the hooded figures put an arm around Fiddleford’s narrow shoulders, guiding him gently out of the room. The door closed behind them with a hollow, final-sounding boom.

As soon as the door shut, the two remaining hooded figures both turned to the memory gun. "Did he actually get a shot off?" the shorter and broader of the two asked, in an unfortunately familiar voice, and Stan just managed to bite off a groan, letting his head drop back to thunk against the chair instead. Maybe it wasn't what a better person, a more human person, would do, but he'd half-hoped Albert Corduroy would've been buried - or at least badly injured - when the house had exploded.

The taller figure fiddled with the gun, pulling some kind of clear tube from the end and peering at it as one pale hand turned it over and back again. "There doesn't appear to be any memory captured here. We seem to have found Fiddleford in time."

"I don't see why we can't just put a stake in the bastard," the hood that hid Albert Corduroy's face said, turning in Stan's direction. "Martha's leg's not gonna be right for months. And half my beard's burnt."

"Oh, not your beard," the taller figure said, in a voice so devoid of emotion that it had to be sarcastic. "We're not staking him. Not just yet. This inability to think strategically is why your family have been here since the town was founded and yet are still living in that hovel in the woods."

Albert bristled, throwing off his hood with a shake off his head. "Better a hovel we come by honestly than a mansion built on deceit and trickery -"

Both figures turned to Stan at the sound of rattling. Stan stopped working at easing the cuffs out of their bindings, shooting a nervous smile at the two while silently cursing his decision to take a chance that they wouldn't hear him over their argument.

 “Uh, hi there. Long time no see?”

"Stake's not off the table, boy," Albert snapped, only for the taller figure to reach out and press a hand against his chest, holding him back as he started toward Stan.

"You. Do you recognise this?"

The taller figure pulled their hand away from Albert's chest, reaching into the folds of their robe and drawing out - Stan blinked.

“Where’d you get that?”

The hooded figure held up Ford’s stupid book. “This document contains knowledge that we have worked for generations to ensure remained hidden, forgotten. Where did you get it?”

“It’s - it’s mine. Give it back.”

The hooded figure seemed to loom taller in Stan’s vision. “Yours.”

Stan nodded.

The hooded figure’s shoulders drooped, just slightly, and Stan thought he could hear a sigh emanating from the darkness under the hood. “We know about the travelling researcher. Unfortunately, we at first judged his activities relatively harmless. We were blind to the true extent of the danger until it was too late.”

Albert Corduroy rolled his eyes, crossing his arms over his chest. “He don’t need the dramatics.”

“It is imperative that the severity of the threat is understood!” the taller figure intoned, echoes from the underground chamber lending a hollow resonance to their voice. “Or have you forgotten the entire purpose of the society your ancestors helped to form? Forgotten the cost of driving that monster from one’s mind?”

Albert started to mutter something, only for the taller figure to round on him, reaching up with one spider hand to pull their hood down. 

“Do you need to be reminded?”

Stan stared. 

The taller of the two men was either bald or shaved to the scalp, lines of blue tattoo ink crisscrossing his skull, parcelling it up like a diagram of cuts of meat on a cow. His face was gaunt, cheeks hollow and mouth bitter, eyes sinking into a face like a skull. Or - one eye, anyway. The other was milky, with an unseeing, unsettling stare, and crossed by two livid scars. Stan was unpleasantly reminded of the symbol stamped on both men’s hoods.

Albert Corduroy didn’t seem impressed, folding his arms across his chest and meeting the tattooed man’s wild-eyed gaze with a steady look. “Forgive me for not trembling in fear, but if I’m remembering aright, the only reason your father and the rest of the Society had to drive it out of yours was that you got too big for your britches and -”

“That’s beside the point,” the tattooed man said abruptly, cutting the rest of Albert’s sentence short. “The point is that, if you had taken a moment to read this -” He waved Ford’s book under Albert’s nose, and Albert managed not to do so much as twitch. “Even you could not fail to realise that its author has made a mistake that could spell doom for all of us.”

“What, done like you did and asked a monster older than time itself into his head, thinking he could go toe-to-toe with it on its own turf and knock it cold all on his own when generations of Society members haven’t -”

The tattooed man pressed his already-thin lips together, his mouth nearly vanishing into a single fine line. His eyes found Stan’s as he said, “Yes. The author of this journal invited the demon this Society is sworn to protect against into his own mind.”

While Stan was still reeling, the tattooed man turned to Albert Corduroy and said, in an icy undertone that Stan wasn’t sure if he was meant to hear, “And if you’re really so dead-set upon embarrassing me in front of other people, might I suggest you continue to do it by getting blisteringly drunk and challenging the statue of my ancestor in the town square to a shooting competition - and losing - instead of undermining my authority on official Society of the Blind Eye business?”

“That was once,” Albert snapped, and a narrow, triumphant smile crossed the tattoed man’s face. 

“So was my youthful...misstep. And yet, somehow, that doesn’t restore the sight in my right eye.” The tattooed man turned his attention back to Stan. “Fortunately, your friend Fiddleford’s memory gun has made some of the more unpleasant measures we’ve had to take against possession in the past obsolete. Unfortunately, it’s also taken his memory of what caused him to create it in the first place - and of what his partner was trying to accomplish. As well as what that partner did in order to achieve his goals. We had suspicions, but we were never able to confirm them.”

He brandished the book in Stan’s face again. “But now, thanks to this, we know. We know what he let in. We know who he’s working for.”

Stan jumped when the man slammed the book down on the cuff Stan had been diligently trying to worm his hand out of. “What is Bill Cipher planning?!”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, hey!” Stan tried to pull back, only succeeding in wedging himself farther back into the chair. “I don’t - who the hell is a ‘Bill Cipher’?”

“By your own admission, you’re the researcher’s brother! You have his journal!” The tattooed man leaned forward, and Stan couldn’t help the way both his eyes fixed on the man’s sole blind one. This close, the scars crossing it looked even angrier and more painful than they had from a distance. “You know something.”

This, at least, was familiar territory for Stan, who wasn’t sure whether to laugh or just give up.

“I don’t,” he said, and his voice sounded exhausted even to his own ears. “Look, I might even know less than you do. I just got here a couple days ago after not hearing a word from F- my brother for ten years, I’ve been trying to get an answer about what’s going on the whole time I’ve been here. He just gave me that book and told me to get lost. So I did.” Stan glared at first the tattooed man, then at Albert over his shoulder. “Or I was trying to, if you bozos woulda let me leave.”

“Well, then,” Albert said, with a hint of smile just visible under his moustache, “Ivan, I’m telling you, a stake to the heart and we got ourselves one less problem to worry about.”

Stan yanked against the cuffs, hearing them rattle and feeling the wood bend dangerously under his arms. One more good heave should have them off. “I’m telling the truth, I swear!”

Albert fixed Stan with a gimlet gaze. “Your kind don’t hold nothing holy, boy. You got nothing to swear by.”

Stan matched him stare for stare. 

A sigh from the tattooed man - Ivan - broke the staring competition. "I was hoping we wouldn't have to resort to this," he sighed, tucking Ford's book back into his robes and raising the memory gun. "The playback always skips at emotional moments, and I'm never certain we've got everything relevant."

"Whoa, hey! I thought you weren't gonna steal my memories?"

Ivan looked at Stan like he was seeing the back of the chair through Stan's head. "If you won't tell us what you know, then we'll have to take it directly from your mind. Please don't fuss about it, this is for the greater good."

"And then we can stake him," Albert said, and Stan didn't like the way his moustache quirked up at the ends.

Ivan didn't turn away from Stan, levelling the gun at Stan's head and taking careful aim. "Do you really think that's necessary?"

"Why not? Boy's nothing but a menace. If you take his memories, what's to keep him from going wild?" Albert made a sound halfway through a snort and a scoff. Stan wanted to interrupt him, but a horrified fascination, the need to know what he'd say next, stayed Stan's tongue, froze him in place. "And he's only a drifter. Got no friends here. Says himself his own brother don't want nothing to do with him. Ain't nobody gonna miss him."

He met Stan's eyes, and this time, Stan was definitely sure that the expression lurking under that moustache was a smile. "Ain't nobody even gonna notice he's gone."

Stan felt the bones in his face shift, rows of jagged fangs tearing free as his jaw readjusted to make room for them all - not the twin needlepoints he used for feeding, but ugly, solid spikes for tearing, for breaking, for fighting. With one last wrench, the cuffs tore free of the chair holding him down, and Stan reached down to wrench open the ones holding his legs in place. He ducked under a burst of white light from the memory gun, scanning the room for exits even as he lunged for Ivan and the gun. There seemed to be doors scattered all around the room, but the closest exit was the pair of double doors behind the other two men.

Which suddenly burst open.

Stan froze in place with the collar of Ivan's robe clutched in one fist and the other raised to deliver a punch, staring, as Susan stumbled into the room.

Chapter Text

"You're where now?"

Stan couldn't help the flinch, and a person passing by outside the phone booth winced and gave a sympathetic nod in his direction. "Babe, don't be like that. It's only for a couple more weeks -"

"A couple more - Stanley, our anniversary's on Sunday! You told me you'd be home! And now you're saying you're going to be halfway across the country?"

Stan let his head fall back, the back of his skull bonking against the scuffed plastic of the phone booth as he listened to Carla's voice. When she paused to take a deep breath, he said, "I'm really sorry. But you know what it's like for a salesman right now. The job just opened up, and you know we need the money." 

It was true, but it wasn't the whole truth. But there was no way he was going to try to explain to her that the guy she'd been dating for the last year had been dead the whole time. This travelling sales gig was the perfect cover, the perfect explanation for why he couldn't spend the night at her place and leave sometime in the early afternoon, couldn't take her out for fancy dinners or long walks on the boardwalk or picnics on the beach in the stunning California sun, couldn't buy her big expensive gifts, couldn't lie tangled up with her in bed for hours just listening to each other's heartbeats...

It'd be perfect if only it didn't mean having to stay away from her.

There was a moment of silence that hung in the thick, smoky fug of the air inside the phone booth, before a long, heavy sigh from the other end of the line. "I'm just getting tired of always having to wait for you," Carla said, and Stan pressed a hand flat against the other side of the phone booth, curling it into a fist and feeling his nails slide against the scratched plexiglass.

"I know, baby doll. I know." He ran his hand nervously through his hair, leaning back against the wall by his shoulder again. "It's killing me to be away from you too. You think every time I knock on a door, there ain't some tiny stupid part of me that hopes it's gonna open up and you'll be standing there?" The silence on the other end of the line sounded less icy somehow, and Stan pressed on. "You think I don't slip up in the middle of a pitch because I'm thinking about you laughing at the dumb shit I say? You think I don't just want you in the passenger seat beside me on every drive, with the top down and the sun shining, your hair all flapping in the wind and both of us singing along to some song neither of us knows the words to -"

He was cut off by a mechanical voice, cool and impersonal, saying, "Please deposit an additional twenty-five cents to continue talking." Stan tucked the phone between his shoulder and his ear, trawling through his pockets for more change, but there was nothing in his jeans but his keys, his ID, and a handful of lint and old gum wrappers. Defeated, he hung up the phone, silencing the repeating voice.

He'd tell her, he promised himself, as he stepped out of the phone booth and into the neon-dripping night. He'd explain everything. She'd understand, probably. He just couldn't keep this up, couldn't keep missing her like he'd ripped open his ribcage and left his heart behind in California. He had to tell her. He would tell her.

Soon.

...

"Just what in the hell did you think you were doing?"

Susan tugged ineffectually at the coils upon coils of heavy rope tying them both to a pillar near the centre of the underground room. "Well, obviously rescuing you, silly! And it's a good thing I did, too. You need all the help you can get!"

Stan really wished he could rub the bridge of his nose to hopefully ease the headache that was already starting to build there, to match the one from the throbbing lump on the back of his head where someone had knocked him out while he was distracted by Susan's entrance, but unfortunately his hands were well tied down with the same mummy wrap of rope that held Susan in place. "I had it under control. I would have been fine if you hadn't barged in and I hadn't had to try to fight off the twenty guys following you -"

Stan was sure somehow that if she had full use of her arms right now, Susan would be crossing them. "Oh, sure, you would've been fine with your big mouth full of scary teeth."

"They are very scary when they're tearing your throat out!"

"Is that what you were planning to do?" Susan's voice was dripping with disapproval. "Tear people's throats out?"

"It was an option I was considering!"

"Well, that's not very nice at all."

Stan really wished he had a hand free to gesture around them, at the situation they'd found themselves in. "And what's so nice about what they're gonna do to us now? What were you planning to do, ask 'em politely to let us go?" When Susan didn't respond, looking away at the cluster of gathered robed figures clearly discussing what to do with their prisoners, he couldn't help a disbelieving laugh. "Seriously? You really thought that was gonna work? Look, someday you're gonna have to figure out to do unto others before they can do unto you."

Susan's head snapped around, her eyes flashing. "You don't know these people," she said, her voice level but intense, and Stan had a feeling that if her arms were free she'd be prodding him in the chest with one overlong acrylic nail. "You don't know anything about them."

"And you think you do?"

"I grew up with -"

"They've been trying to kill me since I got here, and you didn't think they ever would -"

"None of these people would hurt me -"

"I mighta!"

Susan's mouth opened into a little pink 'o', her eyes wide and false eyelashes flapping as she blinked at Stan in shock. Stan hastily backtracked, cursing silently in the back of his mind. "Not - not on purpose! But I nearly got you blown up tonight, almost got your mind wiped, and if you'd shown up a couple minutes later I coulda really hurt you if you'd tried to stop me going after your friends -"

"Well, I don't know that I'd call them all 'friends'," Susan started, and Stan sighed, slumping against the ropes holding him in place. 

"Bad enough I have to look after my reckless idiot brother without you leaping before you look too," he grumbled. "Why couldn't you have just listened to Carla?"

One of Susan's eyebrows quirked.

"I did," she said. 

Stan let his head fall back, banging against the pillar as he stared, disbelieving, up at the ceiling. "Then why are you here?"

"Well, because she's wrong," Susan said, with a shrug. 

"Look, I'm pretty sure she knows what she's talking about."

"Oh, absolutely. She explained all about how your magic brainwashing works, and how somebody can break out of it if they know what's going on." Susan gave a little self-satisfied nod. "That's how I know she's wrong. I know how you could be brainwashing me, but I still want to help you out. So you're not brainwashing me. So there." She smiled proudly, and Stan thumped his head against the pillar a few times more.

"I cannot believe I'm having this conversation."

Susan tried to give him a friendly nudge with her shoulder, but the rope didn't have quite enough give to let her. "Admit it, you were surprised to see me, weren't you?"

Stan banged his head against the pillar again.

"You were surprised," Susan answered her own question, with a laugh. "Wanna know how I found you?"

"Right now I'm more interested in how you plan to get us out of this mess," Stan grumbled, but Susan went on as if she hadn't heard him, something about knowing where Ford lived. Stan wasn't really listening, busy testing the ropes binding him in place for any weakness. The group of hooded figures who had come storming in after Susan had gathered in a huddle at the other side of the room, as far away from their prisoners as possible, and if he concentrated a little Stan could hear parts of their hushed conversation. It sounded, from what he could glean, like they were debating whether wiping the last few days entirely from Susan's memory would do any lasting damage.

That wasn't good. That meant they'd already decided what to do with him, and what they'd decided on wasn't 'give him a pat on the back and a second chance'. It wasn't like he hadn't expected it, but the reminder was a sharp spur in Stan's side. He had to get out of here, and fast.

"Okay, escape plan," Stan said, interrupting something Susan was saying about giant robots. "We gotta get out of these ropes somehow, and then I'll go for their leader, Baldy over there, while you make a break for that door behind us. They should be distracted enough that they won't -"

"Now hold on just a second. It almost sounds like you're trying to get rid of me."

"I'm not -" A few hooded heads turned in their direction, and Stan lowered his voice. "I'm not trying to get rid of you! It's just not safe for you to be in here with all of these guys with memory guns and me going all...fang-y."

"Oh, what, and it's safe for you?"

Stan grit his teeth at the look on Susan's face. "I might be just a tiny bit more durable than you are, considering I got a stake through a lung once tonight and I'm still here to talk about it, and I'm pretty sure you never killed a man."

Susan's eyes went wide as saucers, her false eyelashes fluttering like butterflies as she blinked in Stan's direction. "Killed a - just what are you planning, mister?"

"Nothing you gotta know about," Stan said shortly. "And it don't matter anyway if we can't get outta these ropes."

"You wouldn't really hurt anybody, would you?" Susan continued, sounding scandalised. "You're much too nice for that."

Stan met her eyes, realised she was serious, and barely managed to swallow down a burst of laughter. The look Susan fixed him with was pure, confused outrage, and he couldn't hold the laughter back.

"Look, just - just help me figure out how to get outta here fast, and we'll worry about what to do with the society of the whatever they call it after that, okay?"

"You are trying to get rid of me," Susan said, and the way she squinted at Stan was obviously meant to look suspicious and piercing. "Why? What're you up to?"

"Did...did you not just hear me explain?"

Susan's squint got narrower. "Does this have to do with the book your brother said you stole?"

It felt like Stan had swallowed a lump of ice.

"Wh- when did you talk to Ford?" he managed, after a moment of trying, with no success, to make the world right itself in his head.

"When I was looking for you, of course!" Susan sniffed. "What a rude man. Yelling at strangers for no reason! All I did was knock, and he jabbed a crossbow in my face and told me to give the book back. Seemed like he thought I had it for some reason, even after he said he gave it to you. And I still don't see how somebody can steal something you gave them. That's just ridiculous. And he got my name wrong. Maybe if he left that shack up in the woods every once in a while -"

Stan shook his head. "Can we back this complaint up a couple 'and's? You talked to Ford?"

"Yes," Susan said, very slowly and clearly. "Well, I had to ask him where you went! You can't just take off without telling anyone where you're going and expect me to follow you!"

"I didn't want you to follow me!" Stan had to steel himself against the kicked-puppy expression on Susan's face. "Look, what part of 'you could get really badly hurt' isn't getting through to you? So far just tonight you got blown up, shot at, and threatened by a guy who makes Reagan look sane, and now you're tied up in a basement waiting for some goons to erase your entire memory. And you have absolutely no reason to give a shit about me! Everybody we've run into so far has told you I'm some kind of murderous monster, and a jerk, and I'm telling you right now that none of them even had to exaggerate."

Susan looked like she was about to interrupt, so Stan raised his voice, ploughing on. "You don't know me from Adam! You got some sob story about your brother being persecuted for being supernatural, well, that kinda sympathy tends to wear off fast when people find out I'm no victim, just a two-bit bloodsucking conman who don't care about anybody but himself. So why? What's your angle, lady?"

When it finally came, Susan's response was quiet, subdued, no hint of her usual oblivious certainty to be heard. "I thought we were friends."

In the silence, her breathing sounded almost as loud as the rush of water through the pipes overhead.

Stan had to clear his throat before he could speak again. "I, uh - I don't have many of those, but don't it usually take a little longer than two nights to make friends?"

Susan shrugged as best she could through the rope, looking away. "Well, friends don't usually blow up buildings together either, but I figure you're already unusual." She glanced over at Stan, and she wasn't smiling, but there was the faintest of twinkles in her eye.

Despite everything, Stan had to struggle not to smile himself. 

"Okay, we can talk about what a weirdo I am and what giant sap you are later," he said, trying not to meet Susan's eyes, not to fall victim to that twinkle. "We gotta figure out how we're gonna get out of here so we can have that conversation."

"I've got a nail file," Susan volunteered. "Oh wait, no, I left my purse in the car. I don't have a nail file."

"Great." Stan leaned his head back against the pillar they were tied to. "Well, it can't be that much harder to chew through than the lid of a car trunk."

"How do you - did you actually -"

Susan was interrupted mid-stammering disbelief as the little group of hooded figures broke apart, scattering around the room. Ivan's bald head bobbed above the sea of red hoods as he approached the pillar. His good eye, Stan was quietly pleased to notice, was already purpling.

"Our decision is made," he said, stopping in front of Stan and Susan and standing looking down with both hands clasped behind his back. "Susan Wentworth, you will be allowed to return to your home after only a minor memory modification -"

"Like fun," Susan spat. "You don't scare me, Ivan Northwest. I remember when you had pimples and all you talked about were magic tricks."

Ivan was too pale to flush - nearly exactly the colour of a worm living on the underside of a rock, Stan decided - but there was a faint pinkness along his prominent cheekbones that probably passed for a blush for him.

"You've involved yourself with matters beyond your comprehension -" he started, an edge to his voice, only for Susan to interrupt.

"What're you going to do, cut me in half and put me back together? Actually, that'd be pretty neat. I've always wondered how they do that."

"Would you stop that?" Ivan snapped, before visibly taking a deep breath and adjusting his robe. "As I was saying. Neither of you could possibly know of the forces you have - oh, what now?"

Stan was about to ask what had disturbed Ivan when he felt it, too - a low, deep rumble that set the stone floor vibrating. 

That was all the warning they got before the heavy wooden doors at one end of the room exploded inwards, revealing - Stan had to blink several times to be sure he was really seeing what he thought he was seeing - the head and neck of what looked like some kind of giant metal monster.

And straddling its neck, riding it like a cowboy on a mechanical bull, was Fiddleford McGucket.

Chapter Text

There was a van in Carla's drive when Stan pulled up, and he muttered a few nasty words under his breath as he parked along the sidewalk. It was gaudily painted in lurid swirls of purple, orange, and green, and Stan could just picture the orange shag carpet and bead curtains that must deck out the interior. Apparently, one of Carla's friends had terrible taste.

Stan locked the Stanleymobile and stuffed the keys in his pocket, half-skipping up the sidewalk. He got no answer the first few times he rang the doorbell, even though he waited several long minutes, and finally he resorted to rapping on the door until he heard something shifting inside. "Hotpants? Carla? It's me! I got a three-week break - well, okay, it's kind of a however-long-I-want-it-to-be break, I sort of don't sell Stan-Vacs anymore, long funny story, I'll tell you later - and I thought we could -"

The door swung open, and Carla looked up to meet Stan's eyes.

Despite how long he'd been looking forward to this, Stan didn't instantly scoop her up in his arms like he'd been imagining all the long drive back to California. It wasn't like he didn't want to, but something in the way she looked at him stopped him dead.

"...what's the matter, dollface?" Stan asked, trying for a toothy grin and not quite making it there. Carla didn't move, didn't so much as blink. She just looked at him with that vaguely unfocused, vaguely unimpressed gaze, and Stan felt something twist coldly in his gut. "Carla?"

There was a swish of fabric from the hall behind Carla, and a pad of bare feet, and someone else walked up behind her, putting a hand on Carla's shoulder. "Sunflower, baby, who's this square?"

Stan took in the newcomer, the long blonde hair that fell to mid-back, the dreamy expression, the hideous paisley pattern in clashing greens and oranges and purples covering his...shirt? Dress? The hand he rested casually, familiarly, on Carla's shoulder. The way Carla turned in towards him like she was the sunflower he'd called her and he was the sun.

"Think I should be asking that question," Stan said, gesturing to both of them. The twist in his gut seemed to wind in on itself. "What - what the hell is this? I'm gone for a while and you just replace me?"

Carla blinked, seeming to stir awake, the first real emotion Stan had seen on her since she'd answered the door bubbling to the surface. "A while? It's been more than a year, Stanley. I haven't seen you for more than about two days together, you're always running off here and there across the country - it's enough to make a girl wonder if she's really wanted." The last word was delivered sharply, but uncertainty overtook her expression again almost as soon as she spat it out. She turned back to the man behind her, who met her eyes and smiled, and when she turned back to Stan the uncertainty was gone, replaced by the same vague, unfocused disappointment as when Stan had answered the door. "I - Thistle and I are very happy together. It might be best if you - I don't think - you should -"

"Carla," Stan started, ready to throw himself at her feet, but just the sound of his voice seemed enough to snap Carla back to her earlier resolve.

"Stan, I think you should leave me alone."

It took Stan a few minutes to find his voice.

"Wh- you're - you're not seriously breaking up with me, are you?"

Carla's impassive gaze didn't waver.

"No. You can't - I've been working so hard - you gotta at least give me another chance!"

"No more chances, Stan," Carla sighed, and something unfocused and dreamy drifted over her face and settled there. "I already told you. I'm much happier with Thistle now. Please. Don't you want me to be happy?"

Stan stopped mid-plea.

"You're really happier without me," he said, and he could hear the traitorous hoarseness in his own voice.

Carla nodded once, and the damn hippie - Thistle? What the hell kind of name - curled an arm protectively around her. "I think Sunflower's made her wishes clear. Why don't you respect them and roll on back outta here."

Stan swallowed, his mouth suddenly and inexplicably dry. He stepped down from the stoop before turning to look back, reluctant to walk away, make it irreversible, make it real. 

"Oh, and Stan?" 

Thistle smiled, a pleasant, friendly grin revealing an impressively long and needle-sharp pair of fangs, as Carla droned, blank-eyed, "Your invitation has been rescinded."

The door slammed shut just as Stan lunged for it.

...

The room erupted into pandemonium.

Stan couldn't fault anyone for running or screaming - it was all he wanted to do himself. The sudden appearance of a giant metal monster that looked like the hideous spawn of Godzilla and a concrete truck suddenly busting down your doors had to come as something of a shock.

What he was going to complain about was Ivan Northwest standing his ground, raising the memory gun as though determined that if he was about to be eaten by a robot dinosaur, he was taking Stan's and Susan's memories with him.

Susan, apparently unconcerned with the imminent threat of either death, dismemberment, or mind erasure, tried and failed to give Stan a nudge with her shoulder through the ropes binding them.He could barely hear her over the intermittent yells and the grinding of spiked tire treads against the stone of the floor. "That's the robot I was telling you about!"

Stan lashed out with both legs, silently thanking his lucky stars that their captors had tied them sitting down as his feet collided with Ivan's ankles behind the soft curtain of his robes. Ivan took a staggering step backwards, the memory gun flashing in the direction of the ceiling, and Stan renewed his efforts to work his way out of the ropes. "What robot?"

"The one that carried off your car!" Susan wriggled against the ropes as Ivan righted himself, glaring at Stan as he took aim again. "Scooped the whole thing up and carried it all the way back to the museum."

"We're under the museum?" Stan asked, trying to see if he could shuffle the ropes up over his head and only succeeding in giving himself rope burns. A flash of memory, of chasing the tail of a flapping robe around the corner of the museum, skittered across the surface of his thoughts before tucking itself behind one of his synapses in terror. If Ivan would just lay off for one minute - 

With a crash that set Stan’s teeth rattling in his skull and, he could swear, caused the floor to drop a foot underneath him, an enormous metal claw that looked halfway between the digging scoop of an earthmover and the spiked claw of a logging machine smashed into the floor between Stan and Ivan, blocking Ivan’s shot. 

Stan looked up, up, along the length of the appendage the claw was attached to, to the vast metal maw of the robot. Fiddleford, perched on its neck, saw Stan looking up and gave a cheery wave.

“Don’t you worry, Stanford!” he called down, as the robot threw its head back and blasted the ceiling with what must have been some kind of laser beams. Chunks of masonry and copper piping smashed to the floor around them, and Stan did his best to duck and protect his head, quietly wondering just what had gone wrong in his life that had landed him here, tied up in a basement with his entire existence hinging on an apparently homicidal madman being convinced that Stan was his own brother. “Betsy ‘n’ me’ll have y’all outta there in a jiffy!”

“Betsy,” Stan managed. His voice sounded weak even to his own ears. “Oh, good. He named the giant killer robot Betsy.”

”Stan,” Susan hissed, before turning her biggest smile up towards Fiddleford. “Thank you!”

Fiddleford waved at Susan, and then staggered sideways as a burst of white light exploded against the side of the robot's neck, just out of Stan's sight. For one heartstopping instant, Stan thought the slight figure perched on the robot's neck was going to fall.

Then the robot's jaw swung open with a shriek of steel, revealing jagged spikes of odd sizes and colours, some longer than Stan's forearm. It let out a long, loud roar, half the scream of metal on rusted metal, half the throaty bellow of a wild animal in pain, and swung its head down and to the side.

There was an unpleasantly wet-sounding thud, and Ivan dropped like a bag of rocks, skidding a few feet on his back across the stone floor. The memory gun clattered out of his grasp as he hit the ground, skittering away from his prone form before coming to a rest a few feet from his hand. The robot let out another earth-shaking roar, this time intermingled with a whine that Stan couldn’t place at first.

Then he saw the robot’s tail swinging toward him and Susan, the circular sawblade attached to its very tip whirring to very dangerous life.

Stan doubled his efforts against the rope holding them in place, but like with the cuffs on the chair, there just wasn’t enough room to get the leverage he really needed to rip them free. Superhuman strength could only do so much without space to move. There was a little more give to the ropes now than there had been when he’d first woken up tied to the pillar, but it still wasn’t enough, and the last thing Stan ever saw was going to be that spinning blade as it swung down - 

The whine suddenly grew teeth as Stan squeezed his eyes shut, turning to a growl as the saw chewed its way through something, and suddenly the ropes fell away.

“Wh-” Susan started, but Stan was already on his feet, helping her up as he scanned the room for the easiest exit. Most of the hooded figures had scattered for the exits as soon as the robot had busted in, but there was still a little knot of red robes clustered by the far wall and a weird altar-thing Stan hadn’t been able to see when he was busy being tied up. They’d be able to stop Stan and Susan if they tried to get out by any of the doors down towards that end of the room, but if they tried to go for the big double doors, they’d have to get by the robot -

Stan happened to glance over in the direction where Ivan had fallen, and stopped. Ivan’s red robes had fallen askew, revealing something that glinted gold.

“Get out of here!” Stan yelled at Susan, grabbing her by the shoulders and pointing her in the direction of the nearest exit.

“What? What about you?”

“I’ve gotta grab something, I’ll be right behind you!”

Susan looked like she was about to try to argue, but the robot gave another roar and started to roll forward on its enormous spiked tracks, claws gnashing, and Susan, thankfully, shut her mouth and ran towards the doors behind them, ducking under the robot’s tail as it swung.

Stan paused for a moment himself, gauging how fast the robot was moving and how long it would take to cut him off from Ivan, wondering what the hell he was even doing this for, before he ran forward, ducking under the robot’s claws and landing on knees and elbows beside Ivan’s prone form. The stone floor scraped against his arms, and Stan felt his jeans rip across the knee, a sharp sting and a bright note of blood against the musty basement-smell and the oily smoke coming off the robot telling Stan he’d torn skin as well.

He scrambled over to Ivan, who looked slightly less dead up close, and pulled Ivan’s robe aside. Thankfully, Ivan was wearing clothes under the stupid robe, a nerdy t-shirt and shorts and white tennis socks, not at all what Stan would’ve expected. And lying on his chest, winking up at the ceiling, was Ford’s stupid book.

Stan’s fingers had only just closed around the binding when there was a popping sound, like someone had set off a firework in the echoing basement. Stan flung himself flat, faster than anyone human but not quite fast enough. Something stung his ear as he dropped, like a hornet, making his eyes water and his fangs snap down reflexively. 

Stan rolled over onto the stone, trying to put Ivan’s unconscious form between himself and whoever was shooting, brain frantically calculating as he tried to figure out where the shot had come from and how best to get away. It was almost impossible to hear over the roar of the robot and the crunch of its treads on the stone floor, but Stan was sure he caught an echo of Fiddleford’s voice wailing, “Stanford!”

There was another pop, and Stan could hear the bullet whizz over his head this time. 

Stan pressed a hand to his ear, hissing through his fangs as the sting started to fade into a throbbing burn. His hand came away wet and sticky, and he absently wiped it on his already-ruined jacket, staring up at the hole the robot’s laser blast had punched in the ceiling.

“Git away from ‘im,” Albert Corduroy’s voice called, footsteps ringing on the stone as he advanced. The robot gave a long, low rumble, and Stan dared to peek over Ivan’s shoulder to see Albert shooting a baleful glare up at Fiddleford. “And shut that thing down, McGucket. You’re losin’ it, this here ain’t your friend.”

“You c’n say that again!” Fiddleford whooped, and the robot’s eyes lit up, moments before a beam of red light shot from each eye and seared a smoking line in the stone along Stan’s exposed side. Stan yelped, trying to scramble away, but another gunshot nearly took his head off.

“Thit,” Stan hissed as he dropped flat against the floor again, fangs turning the word to a lisp, Ford’s journal clutched to his chest like some spectacularly useless shield. Despite the ruckus the robot made, he could hear Albert’s footsteps growing closer, and Ivan’s breathing and heart rate turning erratic - he’d soon be waking up, and Stan would be alone without even the meagre protection Ivan’s scrawny, unconscious body gave him.

There was no way around it. Stan was screwed.

And, as the realisation sank in, as the robot screeched and sizzled and blew chunks out of both floor and ceiling indiscriminately, as the man who wanted to murder him for no real apparent reason drew ever closer, Stan realised he was also incredibly fucking furious.

Was this what his life had become? Just a neverending stream - no, a fucking waterfall - of weird bullshit and people trying to kill him? He hadn’t even done anything to Corduroy before the guy’d tried to put a stake in him! Stan’d been too busy running around trying not to get permanently dead to take a moment to realise just how much shit he’d been through, but now, the weight of all of it settled on him like a suffocating blanket. He’d had to put up with so much bullshit in the last - what, three nights? And whose fucking fault was that? Not Stan’s, that was for fucking sure! Stan had just been trying to keep his fool head down, not rock the boat, just not get killed again. And he’d been doing a pretty damn decent job of it, too, until his goddamn sonofabitch dumbass brother had had to go get mixed up with a real goddamn live fucking demon!

Well, enough was enough.

Stan reached out with one arm, scrabbling against the rough stone of the floor for the memory gun Ivan had dropped. His fingertips finally met metal, and he stretched as far as he dared, until his hand closed over the hilt. No fucking way he was getting shot tonight, not on top of everything else.

Ivan groaned, and Albert’s footsteps stopped. Now or never. Stan took a deep breath, gripping the memory gun in both hands as he stood and turned to face Albert. The gun looked both old-fashioned and just plain old, but the trigger pulled smoothly and easily, without any resistance. 

Stan squeezed his eyes shut against the sudden burst of white light.

When he opened his eyes again, Albert was blinking at the room around him, a look of mingled wonder and fear written across his face. Stan glanced down at the gun in his hand, wondering what he’d removed from Albert’s memory - did it just take everything? No, it couldn’t, or they wouldn’t have tried to use it on - Susan! Where had she gone?

Stan had just started to turn to look for Susan when Albert Corduroy growled, “You made a big mistake dragging me off to your evil lair, vampire. An’ you made a bigger mistake when you left me my gun.”

“What? Evil lair? Thith ith your -” Stan started, looking down at the memory gun in his hand, and groaning. A little screen just above the hilt displayed, in glowing green letters, the words SOCIETY OF THE BLIND EYE.

Behind him, Stan heard Ivan sit up, making the confused noises of a person just waking up from unexpected unconsciousness. The little cluster of red-robed figures at the end of the room had clearly gotten brave when the robot had stopped trying to take them out and Stan had hit the floor, and had moved to make a rough circle around Stan, with a wide space left in the circle for the robot. More than a few carried makeshift weapons, bits of broken pipe and chunks of fallen roof. Stan was surrounded, wildly outnumbered, and backed up against a giant and very erratic killer robot.

Well, that hadn’t worked.

“Tell you what,” Corduroy said, sternly, also looking nervously around him, “you tell me where I am and how to get out and I might let some of ya live.”

“Albert?” Ivan asked, rubbing the back of his head, and Albert glanced over at him. In the split second that he was distracted, Stan darted forward and grabbed the gun out of his hand. Albert spun back to face Stan, just in time to watch Stan squeeze the barrel in one hand until it bent in half.

“Thorry,” Stan said, and almost meant it. 

Then he flung the now-useless gun away from him and lunged at Albert, fangs bared. 

He didn’t quite make it there. There was an enormous shriek of metal from right overhead, mixed with screams and shouts from the people around the circle, and darkness descended over him, metal knocking him off his feet and tossing him into the air. 

Stan only caught one last glimpse of the destroyed ceiling before two rows of jagged metal spikes snapped closed on him.

Chapter Text

Stan had tried every way in he could think of. But even if Carla's place hadn't been locked up tighter than a drum, he wouldn't have been able to get through any of the doors or windows anyway. Every time he got too close, pushed too far, thought he might actually have a chance - there was a pulse of pain, a shock, and he found himself thrown back. Apparently all that stuff about needing an invitation to get in wasn't just a myth.

Stan ended up sitting on the front step, glaring blankly in the direction of the stupid ugly van parked in Carla's drive. He hadn't felt this helpless since the first time he'd met his own eyes in a mirror and seen them glint.

Carla could be dead by now. Or worse. And there was nothing Stan could do about it.

And the longer he stared at the hideous paisley pattern painted across the van's panel sides, the uglier and smugger it seemed to get. 

Well. Maybe there was one thing left that he could still do.

...

The lid of the car trunk slammed closed on Stan, cutting off the light.

Stan slammed both fists against the walls as he tumbled down, around, upside down, and crashed down onto his back against something hard and flat. If he’d had to breathe, the breath would’ve been knocked out of him. 

As it was, he was back on his feet in seconds, flinging himself against the nearest wall with all his strength. The floor rocked under his feet, and he launched himself at the wall again, shoulder-first, feeling the metal give slightly even as something in his shoulder cracked. Stan ground his teeth against the pain and pulled back for another blow. He was getting out of here even if he had to chew his way out, and nothing and no one was going to stop -

"Stan!"

The voice was high, warbling and somehow familiar, though Stan couldn't place it and didn't have time to waste on trying. The only people he'd recognise in a situation like this would be the people who'd put him here, and they definitely weren't showing up to give him a pat on the back, a sincere apology, and the keys to get out.

Or...maybe they were.

"Stan -"

Hot blood and heartbeat pounded as he spun, catching the speaker with an arm across their throat and slamming them up against the nearest wall. It was a woman, not what he'd expected, about the same height as he was and stinking of coffee and cold grease and fear, her pulse thrumming just under his arm. Stan licked his lips and only realised he'd done it when her heart gave a few rabbity kicks.

"Hey, cut it out!" She gave him a push, but Stan didn't move.

"Lemme ou'a here or I'll tear yer throat ou'," he snarled, giving her a shove back against the wall for good measure. Her eyes flicked to his mouth, and he snapped his teeth once for good measure. What was the point of having a mouthful of big pointy chompers if you didn't use them to threaten squishy human gangsters, anyway?

"Stan, stoppit, you're scaring me!" 

"Yeh, tha'th me, big thcary monthter." He leaned in close, close enough that she went stiff and he could see all the little hairs along her neck rise when his breath brushed over the skin. "Tho you either lemme ou', or ge' whoever made you thtick me in here to lemme ou', or you're gonna be breathin' ou' a new hole, thithter -"

"Stan, it's me! It's me, it's Susan, we're in a giant robot - calm down and let go of me!"

Stan took another long, deep, heady breath, listening to and feeling the pulse pounding just under his fingertips -

- something here wasn't adding up.

There was no way he was standing upright in a car trunk. Okay. That wasn't hard to figure out. Which meant he wasn't in one. Which meant this - this woman might be telling the truth. And she was familiar, but she definitely wasn't Colombian, he couldn't place her face with the cartels or the arms dealers or even back with Rico's boys, she wasn't - she...

Stan took a step back. Susan raised a hand, reflexively, to rub her neck, not taking her eyes off of him.

"Hhhhhhhh...thweet thitting fuck," Stan said, and leaned against one of the panels of strange lights and switches that lined the inside of the dark, enclosed space he'd found himself in. He clapped a hand over his nose and took deep breaths through his mouth, trying to ease the tension in his jaw enough to force his full set of fighting fangs back in. "Thorry."

Susan didn't stop running her hand over her neck, like it ached or something. 

"Fuck," Stan said, when he was feeling a little less fangy. "Okay. Swallowed by giant robot. Still not the weirdest thing that's happened tonight. How're we getting out?" 

Susan didn't say anything in answer, just leaned heavily against the wall and let her head fall back. Stan listened, heard her breathing ragged, her pulse still too fast.

"Hey," he managed, after trying and failing to come up with something better to say than 'sorry I nearly tore your damn throat out'. "You okay?"

Susan blew out a long breath, managed a weak smile.

"Will be," she said. "It's not like that's the first time I've nearly died tonight!"

The chuckle that Stan eked out sounded watery and pathetic. "Promise you my life isn't always like this," he said, and Susan plastered on an expression of shock.

"Really? And here I was thinking every night with you included busting secret cults and being eaten by giant dino-bots and at least three death threats." Susan clapped a hand to her mouth as soon as she finished the sentence, like she couldn't believe the words had come out of it and was trying to stuff them back in. 

Stan managed another smile, easier this time, and was just trying to come up with something to fire back with when the floor lurched. He nearly fell headlong along the floor, and Susan staggered against the wall she was leaning on.

"What -" Stan started to ask, and another lurch forced him to grab onto the nearest sticking-out bit on the mysterious panels lining the walls. It was followed by a loud, low groaning, one he couldn't hear Susan over until she shouted.

"I think we're moving!"

"Moving? What? Moving where?"

"How should I know?"

There was a shriek of metal on metal from overhead, and warm yellow light crept in as a circular hatch opened in the ceiling. A dark silhouette was visible against it for a second or two, before the figure slipped inside, pulling the hatch closed behind them.

Stan curled both hands into fists as the figure dropped to the floor in front of him, and then unclenched them as the bluish light revealed who it was. "McGucket," he sighed, taking a wary step back. "What's the big idea getting your robot to eat us? Wait, don't tell me. You don't remember."

"Actually, this one rings a bell!" The wiry little man slammed his palm against a large blue button on the wall beside him, and three chairs unfolded from the wall panels. "Buckle on in, fellas and lady-fellas! I'm bustin' y'all out of this here spooky basement!"

"That's...actually surprisingly coherent reasoning for you, hillbilly," Stan admitted. 

"Thank you so much, Mr. Fiddleford," Susan said, with a pointed glance in Stan's direction.

"Don't mention it, Rebecca!" Fiddleford said brightly, plopping himself down in one of the seats and clipping the dangling seatbelts together across his torso.

This time, the look Susan gave Stan was more confused than accusing.

"Not that I don't appreciate it, but - why are you springing us from your own secret society?" Stan asked, as he strapped himself into the nearest seat.

"It ain't my secret society, Stanford!" Fiddleford said, his tongue sticking out slightly from the side of his mouth as something that looked like a giant joystick unfolded from the wall opposite him and he took hold of it with both hands. Stan considered, briefly, whether to correct him, but decided against it. If the only reason he was getting out of this mess was due to a hillbilly with a giant robot and a convenient gap in his memory where 'Stanford has a twin brother and this is him' should sit, then so be it. "And I don't like all this talk about murderalizin' people! That's why I built the memory gun in the first place!" He stopped, tapping one finger against the fine, downy fuzz that covered his chin. "At least, near's I can reckon, that is."

"Well, this is all just wildly helpful," Stan grumbled, ignoring Susan's warning glare. He sat back, crossing his arms over his chest. "Just lemme know when we break the surface, willya?"

"You got it, Stanford!"

There was another lurch that tossed Stan against his seatbelt, and he felt something bump against his foot. Stan looked down to see - Ford's stupid book! He'd thought he'd lost it in his - uh - escape, but there it was, the six-fingered hand on its cover winking accusingly up at him. Stan fought down a sudden, irrational urge to justify himself to the book.

Instead, he reached down, scooping it up off the floor instead. "All right, let's see what you've got to say," he muttered, cracking the book open.

Stan tried to turn to the first page, but the robot bumped against something and the book fell open in Stan's lap to a page that looked like it had been visited many times before, judging by the way the binding was cracked and the sheer amount of ink spilled across the page. There were also some rusty-coloured stains spattered across the page, which - Stan gave a surreptitious sniff - were definitely blood.

For some reason, though, the thing that drew Stan's eye the most wasn't the blood, or the huge scrawled warnings that covered the page. It was the simple ink drawing of a small black triangle with a single eye. 

"Well, that doesn't look very nice at all," Susan remarked, leaning over Stan's shoulder to get a glimpse of the page. Stan couldn't help but agree with her. There was something about the way that eye stared that was giving him the willies, and for reasons he couldn't quite explain, he was reminded of the strange gaze he'd felt on him from the woods.

Stan barely realised they'd stopped moving until it dawned on him that the strange whimpering he was hearing was coming, not from the machinery around him, but from McGucket.

"Something wrong, old man?" Stan asked, and the keening grew louder. Fiddleford had drawn himself together into a ball, but one arm emerged from his hunched form, one shaking hand uncurling to point a trembling finger at the book in Stan's lap.

The words that tumbled out of him sounded, if it were possible, even more crazed than anything else he'd said to Stan, and yet somehow also calmer, more coherent. Almost like he was reciting something he'd memorised.

"Fear the beast with just one eye!"

"Wait, do you know something about this?" Stan asked, leaning forward with Ford's journal held in one hand, with the pages facing out. McGucket cowered away from it, pressing both hands over his face, and Susan reached out to grasp Stan's wrist.

"You're upsetting him, don't -"

"Ya shouldn'ta done it, Stanford!" McGucket wailed, pulling his hands away from his face to tug at his sparse curls like he wanted to rip them out by the roots. "Ya shouldn'ta let him in!"

Stan froze, with his fingers starting to ache from his awkward grip on the journal, Arnold Corduroy's words, half-remembered, slithering through his thoughts.

"...asked a monster older than time itself into his head..."

"Dammit, Ford," Stan muttered under his breath, before slamming the journal shut. Susan yanked it out of his hand, her scowl speaking volumes about just what she thought of Stan's methods.

With the one-eyed triangle hidden, Fiddleford seemed to calm down some, slowly uncurling from his tight ball, though with a wary eye on Stan through every careful, measured  movement he made. Stan held both hands out, to show that Ford's book was gone, but McGucket still gave him a wide berth, like a prey animal watching a predator. It was, Stan reflected ironically, probably the most honest, sanest reaction any human being had had to him since he'd been turned, and it wasn't even because of him.

McGucket was mumbling something, glancing briefly away from Stan to press a series of buttons on the panel in front of him, and Stan had to lean in closer to make sense out of the words. "- fix it, I can fix it, make it all better, make it go away -"

"What -" Stan started, but that was when a panel slid down the wall and some kind of robot arm holding another memory gun shot out. McGucket grabbed the gun, aiming it directly at Stan's head, and Stan noticed with the peculiar clarity of fear that Fiddleford's hands had stopped shaking as he spun the dial.

"I'll take it away, Stanford," he said, feverishly, his thick, almost comical accent softening into a voice that sounded - young, painfully young, for the state he was in. "I'll make sure he can never get at you again - I'll - I'll save you first - it keeps coming back, why does it keep coming back?!"

He paused, looking down as he tugged at his hair, and Stan took the opportunity to unlatch his seatbelt and lunge at Fiddleford. He managed to smack the memory gun out of Fiddleford's hand, sending it skidding across the floor, but trying to hold onto the man was like trying to hold onto a lump of gibbering jello. McGucket slipped right through Stan's arms, crabwalking backwards across the floor like a man prepared to leap up and slam his skull into his opponent's nose. Stan struggled to keep his fangs in, slowly starting to circle around towards the wiry little inventor. A rush wouldn't help him much, not with an opponent so springy and unpredictable, and -

"Mr. McGucket? Please don't move, now."

Stan glanced back over his shoulder in surprise. Susan had picked up the memory gun, and was holding it, level and steady, aimed at McGucket.

Stan froze instantly, but Fiddleford's reaction was, characteristically, unpredictable. He straightened up, shutting his eyes with a pained-looking smile. "Go 'head, darlin'. That's what it's for."

"For erasing your memories?" Susan looked down at Ford's book, lying open in the hand that wasn't holding the memory gun, and asked, "Of - of 'Bill Cipher'?"

Fiddleford flinched at the name, like he'd been struck, and Stan felt a momentary flash of bone-deep pity for the man.

"It's all right," Susan said, her voice level and calm. "Why d'you want to erase Stanford's memory, then?"

McGucket was shaking, now, like a dead leaf in a high wind, but he managed, "It's the only way to get rid of him! It's the only way to get Stanford safe! It's the only way to get this town safe! I gotta get rid of any trace of him, anything he wants - but it keeps comin' back!"

Susan glanced briefly over at Stan, met Stan's eyes.

"Is there any other way to get rid of this Cipher character?" Stan asked, and Fiddleford shook harder. "What's he want, anyway? Why'd Ford hook up with him in the first place?"

"Stan," Susan said, warningly, and Stan shut his mouth. "Mr. McGucket," she continued, turning back to Fiddleford. "We want to help your friend."

Fiddleford shook his head, whispering something, and Stan had to lean in to catch the words. "I tried. God knows, I tried - there's no helpin' any of us now." 

Before Stan could stop him, or even realise he intended to move, Fiddleford lunged past him, throwing himself at Susan. He knocked her to the floor, and before Stan could grab Fiddleford and haul him off of Susan, Fiddleford straightened up with the memory gun clutched in both hands and a maniacal grin plastered across his face. Stan took a cautious half-step back, and Susan froze, her eyes locked on the gun in Fiddleford’s hands.

There was a wild look in Fiddleford’s eyes that Stan didn’t like at all.

“Sorry,” he said, shortly, smiling up at Stan, before putting the gun to the side of his own head and pulling the trigger.

The flash left Stan blinking away afterimages that near-totally blinded him. From somewhere closer to the floor, he heard Susan scream, but it sounded more shocked and frustrated than hurt or frightened. Under the screaming, he could hear Fiddleford’s voice apologising, asking with increasing panic what was going on and why Stan and Susan were in his robot. Stan groaned, squeezing his eyes shut and pressing a hand against them.

“We were just leaving,” he grumbled, reaching out without looking and grabbing Susan’s arm by the wrist. 

“Yes, you were,” Fiddleford said, with a certainty Stan didn't think he’d ever heard from the man before, and then there was a mechanical noise and the floor vanished from under Stan’s feet.

Stan hit the ground hard, with a thump that rattled his bones, the snow he landed in barely cushioning his fall. Beside him, he heard a sharp outburst of air that he was pretty sure was Susan having all the wind knocked out of her. Between enormous blotches of bruise-purple and infra-orange, he saw the underbelly of the dinobot slowly start to roll away from where it hung over them, revealing - revealing the soft pink hue filling the sky overhead.

Stan groaned, and let himself flop backwards into the snow.

Chapter Text

If pressed, Juancarlo Gutierrez would admit that he did not, in fact, have many friends.

Oh, he had many, many associates, people he could go to in a tight spot, favours he could call in, connections he could use. But if the definition of 'friend' was 'someone who gives without expecting anything in return' - well, the number decreased exponentially.

Stan Pines wasn't one of them. 

It was almost a shame, really. Stan had been - nice, in a fresh-faced, naive, 'aw shucks' kind of way, acting like he was so tough, like a kitten trying to threaten a Doberman. Juancarlo had almost felt bad about selling him out. 

But you didn't stay in debt to Rico for very long, not if you wanted to keep all your skin and internal organs. And you definitely didn't blow Rico off after he finally started offering you real jobs. Stan Pines might've been nice but that naive act was wearing thin. He had to have known Juancarlo'd do what he had to to keep himself intact.

So Juancarlo hadn't given Stan Pines another thought until the evening he'd gotten off the elevator to find none other than Stan himself leaning against the wall just outside of his apartment door.

There was a moment when panic wrapped its icy hand around Juancarlo's heart and squeezed, a moment in which he considered turning right back around, getting back in the elevator, riding back down to the street and walking away and never coming back. Then Stan looked up, casual, caught Juancarlo's eye, and smiled.

Juancarlo told himself not to be ridiculous. This wasn't Rico, after all. Hell, even if through some miracle Stan had gotten back in with Rico, Juancarlo didn't owe him right now - at least, didn't owe him anything but loyalty and silence. And it wasn't like he'd been stingy with either.

This was just Stan Pines. Naive, helpless, baby-faced Stan Pines. Harmless.

"Hey there, pal," Stan said, as Juancarlo forced his feet to carry him down the hall, fishing in his jacket pocket for his keys. Stan pulled a fist out of his own pocket, held it in the air, palm-down, and opened his fingers, letting Juancarlo's key ring drop out to dangle, jingling merrily. "Looking for these?"

Juancarlo swallowed around the stupid, inexplicable lump in his throat, managed to muster up a smile of his own. "Stan Pines! What a surprise."

"Yeah, I bet you're surprised to see me," Stan said. His smile grew wider. Juancarlo tried not to think of sharks. "Hey, don't look so jumpy! Can't a guy drop by and say hi to an old pal?"

He reached over and dropped Juancarlo's keys into Juancarlo's hand. They were shockingly cold. Juancarlo fumbled twice trying to fit the apartment key into the lock.

Stan leaned heavily against the wall beside him, still grinning like a Cheshire cat. "C'mon, then. Aren't you gonna invite your old friend inside?"

...

The robot trundled away, leaving Stan and Susan half-swallowed by a snowbank behind the museum.

The world grew brighter by the minute, the woods around them washing out in the growing light. Trying to raise an arm above his head to shield his eyes felt, to Stan, like swinging an entire oil tanker up into the air and then trying to hold it there. One-handed.

"All right," Susan's voice said, firmly, and a shadow fell, thankfully, across Stan's face. He let his arm drop into the snow beside him with a grateful sigh, unable to care about the cold seeping through his thin coat and pouring through the hole in the back, numbing his bare skin where it touched the snow. "Up you get. The post office's just across the square and Eustace'll be by to open it up in -" There was a brief pause, which it took Stan entirely too long to work out was probably due to Susan checking her watch. "Actually, he should be there right about now. He'll let us in the back if I ask, don't think they'll think to look for us there."

" 'stace?" Stan managed, as the shadow above him shifted and warm hands closed over his, almost burning after the cold of the snow, pulling on his arms.

"My brother, silly." Susan gave Stan's arms another yank, and this time he let her heave him up out of the snowbank and onto his feet. "He delivers mail for Gravity Falls. Didn't I tell you that?"

Stan swayed on his feet. It was surprisingly hard to keep track of which way was up when everything was the same blinding, glaring white. "What, he...bite his own ankles, then?"

"Stan!" Susan hissed, but Stan could hear the note of scandalised giggle in her voice. He worked up the brightest, biggest smile in his arsenal, hoping it'd distract her some from the way his eyes kept trying to slip shut.

Susan gave Stan a soft smack on the arm, which turned into gently holding Stan up as he leaned into her palm. "Okay, mister, we need to get you somewhere dark and out of the way before you nod off right in the Society's backyard."

Stan only managed a 'mnuff' sort of noise as he sagged across Susan's shoulder. Apparently making that brilliant joke had taken more out of him than he'd realised.

Worth it, he decided.

Things went a little hazy after that. Daylight, Stan had found, was better at erasing memories than the most blackout-inducing of benders. The next clear memory he had was of being shaken awake in a dim, cool room full of boxes and bags and the nearly-overwhelming smell of damp dog. It took a few tries, but he finally got his eyes open enough to see Susan's worried face looking down at him, upside down.

"Stan?" she said, in an urgent undertone.

"Whfrgle," Stan managed.

"We gotta go. Come on, up." Susan reached down, trying to slide her hands under Stan's shoulders to lever him up, and failing. "Oof. You, mister, are a dead weight."

Stan couldn't help a snicker.

"A-ha! I knew you weren't asleep!" Susan gave up trying to lift Stan off the scratchy brown couch he'd fallen asleep sprawled out across, planting both hands triumphantly on her hips and pursing her lips instead. "Come on. Up. We gotta get out of here now."

"Nnnnsnot sundown y't," Stan mumbled, rolling over onto his side and letting his arms and legs flop over the edge of the sofa. It took far, far more effort than he felt it really deserved, especially since his limbs already felt like gravity was working double-time on them, and everything ached almost unbearably.

"I know," Susan said, sounding almost apologetic. "But I took a nap too because I'm not used to spending entire nights running around town after guys I barely know, and now Ivan Northwest is out in the front and we have to go."

It took Stan's brain several seconds to catch up with his ears.

"Whhhh, y'mean baldy in th' cloak?"

"Well, he's not wearing the cloak right now and he's got his wig on - but yes." Susan muttered a curse Stan was surprised she even knew. "He must've figured I'd try hiding here. Dang small towns! All your neighbours knowing you is a lot nicer when they're not trying to kill you."

Stan let his eyes slide shut, and listened. If he concentrated, he could hear muffled voices through the stack of boxes on the wall beside him. Unfortunately, one of them sounded very familiar.

"Eustace is stalling them, but we don't have long," Susan said, and Stan jumped - well, okay, jerked slightly - in surprise at the voice so much closer to him than he’d expected. He groaned as Susan pushed him upright, only to stop in puzzlement when she pulled something onto his head. "Eustace loaned me a cap, so you'll at least have a little shade. Now come on. Upsie-daisy. There's a back entrance right over here."

Stan let her pull him up off the couch, shuffled after her as she led him across the room. It took too much effort to keep his eyes open, let alone lift his feet all the way up off the floor for every step, and Stan was sure he'd never be able to find the words for how grateful he was that Susan didn't let go of his hand, guiding him through the backroom.

"I'm opening the door now," Susan said, and a sharp creak and groan was all the warning Stan got before a burst of white light slammed into his closed eyelids like a firework going off an inch from his face. He let out a strangled yell and stumbled backwards, throwing up both hands to shield his face - which meant he didn't catch himself when he walked backwards into a box and tripped over it, crashing into something that swayed precariously and then thundered to the floor.

The voices from the front room stopped abruptly.

Stan barely had time to appreciate what an incredible collection of bruises he was going to have before Susan was back on him, pulling him out of the pile of boxes he'd collapsed into. "Okay, time to go. Sorry about this!"

She gave one sharp shove in the middle of Stan's back, and he stumbled out the door into the blinding sunlight. His feet skidded against something slick, and Stan reached out for something, anything to grab onto. He found nothing. Stan thumped down three stairs and landed, hard, on his face in - "Another goddamn snowbank!?"

"Shhhh!" Susan's voice hissed, as she hurried down the stairs after Stan. At least, that's what Stan guessed she was doing, by the sound of footsteps and her voice drawing nearer. Even with his eyes open, all he could see was a wash of brilliant light.

Hands closed under his arms, and Susan - at least, he was pretty sure it was Susan - dragged Stan backwards out of the snowbank. "Oh, garbanzo beans," she muttered, under her breath, and then, "Stan, can you get up and walk?"

They managed, eventually, to figure out a sort of half-carry, half-drag motion that let Susan support Stan as they shuffled down the alley and out into the square. His legs still felt like they were seconds from buckling underneath him, the world was still washed out in a blinding, headache-inducing white glare, and every joint still burned arthritic, fever aches blooming every time his clothes rubbed against his skin, but Stan felt the fog filling his head slowly start to clear. Not enough for any of Ford’s smart-guy shit, probably not even enough for basic math, but at least enough to pay attention to the familiar feeling of eyes trained on him.

“I had a bit of a look at that book of your brother’s while you were out cold,” Susan was saying, but Stan barely heard her. Her heartbeat pulsed and throbbed close in his ears, slightly too fast for her casual tone. “That triangle guy seems like a real nasty piece of work.”

“Mnf,” Stan agreed. True, he was staggering like he was blind drunk in the middle of the morning, but there was something about the eyes he could feel trained on him that was unusual. In a familiar way. He was sure he’d know why already if the damn sun weren’t melting him into a puddle of stupid. 

“I think we oughtta focus on getting into that cabin of your brother's and see if we can’t talk some sense into him,” Susan went on. 

“ ‘S no good,” Stan slurred. “Threshold.” The back of his neck was prickling, now. He was reminded uncomfortably of the night outside the diner, the eyes he’d felt on him from the forest - it wasn’t the same sensation (the same scent), but it was definitely as intent, and as unpleasant.

“Ah, I kinda figured. I’ve got an idea ‘bout that, actually -” Susan started, but Stan cut her off. 

“Don’ - don’ be obvious ‘bout it,” he muttered into her shoulder, “but look ‘round.”

He was pretty sure Susan probably gave herself whiplash, the way she snapped her head around. So much for ‘don’t be obvious about it’. Her quiet curse made the pit of Stan’s stomach sink, confirming what he’d suspected.

“How many Society guys’re watchin’ us?” he asked. It took no effort to keep his voice low and quiet - it would’ve been harder to shout - but Susan seemed to hear all right.

“Five - no, wait, six. Two behind us, two across the square, two coming this way -” A sharp bite of panic crept into Susan’s voice as she said, “They’ve got us boxed in, Ivan must’ve just gone into the post office to smoke us out -”

“Don’ panic,” Stan muttered, aware as he did so of just how unhelpful the words were. “There...any little...alleys or whatever comin’ up?”

“There’s one just -” Susan started, and Stan cut her off with a nod.

“We’re bein’ herded.” He needed some kind of a plan, but his brain seemed to have turned to mush, his thoughts spinning their wheels uselessly in the sludge it had melted into. And they were out of time. “Wh’n. When we hit th’ alley. You lemme go an’ you scram.”

Susan's grasp tightened around Stan's waist, but before she could say anything, he interrupted. " 'm dead weight 'n' y'know it. An' their real hunter's...down. F'r now."

It felt like his bones were turning to molten lead, but Stan managed to push himself mostly upright. A patch slightly darker than the glare around it loomed out of the brightness just ahead, and Stan guessed this was where he got off. "Plus. I've...taken a stake t' th' chest 'n' got back up. You can't do that." It was suddenly difficult to force words through his lips; they caught on the back of his dry throat. "It ain' you they wan'. Please. If they - if I can't -"

The huff of breath Susan let out sounded a lot like she'd been about to say something and swallowed the words down.

“I’ll be fine. I got...a plan,” Stan slurred, trying to make himself smile, as the patch of shadow fell, cold, across his face. “Meet me at th’ diner.”

Then he gave Susan a push, or pushed himself off of Susan’s shoulder, and stumbled or fell into the alley. Behind him, he heard footsteps slap against the sidewalk, and hoped like hell Susan had listened to him for once.

He was expecting someone to be waiting in the alley for him. That didn’t surprise him. Neither, sadly, did the arm that wrapped around his neck and pulled him into a headlock almost as soon as the shade of the alley enveloped him. There was something about all of this that was painfully familiar.

He wasn’t expecting the voice.

“You just had to stick around, didn’t you?”

“Carla?” Stan managed to choke out.

A hint of amusement mingled with the regret in Carla’s voice, even as a waft of leather and floral swept over Stan. “I’ve been looking for a chance to get you alone like this since last night. You lead a very interesting unlife.”

“Yeah, well, ’m flattered, but this last week ain’ exactly been typical,” Stan grumbled. “’m guessin’ you're plannin' t’ take me out, an' it don’ include dinner ‘n’ a movie.”

Carla sounded like she couldn’t keep the chuckle in. “Your sense of humour’s still terrible.”

“Same ’s yours, hotpants.”

Carla shifted, and Stan slithered down out of her grip onto his ass, falling back to lean against the rough brick of a wall behind him. For once, it wasn’t a clever escape ploy - his bones had just finally turned into jelly. Icy slush started the slow process of working through the seat of his pants, and he let out an exasperated groan.

“Stop that,” Carla said, softer than she probably intended. “You’re so pathetic, you’re almost making me feel sorry for you.”

Stan tried to chuckle, but it died into a wheeze.

"'fore y'stake me," he managed, and stopped. The cold leached slowly through what was left of his coat, through his heavy, aching flesh, settling into his bones.

He couldn't remember the last time he'd felt this tired.

"Do you actually have something to say, or are you just stalling?" Carla's voice asked, amused but a little impatient, like she used to get when she wanted Stan to take her out dancing but the sun hadn't quite gone down yet and he'd invented some excuse to keep them inside a little longer.

"Stallin', I guess," Stan muttered. He wished he could see her expression. See her face. 

"Whatever story he's spinning you, don't listen."

If Stan had had the energy to raise his head, if he'd been able to see Ivan Northwest through the blinding light of late morning sun on snow, he would've looked. But he didn't, and he couldn't, and he didn't really need to - even if the voice hadn't said it all, the man's presence crawled over Stan's skin like thousands of tiny bugs.

"No stories," Carla's voice said, and from the sound of it she'd straightened up to face Ivan. "How do you know this man?"

Ivan paused a moment before speaking, and Stan could just imagine him taking in the sight of Carla in her leathers, crossbow strapped across her back, stake held ready to strike. Ivan's voice shifted, something more like respect colouring it as he said, "That is not a man. But I suspect you already know that."

"I know enough." There was a thoughtful silence from Carla, and Stan guessed she was sizing Ivan up. This was a golden opportunity, one he should've been taking advantage of - but he couldn't move. The cold had totally numbed his ass, making the asphalt under him almost feel comfortable. He just wanted to sleep. If Carla and Ivan decided to stake him while he was out, well, at least between the two of them they probably wouldn't botch the job as bad as Corduroy had. "Who are you?"

"A concerned citizen," Ivan said, shortly. "Who are you?"

There was a clank of wood and metal, probably something to do with Carla's crossbow. "Same as you. Citizen. Concerned."

"Are you? I've never seen you around town."

"I didn't say citizen of where."

"Uuuuuuugh, both of you jus' shut up 'n' stake me already," Stan groaned.

"Hm, doesn't sound like a bad idea," Carla said, or started to say, but Ivan stopped her.

"Wait! There is information I need from him first."

"Well, make it snappy. I don't want him weaseling out on me again."

"It won't take long, I assure you."

Stan swallowed another groan as a pale shadow fell across his vision, a wave of expensive cologne mingled with basement must assaulting his nose. Ivan's voice was little more than a whisper as he said, "Where is the book?"

With an effort that felt like he was hoisting the world onto his shoulders, Stan managed to shrug.

"You're not helping your researcher friend by keeping his work from us," Ivan hissed. "Bill Cipher's plans must be stopped, by any means necessary. And if we can't determine what, exactly, Cipher is using him for...then if, to uphold the sacred covenant of the Society of the Blind Eye and to protect this town, we must remove him from the picture entirely -" He cleared his throat, the artificial stench of cologne lessening as he drew back. "Cipher can't use a pawn if it's been taken off the board."

"Excuse me?" Carla's voice interrupted, like it had been chipped out of ice. 

Ivan's voice was equally icy, a hint of frustration bleeding through. "Yes?"

"Well, I'm sorry if I'm off track, but it sounded like you just said you were planning to kill somebody."

Stan let his head fall back against the wall, and tried not to smile.

"You were about to stake this...creature...when I arrived," Ivan pointed out, which, judging by the clack of metal against wood that Stan heard, didn't impress Carla much.

"Exactly. I was planning to put down a dangerous creature. But - and of course I'm assuming I heard you right, you were kind of whispering - it almost sounded like you were planning to murder someone I know from high school." Carla went on, in that same almost-innocent tone, "But that can't be right, can it? Because that person called me here just a day or so ago because he was afraid for his life, and he was definitely fully human when I met with him. You couldn't possibly be thinking of doing something to him, could you?"

"This doesn't concern you," Ivan spat. "You couldn't possibly understand -"

"You know, I've always hated that term," Carla said, conversationally. " 'Concerned citizen'. I've always wondered, who is it that you're so concerned about?"

There was a creak of wood and a click, sounds that Stan guessed by the sudden sharp note of fear that cut through the cloying cologne had something to do with a crossbow being loaded, and Carla's voice, level and calm but slightly too fast, said, "You've got ten seconds to get out of my sight."

There was a shout, and a scuffle of footsteps, a solid but muffled-sounding thump and a twang. The smell of flowers and leather swept over Stan again, Carla breathing hard with exertion as she bent over him. "Well, he's going to have one heck of a goose egg when he wakes up. Now.”

There was a soft shhhff as she swept her hair back, and another wave of her scent rolled over Stan like a memory. “You’re going to tell me just what’s going on here. And no bullshit.”

Chapter Text

Rico had a warehouse, down on the docks where it was easier to smuggle illegal cargo on and off of freighters and where, late at night, there wasn’t anybody around to hear the odd scream. Stan’s feet fell easily into the same old pattern, following Juancarlo down narrow alleys and narrower streets while his mind wandered, circling around and over various plans. 

It was almost a surprise when he looked up and saw they’d come to the warehouse.

Juancarlo led Stan around the building to a side door that looked like it hadn’t been used in decades, paint peeling off in huge bubbles of rust, covered in graffiti. The only new thing anywhere that Stan could see was the shiny silver padlock on the door.

The door creaked open a crack when Juancarlo rapped his knuckles against it. An eye appeared, nearly muscled out of the way by a prominent nose, and then the door slammed shut again. Stan felt his courage starting to wilt, but he forced himself to take deep breaths, even though it gave him a noseful of the docks. This was gonna work.

It seemed like an eternity before the door opened again, and Juancarlo slipped inside, Stan following closely behind. 

Rico was there, arguing with a couple of burly, unimpressed-looking men, apparently about the huge stack of crates that stood behind him. He turned, and caught Stan’s eyes from across the room.

“What’s this ungrateful little shit doing here?” 

“I brought him,” Juancarlo answered, as they crossed the warehouse. There was a faintly dreamy note in his voice, like he wasn’t even aware of the tension hanging in the air. Maybe he wasn’t. Stan still wasn’t totally sure how this whole mind-control thing worked. “He’s got a proposition.”

Stan stopped a few feet in front of Rico, steadily holding eye contact. 

And he smiled.

Rico started to frown, just a little, before his expression went slack, his eyes glazing. He waved a hand dismissively towards the burly men he’d been talking to before, attention fixed on Stan.

“Go . I wanna hear what Pines has to say.”

...

The warm air of the diner hit Stan in the face like a blast furnace when Carla swung the door open, and he let his head drop back on his shoulders, letting out a long, blissful groan as the heat wrapped around him.

“Well,” Carla said, in a sarcastic undertone, as she half-dragged him inside, “looks like I can still make you come in your pants.”

“Shut up,” Stan slurred, but only after he managed to choke down a laugh.

“What? You don’t remember that time you and I broke into the school after that football game and -”

“Stan?”

Stan could feel Carla’s supporting shoulders under his arm grow tense, could practically smell the good humour evaporating off of her at the sound of Susan’s voice. “She’s still running at your beck and call, huh?”

“No, hon, I’m a waitress, that’s my job,” Susan answered, her voice even more thick with syrup and honey than usual, if Stan wasn’t imagining things - and he didn’t think he was. “Speaking of, you looking for something to eat? Because if not -”

“ ‘s ‘kay,” Stan mumbled, already feeling the warmth of the diner working feeling and motion back into his lips. “She’s - she’s gonna help us out.”

“I never said that and you know it,” Carla said, but she sounded amused.

“Y’helped me get here, di’n’ you?” With an enormous effort, Stan managed to shrug his arm off of Carla’s shoulders, taking a deep breath he didn’t strictly need as he tried to straighten up. “An’ trus’ me. Once y’hear this you’re gonna wanna help.”

Carla sucked in an exasperated breath through her nose, but she didn’t say anything more than, “You promised me an explanation. I just didn’t want you falling asleep on me before I got it. Speaking of which...”

“All righ’, all righ’,” Stan mumbled, cracking an eye against the morning glare through the diner’s wall of windows. “Let’s find a booth first, yeah? I gotta siddown.”

...

They found a booth. Susan found them in their booth a few minutes later, slamming down a mug of reheated deer plasma in front of Stan and a plate of something that smelled like eggs and coffee and death in front of Carla. “My special recipe,” Susan said, still in that stickily-sweet voice. 

“An...omelette?” Carla said, like a question, gingerly lifting an edge with her fork. It raised up off the plate with a sucking sound, like a rubber boot coming out of a mudhole, leaving a watery brown puddle on the plate.

“Coffee omelette, hon,” Susan chirped, sliding into the booth across from them. Carla had insisted on sitting to the outside, trapping Stan in the booth against the wall. He wasn’t sure this boded well for trying to get Carla onside, but what the hell. It wasn’t like he had a whole pile of options to choose from. And if he could even just get her to leave him alone for long enough to deal with whatever demon problem Ford got himself into - well. That’d be enough.

Carla gave a little shudder, letting her omelette drop back onto the plate with a wet plop. "All right, enough bullshit. What the hell is going on in this town?” she asked, and Stan nearly spat out the mouthful of O neg he’d hastily gulped down.

“Way to get straight to the point,” he teased. Carla scowled, pointing her fork at him.

“I’m serious. I’m breaking every rule I have here. There’d better be a reason.”

“Or what?”

“Or I’m gonna feel like a damn fool, Stan, what d’you think?” Carla let out a long sigh, propping her head in her hands and leaning her elbows against the table, on either side of her plate. With her face pointed down at the...coffee omelette, she went on. “Every single person I’ve ever put a stake through has tried to convince me that they’re innocent, that they never asked to be made the way they are, that they didn’t kill those people, that the missing people who turned up in their basement all chose to be there of their own free will...I stopped listening after the first few tried to charm me, tried to make me...” She stopped, her voice trailing off. 

Stan reached out to put a reassuring hand on her shoulder, but froze with his palm hovering just above the leather of her jacket, suddenly realising that he might be making a mistake. He drew his hand back, slowly, as quietly and surreptitiously as he could.

“Dammit,” Carla muttered, under her breath, and Stan had to look away. He couldn’t stop himself from hearing, though. “Why’d it have to be you?”

The rustle and buzz of the diner chatter around them was broken by the dinging of the arm-wrestling machine by the door. Stan took another long gulp of deer blood, draining the mug.

“Well!” Susan said brightly. “How’s your omelette?”

Carla took a deep breath, straightening up. “It’s...an interesting flavour combination,” she said, slowly. “I’m going to be honest here, I don’t think it’ll make it on the regular menu.”

“Well, it is my special recipe,” Susan said, apparently unfluttered. “So! What’s going on in this town! Better question might be what isn’t going on in this town!”

She belly-laughed at her own joke for nearly a full minute. Carla blew out a breath that sounded suspiciously like it was trying not to turn into a laugh. Stan shut his eyes and bonked his head against the wall beside him.

“Also,” Susan went on, “there’s a secret society that’s been erasing people’s memories to try to save the town from an evil demon that Stan’s twin got mixed up with.” She glanced over at Stan, apparently oblivious to the way Carla’s expression had frozen. “Did I miss anything?”

“What,” Carla said.

“Yeah, I probably woulda said it a little differently, but that’s about it,” Stan agreed, nodding to Susan. “You got Ford’s nerd book?”

Susan beamed, and pulled the red-bound journal out of her apron pocket like a magician producing a rabbit from a hat. She laid it out on the table in front of Carla, flipping through the pages until she found one with a creepy black triangle and - Stan went stiff. The smell was faint, old and dried, but the coppery tinge was unmistakable. That reddish-brown splatter across the page was definitely blood.

Carla seemed to recognise it as well, because her expression shifted to serious, and she pushed the coffee omelette aside so that she could pull the book closer. Her eyes darted as she skimmed over the page, and finally, she drew herself back, holding it at arm’s length. “This is - this is insane.”

“More insane than people comin' back from the dead?” Stan asked, and Carla blinked, shaking her head.

“Stan -”

“Look, you heard that guy in the alley!” Stan blurted, before Carla could say anything more. “They’re dead serious, they’ve been fighting this thing for generations - look, look at the book! They kidnapped me to get this thing! Ford gave it to me himself, told me to get it away from him, take it somewhere safe - that’s why he called me, that’s the whole reason I’m up here! He said this - Bill’s been possessin’ him,” he continued, desperately, as Carla’s expression started to harden into disbelief. “Told me it wasn’t him who called you. He didn’t even know you were here. Carla -”

“Stan, I’m sorry, but it’s just a little hard to swallow.” Carla cleared her throat, forced a smile. “A little like this omelette.”

“I - I know it’s hard to believe, but -” Stan stopped, took a deep breath, blew it out slowly. 

Carla bit her bottom lip, looking down at the table. 

“I’ve lived here my whole life,” Susan interjected, leaning across the table, “and this isn’t new, this isn’t something we invented. Ask anybody. The Society of the Blind Eye is as old as Gravity Falls.”

Carla shot a stiff smile in Susan’s direction. “Sorry, but I hope you understand why you’re not exactly the best person to be asking.”

“Excuse me, I think I’d know if I was being brainwashed!” Susan snapped, and Carla sighed, resting her forehead in one hand. 

“No, you wouldn’t, that’s the whole -” She cut herself off, shaking her head.

“Carla,” Stan said, as a thought struck him, and she turned to look him in the eye. Her steely expression almost made Stan falter, but he straightened his shoulders, plunging forward. “If you won’t do this for me, then how about for Ford?”

“Stan -” Carla started, her voice heavy with exasperation, and Stan held up both hands, palms out. 

“Just hear me out, okay? Look, if you really gotta put a stake in me when all this is done, then fine. Put a stake in me.” He ignored Susan’s little gasp, pushing forward. “But - Ford called me here. He needed help. He needs help. I can’t - I can’t leave him here with these Society guys out for blood and Bill - I don’t have a fuckin’ clue what this Bill guy is up to or what he wants, but whatever it is, it ain’t good for Ford.” He pauses, stuffing his hands into the pockets of his tattered jacket. “And - he don’t want me around. That’s fine. But he’s still my brother.”

Carla shut her eyes.

Stan shook his head. “That’s all I got,” he admitted. “If that ain’t good enough for you, then I guess -”

“It’s like brainwashing.”

Stan spun to face Susan, who was staring down at the journal page with an intensity that was unusual for her. When Carla looked over at her, she looked up, giving a small smile that seemed weak. “If you read the entry, what the book has to say here - it sure looks like this Bill guy made the guy who wrote it think that Bill was the greatest, that they were friends - here, look, he even talks about worshiping Bill! And then -”

She plopped a finger down, right in the middle of the page, the huge, black text scrawled in heavy black ink, shaky capital letters etched into the page. Stan could just picture Ford, pen in hand, shaking with fury and betrayal, bleeding words out onto the page.

‘MY MUSE WAS A MONSTER.’

“This Bill guy got into Stan’s brother’s head,” Susan said, shortly. “Made him think the way he wanted him to think. And now he can get in whenever he wants and make Stan’s brother do anything he wants and there’s nothing Stan’s brother can do about it, no matter how much he wants to. I don’t know about you, but that sure sounds like brainwashing to me.”

Carla huffed out a half-laugh. “I know what you’re trying to do here,” she said, but her voice wavered.

Susan shrugged. “If you want to worry about someone being brainwashed, I’d say this guy’s a better target than me.”

Carla groaned, long and deep, from the very bottom of her lungs, and flopped down on the table, pressing her face into her folded arms.

"You two aren't going to give up, are you," she said, without raising her head, her voice muffled against the table.

"Nope," Stan agreed.

Carla let out another heartfelt groan.

Finally, she straightened up, running her hands through her long, thick hair as she pulled it back from her face.

"All right," she said. "What do you need me to do?"

Stan and Susan exchanged a look.

"I think the next step is gettin' inside Ford's place," Stan decided. "We gotta find out what's goin' on in there, what he's been up to - maybe how he got mixed up with this Bill Cipher in the first place. Maybe how we can stop him."

"Okay," Carla said. "How do you plan on getting inside?"

"Maybe you could talk to him?" Susan offered. "He didn't trust Stan, and when I went to ask where Stan was he called me Bill and damn near ran me off the property -" She stopped short, her eyes widening. With them framed by her false lashes, she looked like one of those dolls with the eyelids that raised and lowered. "Bill. He thought I was possessed!"

"Well, that's not good," Stan muttered. If Ford thought Bill was getting into other people's heads, as well as his own -

Well, that made a few things slot into place.

It took Stan a moment to realise Carla was shaking her head. "That's a no-go. There's no way he'd let me in if he saw me with you," she said, turning to Stan, "and I'm not letting you out of my sight. Come up with a different plan."

Stan scratched the back of his neck, trying to cover the fact that he didn't have a plan B. Carla had been an unexpected ace in the hole, he should've expected something like this would happen. And now they were right back to square one, with Stan stuck outside -

"Hey, wait," he said, snapping his fingers as he leaned across the table towards Susan, "didn't you say you had an idea about how to get past the threshold?"

...

Stan had ridden on a motorcycle a few times - usually on the back of someone else's bike, and that 'someone else' had usually been a certain fiery-eyed, devilishly handsome bounty hunter for lost souls, which meant he was used to a little crazy driving. He wasn't some shrinking violet, he wasn't some newbie - he knew his way around a bike. He knew what riding one was all about.

Carla pulled to a screeching halt outside the post office, and killed the engine. There was a moment of dead silence before she said, "You can let go of my waist now."

"Can't," Stan managed, through gritted teeth. "Think m'arms're stuck."

Carla gave an exasperated sigh, and reached down to pry Stan's hands apart. His fingers were locked stiff together, and it felt like each one creaked as she worked them apart. 

When Carla finally pulled Stan's arms free, he stayed frozen in place for a moment, before slowly sliding sideways off the bike to land in a heap on the asphalt.

"Oh, don't be such a baby," Carla said, pulling off her helmet and shaking out her hair, sending an overwhelming gust of florals and salt sweat wafting towards Stan. "I don't drive that fast."

"I am never getting on another of those hell machines as long as I'm undead," Stan groaned, from the gutter.

"Come on, get up, it's showtime," Carla said, ignoring Stan's quiet noises of relief and the sweet nothings he was whispering to the blessedly solid and unmoving ground. "How're you gonna do this? Just sniff around for a trail of traces of gasoline and engine grease?" A small smirk crossed her face, and she added, "Like a bloodhound?"

"Well, I could do that," Stan said, sitting up and cleaning snow out of his ear with his pinkie, "but I thought we'd just follow the giant tire treads."

He pointed.

Carla crossed her arms over her chest. “Smartass,” she said, watching as Stan struggled to his feet.

The last of the light drained out of the sky as they followed the tracks. They led, not out into the woods like Stan had half-expected, but through back alleys, meandering through a park, and finally coming to an end just inside the gates of -

“The junkyard?” Stan said, in disbelief. 

Carla hummed between her teeth. “Can’t think of a better place to hide a giant robot, actually. All this scrap metal and machinery...”

“McGucket!” Stan yelled, cupping his hands around his mouth in a makeshift megaphone. “We gotta talk to you!”

His voice echoed eerily off the piled-up mountains of scrap that dwarfed them.

“It’s about Ford!”

Somewhere in the depths of the junkyard, something clattered down to the ground in a series of almost melodious clangs, bongs, and pings.

Stan lowered his hands.

“Guess he ain’t around,” he said, turning to leave - only to find himself abruptly nose-to-nose with an upside-down Fiddleford McGucket.

The yell Stan let out echoed through the depths of the junkyard.

“Su-prised ta see me, feller?” McGucket crowed, swinging himself down from his dangling perch on the junkyard gate. He dropped to the ground, kicking up a spray of snow, and fell into a half-crouch, like a wild animal. Or like - 

Stan’s ribs constricted sharply with worry, but no, the man still had a heartbeat, bird-fluttering away in his scarecrow chest.

“Thit,” Stan swore, through a mouth heavy with fangs. Every nerve in his body was jangling, screaming with the instinct to pounce. “Don’ do tha’, y’ thcared th’ hell outta me.”

Carla rolled her eyes, shouldering Stan aside. “Mr. McGucket,” she started, and McGucket held up a hand, palm out, to stop her.

“Come a-lookin’ fer my hambonin’ skills at last, eh? I always knew this day would come!” His expression sobered, though his eyes still seemed focused in two slightly different directions. “But I been a-thinkin’, an’ I reckon I don’t want none o’ that fame ‘n’ fortune business. Goin’ a-chasin’ glory’ll put a man straight inta th’ grave, y’mark that! No sirree, none o’ that fer me, thank you!”

Carla shot Stan a blank stare, and all Stan could do in response was shrug as best he could while holding his jaw. “He invenned thome kinda - mem’ry gun. Ith makin’ ‘im crathy.”

McGucket’s eyes bulged. Flecks of spittle flew from his cracked lips as he howled, “I ain’t crazy! I know what I seen! I know what’s a-comin’!”

“Yep, thoundin’ real thane there, buddy,” Stan managed, in between trying to work his fighting fangs back into his jaw. Carla was giving him a funny look, half wary and half sick, and he tried to shoot her a reassuring smile, only to snag the inside of his cheek on a stray fang and slice open the soft flesh. “Fuck. Ow.”

“Why did you decide this was a good idea, again?” Carla asked, pointedly, something sharp in her voice. 

Stan winced as his top row of fangs ground back up into his skull with a crunch of bone on bone.

“He wathn’ thith bad latht time me an’ Thuthan thaw ‘im,” Stan muttered, turning back to McGucket, who was hunched further into himself and had drawn his hands up to his chest, bent limply at the wrist as though he’d forgotten them there, eyes darting back and forth. Stan’s bottom row of fangs finally, finally slid back, and he gave his jaw an experimental wiggle before asking, “Mr. McGucket - Fiddleford - d’you remember me?”

McGucket’s head snapped around, his slightly misaligned eyes staring intently just past Stan’s ear on either side of his head. Just when Stan was starting to think they were about to get somewhere, McGucket broke into a broad, beaming grin. “Nope! Nice ta meetcha, stranger!”

Before Stan could stop him, McGucket had enveloped Stan’s hand with both of his own, bloodied bandage and all. He gave Stan’s arm several enthusiastic pumps before Stan managed to snatch his hand back. 

Stan tried not to be too obvious about wiping his hand on his pants as he said, “Well, that’s, uh, fine. Say, as a favour to me, this guy you’ve only just met, wouldja mind just sayin’, ‘You’re welcome in my research cabin in the woods’?”

McGucket put his head to one side, clearly confused. “I got a research cabin in the woods? What’m I livin’ in a dump fer?” He blinked, twice, and his eyes seemed to drift back towards alignment as he continued, rubbing his arm with his good hand, “An’ why come I cain’t remember...?”

“Not important,” Stan said, hurriedly. “Just - c’mon. My brother’s life might depend on it.”

McGucket blinked again, owlishly. “Brother?”

“Please,” Stan ground out. He could barely believe it. What was it about this place, that he kept having to use that stupid useless word?

But it seemed to have done the trick. McGucket gave another owlish blink, then gave himself a little shake. “Well, I - I mean, o’ course!” 

He cleared his throat, standing up straight. Stan couldn’t help but notice, with a twinge, that Fiddleford McGucket’s true height was taller than his own. That hunch really diminished him, aged him. McGucket curled a hand nervously in the dirty collar of his shirt, where a necktie must once have been. “You’re welcome in my research cabin in the woods.”

Stan finally exhaled, a long, slow breath of relief.

He reached out, patting McGucket gingerly on the shoulder. “Thanks, pal,” he said, and let his hand rest on Mcgucket’s shoulder a moment longer, feeling like there was something he ought to say, ought to offer - but then, Stan didn’t have all that much more to offer the poor guy than he already had. He settled instead for giving him another uncertain pat, and an even less certain smile. “You - you take care o’ yourself.”

McGucket gave him a faint and unfocused smile, his eyes wandering again to different sides of Stan’s head. “You too,” he said, with a widening smile, slapping Stan on the back as he - there was no other word but scampered into the maze of junk and scrap metal around them.

A nameless guilt settled in the pit of Stan’s stomach. He shook his head, like that would shake it off, and gestured without looking at Carla. “C’mon. We gotta get movin’.”

...

They took a direct route back through town to the post office, instead of following the rambling tracks McGucket’s metal monstrosity had made. Stan was a little ashamed to realise he was starting to learn his way around town. He really should’ve been gone by now. Any sane person would’ve recognised a lost cause when he saw it, wouldn’t have stuck around doing the same thing that’d got him into this mess over and over again, would’ve turned his back and walked away.

Stan thought, briefly, darkly, of McGucket’s blank eyes, his cheerful unrecognising smile.

“We gotta get back to the cabin,” he said, a little overloud to try to drown out his own thoughts, as they rounded the post office corner. “Hope Susan’s found a way in, this permission’s useless if we can’t get into the damn house -”

He stopped.

There, parked on the street in front of the post office, was Carla’s bike. And there, standing in a rough half-circle behind it, were a group of red-robed figures.

“You gotta be fuckin’ kidding me,” Stan muttered, under his breath, turning to see - to the surprise of absolutely no one - another group of red-robed figures assembling from around corners and behind hedges, blocking their exit.

“Stan, what -” Carla started, but stopped when one of the robed figures, taller than the rest, took one gliding step towards them, away from the group.

When he swept back his hood, his bald head shone like a cue ball under the streetlights.

“I think this has all gone on more than long enough,” Ivan Northwest said, coldly.

Chapter Text

The back of the truck wasn’t the worst place Stan had ever been stuck. For one, it was warm. For another, the pugs’ fur was really soft. 

That was about where the upsides ended, though. The pugs wouldn’t stop wriggling, and Stan was so covered in snot and slobber that he thought he could probably slide around like a slug on his belly. And every time the truck hit a pothole, he inevitably landed on at least one of the pugs, and the pathetic whimpering noises they made were - really hard on the ears. And it stank. 

But the truck was carrying him across the border, and that was what really mattered. 

If everything went according to plan, Rico’s goons should be knocking on Carla’s - Thistle’s - door right about now. Well. If by ‘knocking on his door’ you meant ‘forcing their way in’. It was a stroke of genius, if Stan did say so himself. Maybe he couldn’t get past a threshold uninvited, but - he shuddered at the memory - Rico’s boys sure could.

And they sure could smuggle a guy out of the country, which Stan was really appreciating right about now. He’d known running Thistle’s stupid hippie van into that ravine would’ve brought trouble. After all, everything else he’d ever done had. He just hadn’t known how much trouble it was gonna rain down on his head. 

Master of California. Thousands of years old. Half of undead society - oh, and by the way, there was a secret undead society! - answered to him or owed him. To them, the guy was a damn hero for all his hippie-dippie tree-hugging save-the-world shit, making sure there’d be a world around for the immortals who’ll be around long after humankind wiped themselves off the face of it. 

And Stan drove the guy's van off a cliff.

It figured. It just fucking figured.

...

"This has gone on more than long enough," Ivan Northwest said, coldly.

Stan's left hand curled into a fist, without his having to tell it to. "Finally," he growled, "something we can agree on."

He didn't wait for Ivan to respond. He just pulled back his fist and swung. 

The crack as his knuckles connected solidly with Ivan's cheekbone was the most satisfying sound Stan had heard all day. Ivan stumbled backwards, giving himself a shake and tossing his head imperiously as he recovered his balance. He opened his mouth to spew some more pompous speechery, and Stan clocked him again, following it up with a punch to the gut. Ivan doubled over, wheezing, and Stan kicked his legs out from under him. Ivan toppled like a red-robed sack of bricks.

Stan spun to face the rest of the circle of red-robed figures, pleased to see they seemed to have shrunk away from him and Carla. Nervousness hung like fog in the air, like the stink of fear but a little less sharp and sickly, making Stan's nose itch. He rubbed the back of one hand underneath it before asking, through a mouthful of fang, "Any other takerth?"

He lashed out, not looking, with one elbow at the person who tried to grab his shoulder from behind, smiling slightly at the crunch and the strangled scream.

One of the robed figures pulled a memory gun from under its robe, holding it out. The bulb wobbled so violently that just watching it made Stan dizzy. It hovered a moment aimed, on average, at him, before the person holding the gun turned and pointed it at Carla.

"D-don't move," a quavering voice said, from the depths of the hood, "or -"

They didn't get a chance to finish their sentence before Carla grabbed her helmet from where it was perched on her motorcycle seat and swung it. It collided with the side of the robed figure's head with a crack, and they slumped over, Carla snagging the memory gun from their hand as they went down.

"I don't know what this does," she said, looking around at the red-robed figures encircling them, "but I'm guessing you don't want it used on you."

"It wipeth memorieth," Stan said.

The silence that followed was as sharp and absolute as though all the air had been suddenly sucked out of the world.

"So that's how you do it," Carla said, her voice light but dangerous. 

Without any further warning, she raised the memory gun in both hands and broke it over her knee. From the wounded noises some of the red-robed figures made, Stan almost would've thought she'd broken one of their limbs instead.

Everything happened very fast, after that. 

One of the red robes lunged at Carla. She moved fast, but Stan moved faster. The guy was down on the pavement before he knew what hit him, a quick rabbit punch to the side of the head putting him out like a light. There was a flash of light overhead, which Stan ignored, pushing himself to his feet and swinging as he came up. Arms reached for him, something swung in his direction and glass shattered, there was another burst of light and a shriek - thankfully, not female, not Carla’s. 

They kept coming. Stan kept hitting. 

He realised, eventually, that his knuckles were aching, that his arms were growing tired. The inside of his cheek was stinging where he must’ve caught it on a fang or two - occupational hazard. He hoped, halfheartedly, that the coppery taste on his tongue was just from the cut to the inside of his mouth. 

“-an! Stan! It’s okay! It’s okay, they’re - they’re not getting back up...”

Carla’s touch on Stan’s arm was light, cautious, her voice tinged with horror. Stan breathed out, hard, sudden, looking around at the handful of groaning or motionless red-robed figures scattered across the pavement around them. He’d really done it now, hadn’t he? Any sympathy she might’ve had for him, right out the window. 

“...we should get back,” Stan managed, looking down at the twitching limbs of the person he’d just dropped to the sidewalk. “Might not have much time.”

“You’ll stay right where you are.”

Stan looked up, disbelieving, at the sound of the carefully cultured voice, ringing with horror. Somehow, even after Stan’s little rampage, Ivan Northwest had managed to haul himself back upright.

And somewhere, somehow, he’d found an undamaged memory gun. 

“Not one more step!” he snapped, when Stan feinted forwards, finger tightening on the trigger of the gun. “If you so much as move, your lady friend loses her memory of tonight’s events. And anything you might’ve told her about us.” He tossed a sneering glance down at the two halves of the broken memory gun at Carla’s feet. “I suppose I would not be mistaken in assuming you don’t want that.”

Stan sucked in a breath, held it. The sharp note of Ivan’s fear just made it more likely he’d pull that trigger, not less. 

“I should have listened to Albert when I had the chance,” Ivan said, under his breath, and swung the memory gun in Stan’s direction.

Stan barely had time to realise what was happening, to duck, before the flash went off. 

He’d just hit the pavement when Carla grabbed the crossbow pistol off the back of her bike and fired. Stan’s yell of “No!” came too late to stop the bolt from tearing through the sleeve of Ivan’s robe, knocking his arm away from a successful shot with the memory gun.

Stan glared up from the pavement, ignoring the sting in the palm of his hand and his cheek where they'd scraped along the concrete. They'd heal soon enough. “What do you think you’re doing?”

Carla looked, disbelievingly, around them, at the people on the ground, and then fixed Stan with a stare that made him shrink.

“I didn’t kill ‘em, okay? And I wasn’t gonna!”

“Good. Because I’m not planning on killing anybody either.”

"Oh yeah? Then what are you planning on?"

Carla raised the crossbow pistol again, aiming at Ivan's knees, and Stan let out a low whistle.

"You're so hot, you know that?"

"Stan," Carla hissed, but it sounded like she was trying to stuff down a laugh. "Not the time."

"Oh, just kill me already," Ivan sighed, and fired the memory gun again.

Stan and Carla dove away from each other, the blast from the gun passing harmlessly between them and striking against the pavement. Out of the corner of his eye, Stan could see Carla start firing more bolts from her pistol, each one tearing through Ivan’s robe, each one tangling him up a little more. Ivan stumbled, and stopped, tugging at his robes to try to unwrap them from around his legs.

"Nice!" Stan crowed, raising a hand with the palm out. Carla turned, her smile brilliant, and reached up to high-five him.

The shot from the memory gun caught her square in the side of the face.

For a split second, Stan didn’t realise what had happened. The flash of light vanished, and Carla blinked, apparently unhurt, looking around as her brow furrowed in confusion. Looking for where the shot had come from, Stan thought, and then, oh, shit.

“Carla?” he asked, too worried to care about the way his voice cracked, and Carla whipped round to stare at him, her eyes going wide like she’d just seen a ghost.

“Stanley? What’re you doing here?” She blinked a few times, her gaze flicking down to her feet, and then up, as she looked around the square. “Where is here? What’s going on?”

Stan just barely resisted the urge to grab Carla by the shoulders and shake her, staring into the teeth of her bewildered expression. He didn’t know how much she’d remember, he didn’t know whether she’d go straight back to wanting to kill him - he didn’t know if her mind would suddenly snap and she’d be left like that poor old hillbilly in the dump - 

“It’s okay,” he said, swallowing down the urge to rip Ivan to shreds. “Just - get down!”

Another bolt of white light passed over their heads as Stan dragged Carla down behind her bike, huddling close against the cold metal as more bursts of white light seared overhead.

“Stan, what the hell?” Carla demanded, and Stan shushed her. She didn’t shush. “All these years, no call, no sign of you, nothing to say you weren’t dead, and then suddenly you - you - what is this, kidnap me? Where are we?”

“Gravity Falls,” Stan said, peering over the seat of the bike. Ivan wasn’t moving forward, still too tangled in his robes, which at least explained why he’d suddenly gotten so trigger-happy. 

“Gravity what?”

“My brother -” Stan started, then saw the look in Carla’s eyes, the anger that only barely masked the confusion and the fear. “Look, no time to explain right now. Just - get on your bike, get out of town. These bozos won’t follow you, they think they’ve taken care of you.”

Carla’s glare softened, just a little, around the edges, as she took a long, hard look at Stan’s face. “What did you get yourself mixed up in?” she asked, quieter this time, and Stan had to turn his face away.

“I promise, I will tell you everything you wanna know. After I save my brother.”

“Ford’s in trouble?” Another flurry of white bolts shot overhead, one sizzling against the pavement by the tire of Carla’s bike. Stan started at the hand that landed on his shoulder, only to turn and see Carla staring over the seat at Ivan. “What can I do to help?”

Stan had to take a deep breath in before he could turn and look at Carla again, before he could make himself face her. No mistrust, no grudging respect, looked back at him from her eyes, just a confused, frightened innocence. She didn’t know what he was. She didn’t know how much she’d hated him only a few hours before. She didn’t know how she’d been - manipulated, how her mind and her will had been violated, again. She didn’t know it was all Stan’s fault. Again.

All she knew was that the man she’d once loved was back, and he was in trouble, and she wanted to help.

Looking at her, Stan couldn’t feel anything but sick.

“Just get yourself out of here,” he said, in answer to her question, turning away and pulling himself into a crouch, ready to spring out from behind the bike. “The bike’s yours -”

“Stan, I know that -”

“Okay, just checking. Take it, get out of town. I’ll - I’ll find you. Afterwards.” He didn’t add if there is an afterwards. “I’ll tell you anything you want to know, I’ll explain everything - but right now, I just need you to be safe.”

“Stan?” Carla asked, slowly. Clearly, she’d noticed from the sob in his voice that something was wrong.

“ ‘m sorry,” Stan managed, with one last glance back at her. Trying to freeze her face in his mind. “Go.”

He could hear Carla shift behind him, feel the heat of her hand hovering above his shoulder even though the fabric - but she didn’t touch him. Instead, she straightened up, and he heard the bike engine roar to life, the plume of exhaust that blossomed from the tailpipe as it revved stinging Stan’s nose and making him cough.

It didn’t matter, though. For a second or so, as Carla peeled away down the street, the cloud of exhaust that spewed from her tailpipe must have obscured Ivan’s vision. Or maybe he just didn’t fire again because he no longer thought Carla was a threat.

That, Stan thought, was gonna be his last mistake.

Ivan didn’t even have time to raise the memory gun again before Stan tackled him to the sidewalk, pinning him under his bodyweight and slamming both of his hands against the concrete. He had to bash Ivan’s right hand a few times to get him to let go of the memory gun, but it finally skittered away. Ivan howled in pain, trying to kick out at Stan or maybe wriggle free, but Stan ignored him, crouching on his chest like the nightmare in that encyclopedia of monsters Ford had had when they were little. It seemed pretty appropriate. 

Ivan actually whimpered when Stan, holding eye contact, gave him a slow smile. For once, his fangs played along, the needle-sharp canines he used for feeding sliding slowly down over his lower set of chompers. 

The sharp stench of piss joined the fug of fear that hovered through the air around them. Stan sucked in a deep breath, letting his eyes fall shut. He’d scraped Ivan’s knuckles raw when he’d been trying to get the guy to let go of the memory gun, and all together, it was probably his favourite cocktail of smells in the entire world.

Ivan let out a full-throated sob when Stan leaned down to press his face into the other man’s neck, nosing out the place where Ivan’s pulse thrummed rabbit-quick just under his skin. Stan couldn’t stop his mouth from watering, didn’t even bother to try to stop the fat glob of drool that fell onto Ivan’s shuddering, papery skin. The man made a low noise deep in his throat, his pulse jumping wildly, hammering against the artery in his neck like it couldn’t wait to jump into Stan’s mouth. Stan leaned in closer, closer, until he could feel the faint pressure of fangs brushing against skin.

It took everything in him, but he managed to pull away, just enough to whisper into Ivan’s ear, “You’re lucky your pal Albert’th thuch a goddamn idiot.”

Ivan’s whimpers turned confused as Stan, with an enormous effort of will (and also holding his breath as hard as he could), sat up, reached over, and grabbed the memory gun. He started kicking again when Stan picked the gun up, holding it in Ivan’s field of vision, but Stan went right on ignoring him. 

The little box attached to the back of the gun read ‘GRAVITY FALLS’ in glowing green letters. So that was why Carla’d seemed to remember about the bike, but not about him or Ford or the town. Made sense. If they’d really wanted to get rid of her, they could’ve just dragged her out to the town limits, zapped her, and let her go on her way thinking she’d never been there at all.

Stan hummed as he twisted the dial to enter a different set of words into the gun, the tune of some catchy pop song he’d heard on the radio on the way up. This close, it wasn’t enough to cover the drumbeat thump of Ivan’s heart, but at least it was a distraction. 

“No,” Ivan started, as Stan raised the gun and took aim. “No, no, no no no no -”

“Whath the matter?” Stan said, with a grim, self-satisfied cheerfulness, as he squinted one eye closed and lined the shot up with the tattoo on the centre of Ivan’s forehead. “Thought thith wath harmlethth.”

Ivan’s shriek was cut off, short, by the blast of white light that caught him full in the face.

Stan pushed himself up off of Ivan’s chest, and instantly the cold settled back into his bones, like it belonged there. He almost wished he’d actually bitten Ivan, actually drained him dry. It’d been nice, so nice, to feel so close to that living warmth, even just for a few short moments.

But - 

“Carla thayth hi,” Stan said, to Ivan, who looked up at him with an expression Stan had only ever seen on the faces of infants before. Stan smiled, and then stepped over Ivan’s outstretched arm, walking away from the square and the red-robed bodies slumped across it, who were slowly beginning to stir.

He didn’t think he’d have much more to worry about from Ivan. Not now that the guy remembered nothing about being Ivan Northwest.

...

Stan had no idea where the Stanleymobile had ended up, and without Carla’s bike, he really had no other way of getting back to Ford’s cabin in a reasonable amount of time without freezing solid. Besides, anybody, even in the smallest and friendliest of small friendly towns, who left their car running, unlocked, with the windows rolled down, out on the street with no one in sight, was just begging to have it stolen. And it wasn’t like Stan was planning to fence it or anything. He just needed some wheels. For, like, five minutes. Tops. He’d bring it back, unless it got stolen by somebody else, or picked up by the cops, or he forgot. 

The cabin was exactly as unfriendly and ominous as Stan remembered when he pulled up into the drive, a jagged black silhouette against the white winter sky, slashed with red paint. The clearing was eerily silent, the only sound Stan’s footsteps crunching against the snow as he made his way up to the front porch. The strangest feeling of deja vu wrapped itself around him, like a thin film of plastic wrap, making it hard to breathe. 

“Susan?” Stan called up at the house, stamping his feet to try to shake off both the cold and the feeling. 

There was no response. 

It was like everything in the scene had suddenly shifted, ever so slightly, to the left. All of a sudden, Stan could feel the weight of those watchful eyes on him, again, from everywhere around the cabin. 

He listened, hard, but all he could hear was the soft whisper of wind in the pines.

Stan gave himself a little shake, rubbing his arms. What had happened with Carla had just thrown him off. That was all. He was freaked out and worrying too much. Susan was a big girl, she could take care of herself.

Stan really wished his mind hadn’t chosen that moment to throw up a memory of that page in Ford’s stupid nerd book, of the brownish stains that had smelled, unmistakably, of blood.

“Susan!” he yelled, again, crunching around to peer around the side of the cabin. Stan had noticed it the first time he’d walked around it, but - the place seemed to have too many sides, too many corners, too many angles. Walking around it, you felt like you’d been walking for too long, taken too many turnings. And he didn’t want to try going around in case she came out on the porch and he missed her, or...

Where the hell was she?

Stan glanced uneasily up at the pines around him. He’d never been able to figure out where it was coming from, but that damned feeling of being watched never seemed to leave him alone. He knew enough, by now, to trust his instincts - if he felt like he was being watched, he probably was. But - this was winter country. And he hadn’t told anybody he was coming. Nobody looking to ingratiate themselves with Thistle would’ve bothered following him all this way, especially given how often he’d been alone and vulnerable, how many opportunities they’d already had. And people like Ivan and Albert and Carla had just come right out and tried to kill him. So then who did that leave? And what could they possibly want?

Stan was getting really sick of not knowing.

“Come on out, ya bastard!” he yelled, to the ring of pines encircling the cabin and the watchful silence that filled them. His voice echoed off the front of the cabin, ringing metallic off of the strange machinery that littered Ford’s lawn, was swallowed up by the thick blanket of snow that lay over everything. “Come out here and face me!”

The feeling of eyes on his back intensified, until Stan couldn’t stand it anymore. He spun, only for the feeling to spin with him, the watched feeling now beaming down from the house, from the pines, from the air itself, focusing on Stan until he felt like he was being squashed under the microscope of some being bigger than the universe.

And then, just when Stan was starting to feel like panicking was a legitimate option, it stopped. The feeling of eyes on him vanished, completely. The woods were just woods. The house was just a house. The air was just air, freezing cold and full of tiny ice crystals glittering in the pale light. It was disorienting, enough to make Stan feel dizzy, and for a moment he almost didn’t notice that it was still eerily silent.

Then a long, slow creak broke the silence, as the cabin door swung open.

It wasn’t Susan who looked out. Stan had to squint, rubbed his eyes with one hand to be sure he was seeing what he thought he was seeing. “Ford?”

Ford’s face grinned, and something inside Stan clenched. That wasn’t his brother’s smile.

“Come on in!” Ford’s mouth said, brightly, pulling the door all the way open. 

“Yeah, I think I’m good,” Stan said, glancing over his shoulder. The stolen car suddenly seemed impossibly far away.

Ford’s face frowned, a childish, exaggerated pout. “Aw. And here your friend was so excited to see you again!”

Stan was up the stairs and onto the porch before he even knew he meant to move, slamming the thing wearing Ford’s body up against the wall just inside the door. “You - what did you do to Susan?”

Ford’s face didn’t stop smiling, didn’t so much as falter. “Wow, Stanley Pines has a temper! Big surprise there!” His hands came up, grabbing Stan’s wrists and tutting as he looked down. “Better be careful, you wouldn’t wanna hurt your brother, now, would you?”

The urge to rip the thing’s throat out with his teeth was almost overwhelming, to wipe that smirk off of its face - 

Ford’s face.

Stan sucked in a steadying breath, and gave the thing in Ford’s body one last shove before stepping back. 

“Good boy,” Ford’s mouth said, Ford’s hands smoothing down his sweatervest before he stuck one out in Stan’s direction, like he was expecting to shake. “Name’s Bill! Bill Cipher! And I gotta say, it is a real treat to finally get to meet you!”

Chapter Text

The truck bumped to a stop, and  Stan let out the breath he’d been holding.

Customs had been a nightmare, trapped in the back of the truck for hours trying to keep the pugs quiet, and the drive into Mexico had been, if possible, worse. But now he was safely across the border, out of US jurisdiction and, hopefully, the reach of Thistle’s cronies, and he’d charmed Rico into helping him out and forgetting the grudge he’d held. Not to mention that Mexico was hotter even than Santa Cruz, almost warm enough to make Stan forget about the chill that lived deep in his bones.

Yup. Finally, finally, everything was coming up Stan.

There was a clatter and a thump, voices rising in a language Stan recognised as rapid-fire Spanish, and then the double doors at the back of the truck swung wide, letting in a waft of warm night air. The smell was - well, it wasn’t roses, but compared to being stuck in the back of a truck full of pugs for the last three days, it smelled damn near to heaven. Stan pushed himself to his feet, groaning at the protest from his stiff joints, and waded his way through the sea of overexcited puppies towards the open doors.

Three faces greeted him, one splitting into a broad, gleaming smile, the other two with heavy scowls that didn’t quite mask the glints of fear Stan caught in both pairs of eyes. A shiver started to walk its way up the back of Stan’s neck, incongruous with the hot evening air.

“Uh,” he said, trying to remember his rusty high school Spanish, wondering if there was anything he’d picked up on the streets of California that wasn’t rude or obscene. “Hi, fellas…?”

One of the scowlers muttered something to the other, and Stan caught the word vampiro.

Stan managed, at the last second, to keep his expression from shifting. How did they know? Had Rico told them? How would he have known?

A little too loud, to drown out his own rising sense that something here had gone seriously sideways, Stan started, “Uh, muchas gracias for meeting me, I guess, but I really gotta get moving -”

The smiler stepped closer, blocking the exit. Stan debated whether he could clear the guy’s head if he jumped, decided it probably wasn’t worth it to try.

“You’re not going anywhere, brujo,” the smiler said, between those perfectly white teeth. Stan stepped back, just as one of the scowlers stepped forward.

The last thing Stan saw was the inside of a burlap sack, before everything went dark.

…

If Stan had had any doubts about Bill - that he was real, that he was really what Ford had described him as - they would’ve dried up and blown away under the force of Bill’s grin.

It wasn’t Ford. There was no way anybody who knew Ford could mistake it for Ford. The only time Ford had ever come even close to smiling that wide in his whole entire life was probably when - actually, Stan didn’t know, but he’d be willing to bet it had something to do with something sciencey. It looked painful.

“Stanley Pines! The traitor twin in the flesh!” Bill looked Stan up and down assessingly. The unimpressed look he shot at Stan made Ford’s face look, for an instant, too much like their father’s, before Bill’s too-wide smile overtook it again.

“Bill,” Stan ground out, the word curling into a growl at the end, slapping away the hand Bill had outstretched to shake. Bill’s smile grew, impossibly, even wider. “You’re the one who’s been hurting my brother.”

“Well hey there, look who’s the smart guy now!” Bill slung an arm around Stan’s shoulders and clapped him jovially on the back. It took everything Stan had in him not to recoil from the touch. “Pieced it all together, didja? Not that you could’ve done it without that book Ford gave you - I’m gonna need that back, by the way! Can’t get this party started without it!” He flashed that brilliant grin in Stan’s direction, coupling it with a big, insincere wink. His eyes glowed, faintly, Stan could see now, a dim, sickly yellow light projecting against the inside of Ford’s glasses.

“Get outta my brother’s body and then we’ll talk,” Stan said. He silently thanked whatever forces governed the universe that his voice didn’t quaver.

Bill threw Ford’s head back and laughed, long and loud and hard. Stan barely suppressed a flinch at the thought of what he was doing to Ford’s vocal cords. “Oh! Oh, wow, you really are something! Ol’ Fordsy here wasn’t kidding about you!”

“The hell’s that supposed to mean,” Stan said, short, pulling away from the arm Bill had thrown across his shoulders. He had a sinking feeling he already knew. “Look. I’m finished with this shit. I’m sick of getting the runaround, I’m sick of this fuckin’ weather, I’m sick of this fuckin’ town. I’m not playin’ your games. Get outta Ford’s body and tell me what you want.”

Bill surveyed him for a moment. Now that Stan’s eyes had had a chance to adjust to the near-complete darkness inside the shack, it was even easier to tell that whatever was animating Ford’s body wasn’t Ford. Bill held himself completely differently, shoulders squared, arms stiff, head cocked at an uncomfortable angle, the complete opposite of the hunched, secretive, nervous mess Ford had been the last two times Stan had been here. Just looking at him made Stan’s skin crawl. 

“I’ve been keeping an eye on you since you rolled into town,” Bill said, and Stan remembered, abruptly, the feeling of eyes on his back. “And I gotta say, I don’t believe a word of what Sixer here’s said about you ‘deliberately sabotaging’ his big project! You’re waaaaayyyyyyy too incompetent for that!”

“Yeah, thanks for that,” Stan said. “Real vote of confidence. What’d you do with Susan? What do you want from Ford?” He considered for a split second, before making up his mind. If this Bill guy had really been watching him since he’s first come to town, then all his cards were on the table anyway. Might as well work with what he’d got. “And can you take it from me instead?”

Bill’s smile returned, wide and unsettling. His steady, unblinking gaze (and no wonder Ford’s eyes had been so red, if Bill had been forcing him to hold them open like this) stared straight through Stan like his entire life story was printed on the back of his jacket and Bill was reading it through Stan’s chest.

“Depends!” he said, suddenly, and Stan was slightly too slow to fight down the urge to jump. “What’ve you got that I’d want?”

Stan examined his fingernails, trying to swallow the bile burning at the back of his throat, the press of his fangs against his jaw. If Bill knew how desperate he was - though, if Bill had been watching him, that ship had probably already sailed.

“That depends on what you want,” he said, trying to sound cool, like his heart wouldn’t be hammering his way out of his chest if it still beat. “But - and stop me if you’ve heard this one before - it looks like you need a body.”

He watched Bill’s - Ford’s - Bord’s? - eyes carefully. It might’ve been his imagination, but he thought he caught a flicker of interest.

“Why would I need a body?” Bill said, but there was something in his voice that wasn’t there before, and he’d started to look Stan up and down assessingly. “Got a perfectly good one right here!”

“Oh, sure,” Stan said. “If you like weedy nerds. An’ I’m pretty sure he’s so sleep deprived I could spit in his direction and knock ‘im over. Not exactly a specimen of physical perfection.”

Bill raised one of Ford’s eyebrows. “Wow, don’t let Fordsy hear you saying that!” 

“Why not? He’s not gonna deny it,” Stan said. He could feel himself starting to slide back into his old patter, the familiar (but not too familiar), friendly tone that set people at their ease, made them want to like him and trust him and listen to more of what he had to say. It wasn’t exactly the supernatural charm that’d gotten him into at least as many sticky situations as it’d gotten him out of, but it was almost definitely a cousin. It’d seen him through so many infomercials. And it must’ve worked, because somehow he’d always at least broken even. “Look, look at yourself. This body you’re inhabiting? It’s a wreck. Ford never took all that great care of it even before you came along, and now that you’ve turned him into a paranoid husk of a man, I think he’s forgotten that human beings need sleep and food to live!”

He made a show of sucking in a deep breath, and then pinched his nose, screwing up his face in disgust. It wasn’t exactly an act. “Ugh! Smell that? That’s the smell of a flesh vessel that’s made personal care its last priority! And just look at this!” 

Stan reached out and grabbed Ford’s wrist, pushing up the sleeve despite the warning glare Bill gave him and the way Ford’s whole body went tense. It was a gamble, but one that paid off when Ford’s shirtsleeve caught on a ladder of barely-scabbed-over cuts and shiny burn marks, climbing the inside of his arm. His nose had been right. Stan barely managed to swallow back bile, to cling to his showman’s patter, his mouth motoring away while his brain just stared in horror. “Disgraceful! Just look at that! This human body takes a little collateral damage and it’s out of commission for weeks, maybe even months! It takes an embarrassingly long time to heal from even the most minor of abrasions, and you have to be so careful not to break it!”

Bill’s smile stayed eerily wide and fixed, but he tilted Ford’s head to one side, like he was thinking about what Stan was saying. Stan reached out, hesitating for only a fraction of a second before laying a hand on Ford’s shoulder. 

“D’you see this hole in my jacket?” he asked, his mouth going dry even as he forced the words out. He’d made big pitches before, ones with a lot riding on them, but this was going to be the biggest damn sale of his worthless unlife. Either he sold this, or Ford was worse than dead.

Better fucking sell it, then.

“This hole,” Stan said, sticking his fingers into the hole and wiggling them around, “goes all the way through. Because it got there when somebody staked me in the ribs last night.” He gave an extra little wiggle of his fingers, for effect. “Went right through me. And see?” 

He unzipped his jacket, pulling up his shirt to reveal the knot of silvery scar tissue where the stake hole had been. “Not a scratch!” 

Bill tilted Ford’s head forward, that too-wide smile growing even more menacing. “Is that so.”

Stan blinked, steeling himself, and then reached out and grabbed Ford’s wrist, pressing the hand against his abdomen right over the pucker of scar tissue. He gave himself a mental point for the look of confused irritation on Bill’s face. “Oh yeah. Just stick some fresh blood in its face, and boom! Good as new! Like there was never a hole in the first place!”

Bill opened Ford’s mouth like he was getting ready to say something else unnecessarily vague and creepy, but Stan didn’t give him the chance. “And that’s not all this baby can do! Ever been frustrated with a human body’s top speed? You don’t have to answer that one, I can tell by the look on your face that you have. And how about their night vision, huh? I’m just kidding, we both know they don’t have any!”

Stan managed to force down the sick feeling that tried to crawl up the back of his throat as he slung an arm companionably around Ford’s shoulders, pulling Bill and his creepy eyes in close like they were old pals. “Look at that - oh ew, his eye’s started bleeding. That’s just - well, that’s just what I’m talking about, huh? He’s not even injured! It’s just leaking blood! Now - now that’s what I call shoddy craftsmanship.”

Bill’s smile had turned thoughtful, and he stared at Stan with those bleeding, glowing eyes like he was liking what he was seeing. Stan didn’t let himself relax. He’d seen that look on the faces of enough people who were smiling in anticipation of beating the shit out of him.

“Look,” Stan said, giving Bill’s shoulder - Ford’s shoulder - a friendly squeeze, despite how it made his skin crawl. “Guy like you, you’re goin’ places, you got big plans -”

“You can’t even begin to imagine how big!” Bill interrupts. “Your pitiful, puny meatbrain couldn’t process it!”

“Great,” Stan said, trying his absolute hardest not to give Bill the blank stare he really felt like giving him right about now. “Sure. Whatever. What I’m sayin’ is, human bodies - Ford’s body - was all right for starters. But a guy like you? A real mover and shaker?”

Finally, finally, Stan gave in to the itch in his gums, fangs dropping to cover his showman’s smile as he said, “You’re gonna wanna upgrade.”

Bill looked at Stan with that smile frozen on his face for a long moment. Stan didn’t breathe, didn’t trust himself to so much as twitch with Bill’s gaze on him. 

Then Bill threw Ford’s head back and laughed, long and hard.

Stan waited until Bill doubled over, his laughter turning into silent wheezing, before asking, “So…that a yes, or…?”

That set Bill off all over again. Stan folded his arms over his chest and leaned against the door frame for half a second, before self-consciously zipping his jacket closed again. It was almost as cold - if not colder - in Ford’s house than it had been outside. Didn’t the guy have heat? He was still alive, he could still freeze to death -

“Oh!” Bill gasped, at last, straightening up. “Oh, this is better than anything I could’ve expected! All this time I was trying to get rid of you, and it was this easy all along?” He thrust out one of Ford’s hands, so fast that Stan flinched back before realising that Bill was offering it to him to shake. “Sure, I’ll take your body!”

“And leave Ford alone,” Stan pressed, and Bill rolled Ford’s eyes. The blood starting to crust around his right eye bubbled, a fresh trickle creeping down Ford’s cheek.

Stan swallowed, and forced his gaze away.

Bill tilted Ford’s head expectantly, giving Ford’s hand a little waggle in case Stan had forgotten it was there. “Hey, this is a limited time offer!”

“Yeah, yeah. You’ll get outta Ford’s body and leave him alone?” Stan insisted.

Bill’s smile dropped like an anvil on the head of an unsuspecting coyote.

“Well, I can’t exactly be in two bodies at once!” he chirped, though his morbid cheer suddenly seemed forced.

Stan considered for a moment. Like a rock to gravity, his gaze was tugged  down to Bill’s outstretched hand. Six familiar fingers, trembling slightly with either excitement or malnutrition and exhaustion, met his gaze, and he had to shut his eyes. What the hell was he thinking? What the hell was he doing?

Then again, what other choice did he have?

“Sure,” Stan sighed, reaching out and grabbing his brother’s hand, maybe a little too tight. “Let’s do this.”

Bill’s smile returned, scribbling itself over Ford’s face like a markered-in devil horns and goatee on a glossy photograph. “Sit back, relax, and enjoy the ride! This won’t hurt you a bit!” he said, his voice gaining a strange echo. Stan realised, a moment too late, that the smile really was over Ford’s face, hanging just a little too far forward in the air. 

And it wasn’t a smile. It was a single, laughing, unblinking, eye.

Stan just had time to ask himself, again, what the hell he thought he was doing, before the hand in his erupted in blue fire and he was yanked unceremoniously out of himself.

Chapter Text

"Hey.”

Stan looked up from the throbbing lump on his wrist that he’d been poking at. He was pretty sure, by the stab of searing pain that shot through it and up his arm every time he poked it, that it was broken. It’d probably heal on its own, but he wasn’t sure he could bring himself to set it. Or that it wouldn’t do more damage to try.

“Whadda you wan’?” he asked, what remained of his upper lip curling at the voice that drifted out of the cell beside him. The burns had been the first to heal over, but there was still a good chunk of the side of his face that was gonna need time to regenerate. Like talking wasn’t already hard enough with his fighting fangs stuck down and ready to bite. Apparently he was feeling threatened. No idea why that might’ve been. 

“No hard feelings, right?” the voice from the cell beside him said, and finally, Stan placed it. He could’ve laughed, but it made his ribs hurt. Of course he was locked up right beside the - freaky demon biker dude who’d kicked his ass not an hour ago. That was what he got for thinking he could take a guy who was built like a Greek sculpture and covered in more leather than the inside of a tannery. And for not expecting the guy’s head to suddenly catch fire, or for him to pull a couple of whips of flame out of his ass.  Stan wished his own face had grown back half as fast as biker dude’s had. 

“No har’ - you hroke m’fuckin’ everythin’!” The missing part of his top lip turned his ‘p’s and ‘b’s into a hissing, whispering lisp instead. He could barely understand himself. Fan-fucking-tastic.

Stan couldn’t see the biker dude through the solid cinder-block wall between them, but the voice that carried through the bars on the fronts of both cells sure managed to sound like it was shrugging. “You undead heal fast, you’ll get over it. An’ you know how it is.”

“No I fuckin’ don’.”

“Gotta give ‘em a show, right?” the biker dude went on, like Stan hadn’t said anything. “An’ I gotta say, you put up a helluva fight out there. They like a scrapper, you’ll do all right.”

“You lit my fuckin’ fathe on fire! You thpat on me!”

“Yeah, you’re a good sport,” the biker went on, a hint of admiration in his gruff baritone. Stan could just imagine the jerk in the cell next to him, grinning under that stupid, luxurious moustache. He probably had a great smile, when he wasn’t grinning about ripping Stan’s face off. Bastard. “How long you been on the fighting circuit? You got some moves.”

Stan didn’t answer. Even his tongue hurt. He gingerly poked at his fangs through the hole in his cheek, but they didn’t seem like they were planning to retract any time soon.

“Hey,” the biker’s voice floated in through the bars, and Stan wished he could punch right through the holy-symbol-decorated cinderblock wall and straight into the guy’s flaming red eye. “You all right over there?”

“Your thtufid hellfire thcorched half m’fathe off,” Stan grumbled. That ‘p’ was still just out of his reach. Without his top lip, he didn’t even sound like the kind of tough guy who could take a hit that tore half his face off and still walk away. He just sounded like a whiny little kid, complaining to his momma. Biker dude was so dead the next time Stan got his hands on him. “ ‘n’ ‘m thtuck in thome kinna thufernatural dogfightin’ ring. ‘m jutht eckthellent.”

The asshole in the next cell had the nerve to laugh, a deep rumbly chuckle that made Stan’s probably-broken ribs twinge. “Yup, they’re gonna love you,” he said. “Name’s Jimmy. Yours?”

“Thtan,” Stan said, without thinking, and then cursed himself for not thinking of a fake name. But Rico'd known his real name - because he'd been young and stupid when he'd got mixed up with that crowd, but still. Probably all of these goons that Rico'd apparently sold him out to knew his name. If Jimmy didn't already know it, it was probably just a matter of time.

“Nice t’meet ya, Thtan,” Jimmy said, not missing a beat, and Stan growled a quiet, ‘yeah, fuck you too’ under his breath. “Welcome t’the ring. Wish I could tell ya it gets easier.”

...

The floor was further away than it had been.

In fact, Stan realised, as the disorientation started to wear off and he took stock of his surroundings, everything was further away than it had been. And kind of below him. Including Ford, and - and himself.

Stan stared.

He could see through his feet to the scene below, he realised. The top of Ford’s head brushed through said feet, and Stan jerked backwards. The sensation was strange and unpleasant, like passing a bare finger through a lighter flame. Other than the heat, though, he couldn’t feel anything - not any pressure or texture from where his half-vanished feet should have brushed against Ford’s head, not the constant faint nag of hunger he’d gotten used to living with, not...

For the first time in a decade, Stan realised, he didn’t feel cold.

Below him, Stan’s own head turned, the monster in his body looking up. The expression on his face shifted from Stan’s own shock to that familiar, horrible grin as he let go of Ford’s hand. His eyes - now that faintly-glowing, sickly yellow - met Stan’s, and Stan felt a chill rush over him as Bill winked.

It’d been a long time since Stan had last given any real thought to how sharp, how vicious, his own fighting fangs were.

For a breathless second, Stan wasn’t sure he’d made the right call. He hadn’t lied to Bill, after all. His body was faster, stronger, more full of naturally-occurring sharp objects than Ford’s. He had all kinds of physical advantages over the average (delicious) human being. And he’d just handed the keys over to the literal demon who’d been tormenting and torturing Ford, and told it to go nuts. What had he been thinking?

Then Ford blinked, his eyes widening in horror, and Stan let out the spectral breath he’d been holding. 

“...Stanley?” Ford said, and Stan had to swallow, hard, despite the fact that he technically didn’t have a throat. Ford was staring at his body with that look of horror, just staring, his hands limp at his sides, and Stan wanted to smack him across the face and tell him to shoot if the thing in front of him was so damn horrifying - but the look on his face was so...Stan couldn’t think of a single other word for it but ‘broken’. “No, no, you idiot, you didn’t -”

“Oh, but he did!” Stan’s mouth said, and then made a face. “Eeth! How doeth he talk with thethe thingth?”

“Bill!” Ford jabbed a finger at Bill, who was working Stan’s jaw, clearly trying to figure out how to retract his fighting fangs. Stan felt a bubble of vindictive satisfaction at the fact that Bill didn’t seem to be having much luck. “Get out of my brother’s body, you -”

Bill grimaced, “Oh, thave it,” he said, clearly giving up on Stan’s fangs. “You two thound like a broken record, you know that? ‘Oh, get out of my brother’th body, Bill! Oh, I won’t let you dethtroy the univerthe, Bill!’ Lemme tell you, Thikther - it’th getting old!”

“Come on, Ford!” Stan yelled, leaning forward to shout directly at his twin and accidentally knocking himself into a midair somersault. “Where’s that stupid crossbow you like to wave around? Just shoot ‘im already! It’s both your monsters in one, what’re you waiting for?”

But Ford didn’t reach for the crossbow. Instead, he just stared at Stan’s body like he’d never seen it before, taking one startled step back when Bill - moved. Even Stan couldn’t follow the motion; all he knew was that one minute Bill was there, standing in front of Ford, and the next he wasn’t. 

Ford yelped as his step backwards brought him up against Stan's chest, and Stan realised Bill hadn't disappeared at all, just run around behind Ford. "Hey, I can't move that fast!" he complained, and Bill glanced up at him, that fanged grin growing wider.

"You never tried!"

"Wh-" Ford started, pulling away from Bill and looking wildly around the room. "Stanley? You're still here?"

"Don't worry about that lother!" Bill said, and Ford and Stan both started at the sound of his voice from above them. It took Stan a minute to pick the figure out in the gloom - had it gotten darker in Ford's hole of a house? - but the eerie glow from his eyes gave him away.

Bill was hanging from the ceiling like an overlarge spider. As Stan watched, he scuttled along the exposed beams and down the wall headfirst, every limb moving too fast and jerky, those glowing eyes never blinking. Just watching him move made Stan’s skin crawl. And his joints ache.

“What the - okay, now I know I can’t do that,” Stan protested, and Bill jerked his head sideways to fix Stan with a huge, unnerving grin before turning back to Ford.

“What you thould be worrying about ith me!” Bill crowed, launching himself off of the wall and landing just in front of Ford, close enough that when he leaned forward, shoving that manic grin full of fangs in Ford’s face, their noses almost touched. “Thtanley’th really been letting thith body’th potential go to wathte! Thtill thinking like a human!” His laugh was harsh and horrible and went on just a moment too long.

Stan threw himself at Bill, but he just felt a burning cold as he tumbled right through his body and popped out the other side. He spun around, furious and ready to try again, but the look on Ford’s face pulled him up short.

“No,” Ford whispered, and Bill laughed again, reaching out and grabbing Ford by the collar to drag him in close, until they were literally eye to eye. Ford’s knees seemed to give out halfway there, and Stan let out a wordless yell of frustration.

“Really? Now’s when you come over all sentimental? That’s not me, you idiot! Just shoot it already!”

“Oh, yeth, Thikther! The whole time you’ve been holed up in your thecret bathement thinking your brother wath working for me, he’th been trying to thave your thorry behind! From me! Ithn’t it hilariouth?”

Stan grabbed at an - electrical-looking science thingy, something Ford probably knew the name and purpose of, on the hall table beside him. If he threw it at Bill, he knew, it wouldn’t do much damage, but at least it might draw Bill’s attention away.

It didn’t matter, though. His hand passed right through the device. 

“No,” Ford said, again, his voice barely more than a breath, and then, stronger, “No! You’re lying, he - he tried to lure me off the porch by threatening to burn my journal, I know that was your plot to get me out beyond the threshold so you could - could do some unspeakable thing to -”

Bill laughed again, leaning back and rolling Stan’s eyes. “Oh, yeah, that! That wath a real thtroke of luck, if you knuckleheadth had actually worked it out there I mighta been in trouble! Good thing you’re both thuch hotheadth!” He laughed again, giving Ford’s collar a short, sharp shake. “All I had to do to get inthide your prethiouth threthhold wath poth- posh- uthe your body to invite your brother in! Eathy peathy!”

Ford, already pale with horror and, apparently, lack of exposure to the sun, went an interesting ashy colour.

"Stan -" he started, and then broke off, shaking his head mutely.

“Wow,” Bill said, thoughtfully. “I haven’t had thith much fun thinthe...when wath the latht time I had thith much fun?”

"Ford!" Stan yelled, even though he was starting to realise that Ford couldn't hear him, no matter how loud he shouted. "Dammit, do something!"

For one horrible, drawn-out second, Stan thought Ford was going to burst into tears.

Then Ford sucked in a deep breath and, looking up towards the ceiling a few feet to Stan's right, called out, "The basement! Stan, go to the basement! You'll need a vessel -"

Anything else he might've been about to say was cut abruptly short when Bill lashed out, almost too fast for Stan to follow. He only heard the crack, and saw Ford fly backwards, sliding across the floor on his back. 

"You know," Bill said, stalking slowly forward as Ford struggled to push himself up on his elbows, "now I've got thith thweet new upgrade, and all three of your journalth..."

Ford wiped a shaking hand across his mouth, brushing away a trickle of -

If Stan had had a stomach, the bottom would've dropped out of it.

Blood.

"I really don't need you anymore!" Bill went on, his voice too bright for his menacing pose. "And would you look at that - thith body'th getting hungry!"

Stan didn't pause to think about whether it would actually do anything. He just flung himself at Bill, another blast of arctic cold tearing through him as he shot through his own chest. 

Bill didn't so much as flinch. His arm shot out, hand curling in Ford's collar and stopping Ford's desperate backwards scramble short. Ford passed right through Stan as Bill hauled him to his feet, dragging Ford up until their noses were barely an inch apart.

Stan’s fangs gleamed in the dimness like an unsheathed knife.

“No!” Stan shouted, before he could stop himself, feeling stupid and ridiculous even as the word tore out of him, like a little kid freaking out about the monster under the bed. But somehow, impossibly, it worked. Bill stopped dead, bared fangs just inches from the jumping vein in Ford’s neck. 

His eyes flicked up to lock with Stan’s. And then, slowly, he smiled.

“Hey, guethth what?” he said, not taking his eyes from Stan’s. Slowly, oh so slowly, most of Stan’s jagged fighting fangs slithered back up into his jaw, leaving only the two needle-sharp feeding fangs stabbing down over Bill’s too-wide smile. “Think I’m getting the hang of thethe thingth.”

“Stan!” Ford yelled, pushing desperately - and uselessly - against Bill’s grip. "There’s a vessel in the basement, don't let him -"

The rest of his warning dissolved into a strangled scream as Bill sank Stan’s fangs into his neck.

Stan didn’t currently have a heart to suddenly skip a beat. Strictly speaking, he hadn’t had one for about a decade. He didn’t really even remember what the sensation felt like anymore. 

So it was amazing how much hearing Ford’s scream felt like his heart was skipping a beat.

Stan hurled himself at Bill again, and again, the shock of cold as he flew through his own body starting to grow familiar. Bill didn’t flinch, didn’t so much as blink. He seemed pretty preoccupied with his...meal. 

Ford's scream had died into a ragged gasp, now, and even in the dark Stan could see he wasn’t struggling like he had been only moments before, his movements smaller and weaker. It took time for a human being to bleed out - Stan knew that maybe better than anybody - but it happened a hell of a lot faster than it looked in the movies, and with a malicious leech attached to a major artery -

He remembered that feeling, faintly, through a haze of alcohol and neurons shutting down. It sucked. Literally.

Stan cast around the dingy room for anything that he could use, anything he could hit Bill with. What was that nonsense Ford had been yelling? Something about the basement? And a - vessel? Like, a boat? Whatever that was supposed to -

His eyes skipped over it at first, in the dark, and then zeroed in on the gleam of dull white in the dark. A plastic (at least, Stan hoped it was plastic) skeleton, a lot like the one that had graced the science classroom back at Glass Shard Beach High what felt like a lifetime ago (except without one of its femurs lifted by some enterprising student to make a macabre pipe), standing forgotten in a corner behind a pile of technological-y junk.

Well, that kinda counted as a body, right?

Stan didn't waste any more time thinking about it. He flew straight for the skeleton, muttering a quiet 'come on, come on' as the skeleton's empty eye sockets filled his vision. 

And then he was looking out of them.

Stan tried to wiggle his fingers, with no luck. He tried it again, and this time, felt movement. Vaguely. The skeleton didn’t seem to have much in the way of a nervous system, big surprise there. Still, it was more than he’d been able to feel as a ghost. 

He had to rock back and forth to knock the skeleton off of the pole it was attached to, and ended up spilling over, flat on his face, on the floor. Bill whirled at the sound of the crash, spraying drops of Ford’s blood as he ripped Stan’s fangs free of Ford's neck. Ford crumpled as Bill let him go, collapsing to the ground in a heap as Bill stalked over to the pile of electronics that Stan was trying, with little success, to shuffle off of his skeleton legs.

"Well well well well well well well!" Bill cackled, reaching down and wrapping a hand around Stan's spine, just above the skeleton’s pelvis. The whole skeleton folded in half as Bill yanked Stan free from the pile of electronics, Stan’s skull bonking against his kneecaps pathetically before he managed to flail up and whack Bill in the face with the back of one hand. “Look who dethided to get creative - ow!”

Stan swung back, flailing both arms as he tried to hit Bill again. The skeleton wasn’t easy to control - it seemed to want not to move, unless Stan pushed it as hard as he could, and then it swung around like - well, like he’d pushed it as hard as he could. 

At least Bill wasn’t going after Ford anymore, though. As far as Stan was concerned, that was the only thing he’d wanted the skeleton for. Everything else was gravy.

Bill gave the skeleton a shake, rattling Stan’s bones - literally. And then, while Stan was still trying to sort his shoulderblades from his anklebones, Bill wound up and flung the skeleton against the wall.

It felt like being shot from a cannon, or, at least, what Stan had always imagined being shot from a cannon would feel like. The skeleton exploded on impact, bones coming apart, and threw him out of it like a motorcycle rider straight over the handlebars. Thankfully, his spirit still didn’t seem to be able to touch anything, so he flew across the room and through the far wall instead of slamming into it. 

Flying through the wall was - well. Stan was pretty sure that, if his pants had been physical, he would’ve pissed them. He couldn’t decide what was worse - watching the wall come up in front of him and knowing he couldn’t stop, or the terrifying moment of absolute darkness and complete silence as his head passed through. And then he was out, tumbling head over heels through what looked like some kind of mad scientist’s laboratory crossed with that Museum of the Weird that they’d had for a couple years down on the boardwalk at Glass Shard Beach. Except that the stuffed monsters and photographs here looked way, way more real. 

Stan started forward, towards the wall he’d just come careening through, but stopped, looking around. He could faintly hear Bill laughing through the wall, lisping something about how useless Stan had turned out to be, and normally he’d be charging right back in there swinging, but - that hadn’t worked so far. And the fact that it sounded like Bill was taunting Ford meant that Ford was probably still alive. 

The thought made Stan feel sick, even though he didn’t technically have a stomach to feel it with.

But he had to be smart about this. He still didn’t know where Susan was. He didn’t know how to beat Bill, now that his super clever idea about getting Ford to stake his body with Bill in it hadn’t worked. “Great going, there, Stan,” he muttered, glaring at the framed photograph of a slightly blurred, fanged gnome rushing at the camera that he’d apparently burst through on his way through the wall. “Real genius idea there. Definitely not exactly what you’d expect from a high school dropout.”

He kicked at a pencil sitting on what had to be Ford’s desk. His foot passed harmlessly through, the pencil rocking forward slightly like somebody’d blown on it before rocking back into its original position.

“Okay, Stan. Think,” Stan said. It was hard to pace when his feet didn’t make contact with the ground, but he managed to hover in a rough circle around the - lab, for lack of a better word. “How th’hell d’you plan on getting out of this one?”

He stuck his head through the gnome’s gaping maw, through the wall, out into the main room again. Ford was still lying in a heap on the floor, but he’d rolled over, glaring up at Bill, who grinned down at him with Stan’s face. Stan started to ball one hand into a fist, and stopped only when he realised his fingers were starting to go through his palm.

“Keep laughing, you smug sonuvabitch,” he muttered. “Just you wait, I’m gonna wipe that smirk off your face.” He very pointedly did not think about how.

“You really think that idiot brother of yourth is gonna be thmart enough to dithable the portal?” Bill crowed, his attention obviously too focused on Ford to notice Stan’s return. Stan frowned. Portal? “He couldn’t even figure out what you meant by a veththel!”

“You’re wrong!” Ford hissed, and Stan winced. He did not sound good. “Stan is - is -”

“Ith not coming to thave you,” Bill said, sweetly, leaning down over Ford with his hands clasped behind his back, his grin growing impossibly wider. “Fathe it, Thikther - thith dimension ith mine.”

Stan pulled his head back through the wall before Ford could respond, his head spinning. Portals? This dimension? 

“What the hell, Ford,” he muttered, under his breath, and then stopped. What had Bill said? ‘He couldn’t even figure out what you meant by -’

“A vessel,” Stan said, to the jar packed full of preserved eyeballs sitting on the shelf beside him. “And - the basement! Ford definitely said something about a basement!” 

The eyeballs floated, gently, in their jar.

Stan looked down at the floor below his hovering feet, swallowed, and closed his eyes. And then, without looking, he flipped over and dove straight down, through the floor.

...

It took longer than Stan expected before he burst out into the basement.

“Sheesh, Poindexter, how far underground is this place?” he muttered, looking around the room full of strange machinery that he found himself in. “A guy might think you were building some kinda apocalypse bunker or something.”

Looking around, Stan decided that that idea wasn’t so far-fetched. Except that an apocalypse bunker would probably have some kind of non-perishable food. And a place to sleep. And lots of things other than a nerd desk and row after row of tall machines covered in blinking lights.

“What is this thing supposed to be?” Stan asked, out loud, to thin air, gesturing to what looked like a giant, carved bird with a viewing port stuck to it. “Totem pole? Periscope? Totem pole-iscope? What?” 

He hadn’t expected a response. 

The faint noise from somewhere to his right made Stan jump - literally, shooting nearly two feet into the air. He didn’t see anybody there, but there was some kind of big window set in the wall, covered by what looked like one of those scrolling metal shutters that they had in newsstands. 

The sound came again, from the other side of the shutter. It sounded muffled, not just like it was passing through metal, but like there was something stuffed in the mouth of the person making it.

It sounded like a yell for help.

“Shit,” Stan said. “Susan!”

This time, he didn’t even stop to brace himself before he threw himself through the metal shutter. Stan burst through the window, looking around for Susan, and stopped cold.

Susan was there, her ankles tied together and her hands bound behind her back with a length of orange extension cord, part of what looked like Ford’s sweatervest stuffed in her mouth. She was sitting on the bare concrete floor of an absolutely massive underground room, sparkling pipes and wires crisscrossing the raw stone ceiling and walls. A few feet to Susan’s right, lying in a heap of tangled limbs, was - Stan blinked - a crash test dummy, with one staring eye scribbled in black marker in the very centre of its forehead, hastily crossed out in red pen. At least, Stan hoped it was red pen.

But none of that was what had stopped him in his tracks. 

No, that would have to be the two-storey-tall, shimmering metal inverted triangle that dominated the room, the empty circle in its very centre like a staring eye. It loomed over the whole room, dwarfing even the enormous space it inhabited. Susan sat at the very base, propped against its bottom corner like a sacrifice on the altar of some ancient and terrifying triangle god.

“Hot Belgian waffles,” Stan muttered, under his breath. And then, “Think maybe I found the portal.”

Chapter Text

"We’re getting outta here.”

Jimmy’s voice from the other side of the cinderblock wall was heavy with exhaustion, a little skewed by the swelling from his blackened eye. Usually he flamed on and when his face came back, it was instantly healed, but...it really had been a spectacular shiner. Nice of him to keep it on so Stan could admire his own handiwork. “Listen. Kitten. We been over this a million times -”

“No. Shut up.” Stan rubbed his hands together, staring at the cross dangling from his cell bars. Whenever he blinked, it left neon afterimages on the inside of his eyelids. “I’m not spending any more of my life - undeath - whatever, fighting werewolves or harpies or - or you so some rich dickheads can get off on watching it. And neither are you. We’re gettin’ outta here.”

When Jimmy spoke again, his voice sounded unbearably heavy. “You think I haven’t tried?”

Stan huffed out a long breath. “I know, I know. But listen. I got a plan. And it’s gonna work.”

The cross stung Stan’s hand as he yanked it down off the bars, but it didn’t burn like he’d seen it do to Jimmy. It didn’t take long for him to strip the bars of his cell of all their Madonnas and crucifixes, and then it was just a matter of getting a shoulder in between the bars and pushing. Their captors kept him running pretty low on blood, probably to keep him from doing exactly what he was doing now, but right before and after a match they’d feed him up to make sure he was strong enough to kick ass in the ring and heal any injuries he got out there. Wouldn’t pay to put a monster out there that couldn’t put up a fight. Definitely wouldn’t pay to let their star slugger get permanently damaged.

It took longer than Stan would’ve liked, glancing over his shoulder every few seconds to make sure no guards were coming, and a few times the bars made an awful shrieking sound that he was sure would’ve given him away, but nobody came. Maybe they were all out drinking to another spectacular fight, and another happy client. Maybe they’d all gone home to bed, getting cocky because their security measures had held this long. Didn’t matter, so long as Stan didn’t get caught.

“C’mon,” Stan muttered under his breath, gripping one of the bars in one hand and shoving back as hard as he could against the one beside it with his shoulder. “Come on, you bastard, come on...”

With one final shriek, the bar Stan was holding onto gave way, bending like a licorice stick in a little kid’s fist. Stan grinned, and knew it was full of fangs.

Jimmy started when Stan stepped out in front of his cell door. “How -” he started, and then gaped when Stan reached up and tore down the two-foot-tall crucifix hanging from the cell’s bars. “What the hell?”

Stan turned the thing over in his hands, and then dropped it. It really did sting, more so the longer he held onto it. 

He started stripping the rest of the religious symbols from the cell door, ignoring the angry red marks that started to burn across his palms. “They did a pretty good job locking me up, but there’s one thing they forgot to consider.”

“Yeah?” Jimmy grunted, and Stan looked up to see him lazily flicking his flaming whip in the confines of the cell. It sizzled and burned down to embers wherever it touched the crosses that decorated the walls, but in the patches Stan had cleared on the cell door, it wrapped around the bars lovingly and left them scorched black. Stan had only seen Jimmy grin bigger when his head was literally a skull.

Stan flashed a grin right back. “They never thought maybe I might be Jewish.”

Jimmy pushed himself to his feet, crossing the cell to smile through the door at Stan. He gripped the bars with both hands, and flamed on, his face and the flesh of his hands burning away as crackling flames ate through them - and through the bars. 

Jimmy stepped forward as the bars melted away in his hands. Stan couldn’t be certain, given that Jimmy didn’t exactly have a face at the moment, but he was pretty sure Jimmy winked in his direction.

“Y’know, this is why you always win our fights,” he said, and Stan laughed.

“You sure it’s not ‘cause you keep throwing them because you don’t wanna mess up my handsome face?” 

Jimmy slung an arm around Stan’s shoulders, laughing, his face slowly reconstructing itself as the flames died away. “You’ll never know. C’mon, sugar, let’s blow this popsicle stand.”

...

Susan started sputtering out threats as soon as Stan pulled the gag from her mouth. “You let me go, you - you - you!” she spat, a few drops of spit actually flying up to spatter the crash test dummy’s eyeless face. “You’ve been a very bad demon, or whatever you are, and you ought to be so ashamed of yourself!”

“Susan, it’s me!” Stan said, trying to work the dummy’s stiff, mitten-like hands around the knot tying her hands together. 

Susan sniffed, tossing her head back and jutting her chin forward. “Prove it, mister!” 

“If I wasn’t, would I be untying you?” Stan said, giving another tug on the knot. 

Susan’s expression turned thoughtful, but she kept her chin haughtily raised, glancing down sidelong at Stan. “Well...tell me something only Stan would know,” she said, finally, before blowing aside a lock of hair that had fallen out of her pouf of curls and into her eyes.

“Like what? I’ve known you for two days, tops,” Stan grumbled, cursing when his mitten-hands fumbled the knot, again. “Shit!”

“Yep, you’re Stan,” Susan said, decisively. “Why’re you a dummy?”

“Believe me, I’ve been asking myself the same question for the last thirtyish years,” Stan muttered. “Long story short, if you see my body, stake it.”

“What?” Susan squawked, and Stan sighed. “What are you talking about?”

“Look, it’s not me, all right? It’s that...Bill guy.” The extension cord slipped free again, and Stan cursed under his - well, he didn’t really have breath to curse under, but he didn’t care enough to come up with a better way to put it. “Long story. Don’t ask.”

“Even if I really wanna?” Susan asked, and Stan wished he could roll the eye painted on his mannequin face. 

“He’s gonna be down here in a minute, I’m guessin’. Ford was yelling some nonsense about some portal thing, which...” He waved his hand in the general direction of the thing that was almost definitely the portal. 

Susan nodded understanding. “So how do we stop him?”

Stan stared at Susan, briefly, before turning back to the knot binding her wrists, which was finally starting to loosen. “I just told you. Put a stake in ‘im.”

“Well, I’m not going to do that,” Susan said, dismissively. “How’s that knot coming?”

“Terrible,” Stan said. “Stop wiggling.”

Susan sat still for a second or two, before her shoulders hunched forward and she said, “You don’t really want me to stake you, do you?”

Stan concentrated, hard, on wriggling his second thumb down into the knot beside the first. “I told you, that’s not me, it’s a murder demon in a monster suit. You’d be doing everybody a favour.”

“But - but what happens to you?” Susan asked, and Stan refused to feel guilty about the warble of worry in her voice. 

Stan shrugged one shoulder, and then pulled the dummy’s mitten-hands apart. Miraculously, this time they didn’t slip out of the knot, the knot pulling apart instead. Stan wished the dummy had a mouth to grin with as he untangled it. “Guess we’ll find out. Hey, can you take care of your feet? I’m gonna see if I can find Ford’s stupid crossbow.”

“Think he put it down back in the entryway upstairs when he was tying me up,” Susan said, nodding towards the window with the metal shutter that Stan had come in through. “I have to say, I know you care about him a lot, but I don’t think that brother of yours is a very nice man.”

“That wasn’t Ford, that was Bill,” Stan said, shortly. 

“No, it was your brother,” Susan answered. “He wasn’t very happy about me breaking in.”

Stan tried to come up with words, couldn’t.

“Yeah, alright,” he said, finally. “Dammit, Ford.”

He pushed himself to his mannequin feet, taking a moment to steady himself. The dummy was lighter and more top-heavy than Stan was used to, and he wobbled a few times before overbalancing and tumbling head over heels back to the ground. He lay flat on his back, staring up at the tangle of wiring and pipes criscrossing the ceiling, and figured that if he’d been human, he’d probably be trying to catch his breath right about now. The dummy couldn’t really feel pain - or much of anything, to be honest - but he still muttered, “Ow.”

There was a sound from Susan’s direction that sounded suspiciously like a snort of laughter. Stan ignored it, pushing the dummy back up to its feet. “All right. Ford said Bill was after this portal thing. If we can’t get at the crossbow to take him out, next best plan is we shut this thing down somehow.”

“Well, I like that idea a whole lot better,” Susan said, unwinding the last of the extension cord from around her ankles. “How d’we do that?”

Stan looked around the base of the portal. “You see a plug anywhere?”

“Noooo,” Susan said, and Stan looked up at the quaver in her voice. She was staring back over his shoulder, at the shuttered window Stan had come in through. And the open door.

And the elevator door on the far wall, which gave a cheerful ding! and slowly slid open.

Stan couldn’t help but stare.

The last time he’d seen himself so bloody, he’d just chewed his way out of a car trunk and through four of Rico’s goons. And even then, he was pretty sure he’d never looked so maniacal. It was something about the smile. Or maybe it was how wide Bill kept his eyes. Or maybe the way he moved, a little too fast in jumps and starts, like an enormous, overgrown spider. Whatever it was, though, something about just the sight of Bill would’ve made Stan’s skin crawl, if he’d still been in it.

Of course, Stan was pretty sure he’d never made a habit of dragging his meals around by the neck and waving a crossbow in their faces, either.

Bill flung Ford out of the elevator before stepping out himself, that nasty, sharp grin growing impossibly wider at the sight of the portal. For one heart-stopping moment, Ford didn’t move, lying in a heap of dirty trenchcoat and awkwardly-sprawled limbs on the lab floor. What Stan could see of Ford’s face was pale, almost greyish, and the hand he held pressed against the side of his neck was slick with too-dark blood.

Bill laughed, that horrible, sickening laugh that made Stan’s dummy hands clench into mitteny fists, and reached down to grab the collar of Ford’s trenchcoat, hauling him to his feet. “Oh, come on, Fordthy! You’re not giving up on me yet! Where’th your fighting thpirit?” Bill grinned expectantly, then threw Stan’s head back and cackled. “Oh, right! He wath in that thkeleton I thmathed!”

Ford made a quiet, pained sound in the back of his throat, like a kicked dog. 

Before Stan really knew he meant to move, he was already charging across the lab and through the door. Bill looked up just as Stan slammed full-tilt into Bill’s middle, throwing both arms around his waist in a full-body tackle. It should have knocked Bill to the ground. And it probably would have, if Stan had had a real body with any weight at all. 

As it was, at least Bill let go of Ford to shove Stan’s mannequin body right in the middle of his drawn-on eye. Stan stumbled back, into some kind of console. Something shifted behind him when his elbow rammed into it, and a low hum started to fill the room, but Stan didn’t have time to pay it any attention.

“Well, would you look at that!” Bill laughed, advancing on Stan, Ford apparently forgotten. Over Bill’s shoulder, Stan could see Ford trying to push himself up on one trembling arm, only to collapse back to the floor. “Thtanley Pineth! You really are a glutton for punithment, huh?”

The dummy’s drawn-on eye couldn’t blink. Bill just seemed to vanish right in front of Stan’s eye. Stan didn’t even have time to react before he was suddenly airborne.

The dummy didn’t have nerves, so it didn’t hurt when Bill flung Stan’s mannequin body straight into the wall of computer towers. Snippets of the room flashed past as his dummy head wobbled on its neck, Bill’s eyes shining yellow from the dark ceiling, the dummy's limbs flailing past his line of sight, the lights flickering in the computer towers, Susan at the doorway, Ford lying on the floor beside him.

The floor didn’t actually shake when Bill landed beside Stan’s head, but Stan would’ve believed it had. Stan didn’t even have time to get his bearings before he was back in the air, hauled up by one arm to dangle, eye to scribbled-on-eye, with Bill.

“You Pinetheth really don’t know how to quit when you’re ahead!” Bill chirped. Stan watched his fangs flash, horrified fascination freezing him in place. No wonder Ford had thought he was a monster. “You’ve been working hard tonight! I think it’th time you took a - break!”

Stan tried to pull free, but the dummy was useless. He couldn’t do anything but watch helplessly as Bill grabbed his other arm and yanked it clean out of its socket.

Bill looked at it, and then half-shrugged one of Stan's shoulders. "Okay, tho that wath more of a rip. The joke thtill workth though, right? Right?"

“You - you put him down!”

Bill paused, with Stan dangling from one arm, the dummy’s arm dangling from the other. They both spun, to see Susan standing in the doorway.

With the crossbow pointed directly at Stan’s body.

“I mean it, mister!” Susan said, giving the crossbow a jab in Bill’s direction. "Drop him, right now, or - or I’ll stake you right through the heart!”

The low hum Stan had heard earlier had grown louder, he realised, filling the silence that dragged on for what felt like an hour.

Finally, Bill gave a little snort. And another. And then broke into full-blown laughter.

“Oh! Oh, really?” he asked, his grin like a crescent moon slicing across Stan’s face. “Hey, jutht how many timeth have you fired one of thothe thingth before?”

Susan’s shoulders stiffened, for just a moment before her face pinched with determination. 

“Does it matter?” she asked, readjusting her aim. 

“Matterth if you plan on hitting the heart on the firtht try!” Bill said, brightly. 

Susan bit her lower lip.

“Susan, quit messing around, shoot him already!” Stan yelled, but Susan still stood frozen in the doorway. The tip of the crossbow bolt traced wobbly figure eights in the air as her hands shook.

“You know what?” Bill said, tossing Stan and the dummy arm both aside. Stan landed on his back, and tried to scramble to his feet, but without his right arm, that was easier said than done. 

Bill threw both arms wide, and took two jaunty steps towards Susan, who flinched backwards but, to her credit, didn’t drop the crossbow. “Here ya go, kid! Thith’ll be fun! Do your wortht!” The pale blue light from the outer room glinted off of his extended fangs, turned the crust of blood coating his chin and neck almost black as he stalked towards Susan like a cat approaching a cornered mouse. “Come on, Lazy Eye! Thee what you can hit! Take - a -”

Whatever Bill had been about to say was cut abruptly short by a whistle of displaced air, and a soft thunk. Bill looked down, eyes widening in surprise, at the inch of crossbow bolt sticking out of the middle of his chest.

“Well, thit,” he said.

Susan whimpered, dropping the crossbow. It went off with a twang, its bolt clattering harmlessly against the concrete floor. 

From the elevator, Carla’s voice said, “You got that right.”

Stan spun, without even bothering to try to pick himself up off the floor.

Carla stood silhouetted against the dim light beaming from the slowly-closing elevator door, her hair wild and catching the light like the halo of an avenging angel, her outstretched arm with the crossbow pistol extended like the hand of fate. She’d never looked so beautiful.

“Carla?” Stan breathed, and Carla’s eyes flicked over to him in confusion, just for a second, before fixing back on Bill. Or, rather, where Bill had been. 

Carla shouted in surprise as Bill lunged at her, and fired twice. One bolt caught him in the collarbone, the other in the shoulder, just above the heart. Bill staggered back, that stupid smile wiped off his face for the first time.

Stan pushed himself up, and threw himself at Bill again. This time, he didn’t waste time with the tackle. Instead, he swung out with his remaining arm, knocking Bill backwards with the punch that had won him so many boxing medals. 

Bill staggered backwards, and finally crashed over onto the console he’d pushed Stan up against earlier. And the symbol etched into its side, glowing a burning yellow. Literally.

The dummy didn’t have a nose for Stan to smell the singed hair and scorched flesh, but the sizzle and Bill’s shrieks told him everything he needed to know about what he was missing out on. He couldn’t help but wince as something glowing an eye-searing yellow and screaming shot out of his own body’s back, his body slumping forward to reveal the symbol branded on its right shoulder. 

“Shit,” Stan muttered to himself. “That’s gonna hurt.”

The dummy didn’t have teeth to grit, but Stan braced himself as best he could, before shaking off the dummy and shooting back into his own body.

It hurt.

The burn on his shoulder took all of his attention at first, a searing, white-hot pain that ate up his entire arm and half his back. He sucked in a breath without thinking, and that was when he felt the crossbow bolts, one, two, three sticking out of him. Stan curled forwards, hugging his own sides, embarrassed by but unable to stop the keening noise that spilled out of his mouth.

Susan bent down, not taking her eyes off of Stan’s slightly-smoking body, and scooped up the crossbow. Carla, on the other hand, marched across the room, and gave Stan’s knee a kick. 

“Stanley Pines,” she said, and Stan managed to raise his head just enough to see her glaring down at him. “You’ve got one hell of a lot of explaining to do.”

Stan managed a sheepish smile. “Would you buy that I actually did eckthplain everything, and your memory jutht got erathed?”

Carla just stared for a moment longer, before rolling her eyes. “Normally I’d say no, but this has been...a very weird night.”

“Stanferd!” 

The shout from the elevator made Stan whip around, a move he instantly regretted. Through the tears that sprang up in the corners of his eyes, though, he could see the hunched shape of Fiddleford McGucket scramble across the room to where Ford was lying, no longer moving. 

Carla followed Stan’s gaze, before turning back to him. “You’re lucky I ran into that man on my way out of town. Well. Into his giant robot, anyway. Did we...we asked him for something to do with this house, didn’t we?”

Stan tried to nod, and quickly thought better of it. “Needed an invitation.” He reached up, and gingerly tried to grip the crossbow bolt that had lodged by his collarbone with his right hand. It didn’t work. His hand wouldn’t close properly, and just trying to move his arm sent shooting pains all up and down his back. “Ah! Ohhh...thit.”

“Here,” Carla said, gently brushing Stan’s hand away and plucking the crossbow bolt out of his shoulder in one swift movement. Stan hissed in a breath, and Carla shot him a sympathetic grimace. “ I...don’t think you were quite that feral last time we talked. What got into you, anyway?”

“Little one-eyed triangle bathtard,” Stan said, shortly. He concentrated, for a moment, feeling his fangs slip slowly and grudgingly back into place. “Is Ford okay?”

Carla looked confused for a second, before recognition dawned. “Wh- Bill? Stan, how did -” She stopped, letting out a sigh as she stared, exasperated, at Stan. “Stan, you didn’t.”

“Had a plan,” Stan gasped. The burning was coming in waves, now, pulsing between bearable and unbearable heat. “Didn’t work. Got a new plan. How’s Ford?”

Carla glanced over towards Ford, and then back to Stan. The look on her face told him everything he needed to know.

“No,” Stan said, shaking his head despite the way it pulled at the probably-cauterized skin on his back. 

“Stanley,” Carla started, but Stan reached out and tried to push her aside with his injured arm as he got to his feet.

“No. That’s not -” It felt like every step was a million miles, but Stan staggered over and dropped to his knees beside his brother. 

Ford had never let Stan forget who was the older twin, but now, wrapped up in his trenchcoat and lying motionless on the concrete, he looked impossibly young, small, fragile. 

Stan smacked his injured fist against the concrete floor, biting his lip until he tasted copper. “No! Dammit, you asshole, get up! I got myself branded to save your stupid genius behind! This isn’t how it ends! This isn’t -” The word fair stuck sideways in Stan’s throat, leaving him feeling like he’d swallowed a knife. “You can’t - I just got you back!”

“Stanferd?” 

Stan tried to hit the floor again, couldn’t bring himself to do anything more than let his hand drift down to rest, shaking, on the floor beside the tangle of Ford’s hair. In the puddle of rapidly-congealing blood that trickled out from underneath it.

He shook off the comforting hand that McGucket tried to rest on his shoulder, but the man’s words weren’t so easy to brush aside. “Stanferd, I don’t rightly know what you done this time, but it’ll be all right -”

“I’m not him, McGucket,” Stan sighed. It took what felt like the most effort anything had every taken in his whole life - or unlife - but he managed to push himself back up to his feet. Ford’s lab assistant looked up at him from his crouch, hands tucked close in to his chest like some kind of frightened animal, and Stan let out another sigh. “He’s - he’s down there.”

“Stan,” Susan said, and Stan pinched the bridge of his nose between thumb and forefinger, staring down at the toes of his ratty boots.

“No, Susan, save it. I don’t wanna hear it.”

“Okay, but,” Susan pressed on, and it was only then that Stan heard the quaver in her voice. “Is this thing supposed to be doing that?”

Stan looked up.

Out in the greater room, in the middle of the upturned triangle, a ring of rainbow light was slowly rotating. As Stan watched, the ring turned faster, and faster, until the rainbow blurred into a circle of pure white light.

In the dead centre of the hulking machine, the portal sparked slowly to life.

And, quiet at first, but quickly growing louder, the lab filled with the sound of Bill Cipher’s cruel laughter.

Chapter Text

The postcard was pushed under his door one morning.

It was nothing more than a simple rectangle of card paper, with a glossy picture inscribed with the words ‘Gravity Falls’ on the front and three words scrawled on the back. Stan stared down at it, turning it over and over in his hands until the two sides blurred together. 

He wasn’t sure how Ford had gotten his address in the first place - after all, it'd been nearly ten years since they'd last spoken. But their Ma always had had her own mysterious ways, and now here the postcard was, in Stan’s hands. 

Saying “Please come!”

Stan didn’t need to reread the words. He’d memorised them. But he still couldn’t tear his eyes away from Ford’s scrawl. 

“Please come!” And Ford’s name. All in quick, sketchy capitals. Like he’d had no time to write anything more. Or been too scared to write anything more.

"Who's it from?" Jimmy asked, leaning over Stan's shoulder, and Stan instinctively pressed the postcard against his chest. He felt a little stupid about it, but - Ford didn't belong in the funhouse Stan's life had been since their dad had thrown his duffel bag on the sidewalk at his feet, and Stan planned on keeping him well out of it.

"Nobody," Stan muttered. "Old friend. Well, used to be a friend."

Jimmy quirked an eyebrow, but he backed off. "You tell me if you need help with any 'old friends', all right? Old friends got a way of becomin' new enemies."

Stan couldn't tear his eyes from the postcard.

"Don't I know it," he muttered, under his breath.

...

Stan spun around.

Ford was still lying in a heap on the concrete floor. He hadn’t moved. But, as Stan watched, the trenchcoat started to shift, rising and falling in time with Bill’s harsh laughter, and Stan realised Ford’s shoulders were shaking. 

In the shadow of Ford’s collar, half-hidden under the flop of Ford’s bangs, one eye snapped open.

It glowed a sickly yellow.

It felt like Stan’s feet had been nailed to the floor. He couldn’t have moved even if he’d wanted to as Ford’s body slowly unfolded from the floor in front of him, rising like a ghost from a graveyard, Bill’s awful jack-o’-lantern grin splitting his face nearly in two. 

Bill gave Ford’s chest an inquisitive pat-down with both hands, before clapping both palms to his cheeks, one hand crawling up his face into his hairline and dislodging his glasses as the other crept down towards his neck. “Hah! Wow, that was easier than I thought! Fangs for the upgrade, Ace! Now I’ve got all your perks and a body with some actual brains -”

Stan punched him.

It was a good punch. Bill didn’t seem to see it coming at all. Stan’s fist collided with the side of his head, knocking Ford’s glasses to the floor and wiping that stupid smile clean off his face. A scowl started to replace it, but before Bill could say another word, Stan socked him in the stomach with his other fist. 

Bill doubled over, coughing. 

“Shut it down!” Stan yelled, over his shoulder, at Fiddleford, who was looking shellshocked, and Susan, who was still frozen in the doorway. “Shut the portal -”

The rest of the sentence turned into a strangled yell as Bill gripped him around the neck with both hands and squeezed. Stan met Bill's eyes, and reached out, grabbed Ford's body by the shoulders, and drove his knee up.

The noise Bill made sounded almost exactly like a broken squeaky toy somebody had stepped on.

“Stan!” Carla shouted, gripping her crossbow pistol in both hands, jabbing it in Stan’s direction. “Out of the way, you’re blocking my shot!”

Stan ignored her. As he hauled Bill up by the collar to his feet, lining up for another punch, Bill started to laugh again, loud and grating and obnoxious.

"Yeah, Stan! Out of the way! Isn't that what you wanted? To get me in an undead body so you could stake me?" 

"Shut up," Stan said, shortly, and punched Bill in the stomach again. 

Bill wheezed, again, but this time he didn't stop laughing. "Oh! Oh, this is priceless!" He thrust his head forward, until his nose nearly brushed Stan's, one too-wide yellow eye peering expectantly into Stan's. "Tell me, Fangs. What're you gonna do if I don't?"

Stan wrapped his hand tighter in the collar of Ford’s shirt, expecting Bill to try to pull his disappearing act again, but Bill just stood there, his face too close to Stan’s, grinning. 

“Well?” he demanded, and Stan gave him a shake. Bill burst into another fit of laughter. “Hey, careful! Don’t wanna hurt your brother!”

For a second, Stan felt like he’d been frozen solid from the inside out.

“You mean he’s still -” Stan stopped, shaking his head. “You’re just saying that to get me to lay off you, right? Ford’s dead. You killed him and took his body.”

Bill drew back, just enough to get a good look at Stan’s face, his eyes sweeping over Stan’s expression with obvious glee.

“Guess you two are more alike than I thought!” he said, brightly. 

Stan narrowed his eyes, but Bill’s smile didn’t waver as he leaned slowly back in to uncomfortably close range.

“I mean, not to tell instead of show or anything, but you know that’s exactly what Sixer here thought about you when you showed up, right? I mean, you seem like a guy with a sense of humour, you’ve gotta appreciate the irony!” Bill’s nose was nearly touching Stan’s again, now, but Stan didn’t dare move. Couldn’t move. “So! I’d be careful how you handle this meatsack! Who knows, your brother might want it back! Better not go breaking it!”

Stan curled his fists into the lapels of Bill’s coat. Behind him, he heard a sharp intake of breath that was almost definitely Carla's, but he didn't take his eyes off of Bill, who smirked back from an inch away.

“I’m not,” Stan said, shortly, and then hauled Bill up off the ground and flung him into the shutter covering the huge viewing window. 

Bill looked shocked for about half a second before his back collided with the metal shutter. There was a horrible shriek as the metal crumpled around him, and he slumped forward. 

Before he could move, Stan leapt up after him, slamming him into the metal shutter with enough force to make the whole thing shiver and shake.

“One nice thing about being undead,” Stan started, drawing back his left arm as he pinned Bill against the shutter with his right, “You get a whole lot more durable.”

Bill opened his mouth, and Stan slammed his fist into his face.

There was a crunch, and something gave satisfyingly under Stan’s knuckles. Bill howled, and spun, shoving Stan away. Stan stumbled back, his foot slipping against the edge of the desk they were standing on, and before he knew what was happening, he was falling. He slammed into the concrete floor ass-first, the breath all knocked out of him in one explosive burst. 

The portal’s hum was nearly deafening now. Stan could feel it vibrating up through the floor, thrumming in his chest almost like a heartbeat. 

“Shut it down!” he yelled over at Fiddleford, who was hovering by a wall of flickering coloured lights and buttons that looked like some kind of controls. “Sometime today would be nice!”

Fiddleford gave a frantic tug on one of the few tufts of hair remaining on his head. “I - I - I know I built mosta this, but I cain’t remember how to work the consarned thing!”

“Well, figure it out!” Stan shouted. He started to push himself up from the floor, but before he could even straighten up, something slammed into his back and he was airborne. He could hear Carla yelling, Susan’s scream, and saw the Ford-shaped indent in the metal shutter speeding towards him before - 

Stan shut his eyes just before he collided headfirst with the shutter. 

The noise the shutter made as it tore was almost deafening. The glass on the other side actually hurt more as it shattered, shards piercing into Stan’s face and shoulders as Bill shoved him through it. Stan ducked his head as best he could, silently begging for no shards of jagged metal or broken glass to stab him in the eyes. 

They burst out the other side in a spray of metal fragments and splinters of glass. Stan hit the ground first, skidding along the concrete on his chest. Thankfully, the polished surface didn’t scrape him too badly, but the impact drove the shards of glass deeper into his chest and upper arms, and his jaw cracked against the concrete so hard that he saw stars. 

A sliver of a second later, Bill landed like a sack of bricks on his back.  

Stan lay flat for a long moment, trying to catch his breath, get his bearings, muster up the energy to try to shake Bill off. There was a sharp pain in his right side that felt suspiciously like it might be broken ribs, his head was still throbbing from when he’d cracked his jaw, and all the little cuts and scrapes on his face and shoulders were starting to burn. The brand on his right shoulder was stinging again, reopened by all the punching, and the bone-deep throb in the muscle of his shoulder hadn't stopped.

“Wow, you’re right!” Bill crowed. “You really are more durable!”

“I’m gonna fucking kill you all over again,” Stan managed, around his closed jaw. 

Bill just laughed. 

There was a pop, a swish, and a thump, and Bill’s laughter cut off abruptly. Stan felt his spine suddenly freeze, thinking of Carla's crossbow pistol, but then Bill cackled again. "Gonna have to do better than that, Pansy! Though I guess I oughta thank you for taking care of this sweatervest for me! Whoof! Ol' Sixer here could really use a personal stylist, am I right?"

There was another pop and a swish of displaced air, but this time, Stan felt Bill’s weight on his back lift, and something clanged against the face of the portal. The sound it made was like someone striking a gong, deep and sonorous, cutting through even the rising whine of the portal powering up.

Stan didn’t waste any time pushing himself to his feet. His ribs and his right shoulder burned, and he nearly toppled right back to the floor when he spun to face Bill. 

Bill’s fist collided with Stan’s face like a wrecking ball. Stan stumbled backwards, his jaw lighting up in pain. Before he could find his footing again, Bill was there, with thick dark blood already crusting in a stream from one nostril down over his upper lip and an expression like murder if murder had an extremely punchable face. Stan threw another left hook, but his form was sloppy, his intent too clear. Bill just leaned out of the way, before stepping in close, pressing a hand against each of Stan's shoulders, and giving him one sharp shove backwards.

Stan took two unsteady steps back, trying to find his footing, but the worn-down sole of his sneaker slipped against something sticking up from the floor, and he tripped. His feet left the floor, and he sucked in a breath, expecting it to be knocked out of him when he wound up flat on his ass on the concrete again. 

He didn’t. 

Instead, his feet left the floor, and didn’t touch back down. Stan flailed, but only succeeded in spinning himself in midair, turning a helpless somersault. The ceiling flashed past underneath him, the floor whirling overhead - with a yellow-and-black-striped band across it. He’d seen it before, when he was untying Susan, but he hadn’t really noticed it. 

He realised, as his spin gradually slowed, that it was probably a warning not to get too close to the portal in case exactly this happened.

Stan couldn’t hear Susan’s yell over the roar of the portal. But he could see her, over Bill’s shoulder, mouth working silently, as she shoved past Carla and out into the lab. She seemed...shorter, somehow. Or just...farther down.

So did Bill in Ford’s body. And the yellow and black line.

Oh, shit.

The sound of the portal was deafening, now. Stan could see his shadow, stark and black on the floor below him, outlined in the brilliant blue light spilling from the portal behind him. 

He could feel it now, too. Not just the strange weightlessness, like falling in reverse, but a pull, dragging him slowly but inexorably backwards no matter how much he kicked and clawed at the air. Stan watched his own shadow inch backwards, over the black and yellow line, as the floor got farther and farther away, his own shouts drowned out by the thundering noise of the spinning machinery behind him.

The vicious smile on Ford’s face glinted sharply in the portal’s blue light. 

And then slipped off of his face again when Susan ran up beside him, breathing hard, and scooped the extension cord she’d been tied up with off the ground in front of the portal. Stan barely caught the sound of his name as she yelled up at him, and then swung the end of the cord over her head before throwing it at him. “Catch!”

Stan scrabbled for the end of the cord, only succeeding in flipping himself into another midair somersault. The plug thwacked him sharply in the back of his head as he tumbled by, and Stan shouted a curse that even he could barely hear over the portal. 

He saw everything in blurry flashes as he spun - the ceiling, the floor, Bill and Susan wrestling over the other end of the extension cord, the ceiling again, the huge accusing eye of the portal, outlined in a frantically whirling ring of white light, and in its depths, in the darkness in its very centre, something sparking to life - 

The extension cord wavered into his vision again, and Stan reached out and grabbed at it. This time, somehow, his hand closed around it. 

Stan latched onto the cord with both hands, pulling himself down along it. It was hard work - somehow, over the last handful of seconds, the pull from the portal had grown so much stronger, like its own upside-down gravity. The rising whine he'd heard earlier was piercing, now, rising over the rumble of the machinery. The extension cord burned the bare skin of his palms as the portal sucked Stan back, and he heard Susan yelp as the cord snapped taut.

Stan clung to the cord, but his grip in his right hand slipped, the muscles still weak after the burn to his shoulder, and he slid backwards, sucked in towards the portal. He could feel something through the toes of his shoes, a strange feeling that almost wasn’t a feeling, like if an electric shock had somehow crossed with the feeling of his foot falling asleep. He glanced back over his shoulder, and saw the centre of the portal filled with blue-white light. 

The tips of his sneakers were just starting to sink into it.

Stan yanked on the extension cord, trying to pull himself away from the portal, but when he turned back towards Susan and the others, the bottom of his stomach dropped abruptly to the concrete below. 

Susan was on the floor, curled up like a caterpillar clutching her stomach in obvious pain. And holding the other end of the extension cord, grinning like he was a cartoon cat and Stan was a mouse he’d caught by the tail, was Bill.

“You know, Fangs, I really shouldn’t keep stringing you along like this!” Bill cackled, and let the extension cord slip through his hands. Stan was sucked backwards, a scream tearing out of him before he was abruptly jolted to a stop when Bill grabbed onto the extension cord again. “Whoops!” 

“Let him go, you big meanie!” Susan yelled, throwing both her arms around Ford’s legs and - Stan blinked. It looked a little like she was trying to hug him into submission. 

“Susan, don’t,” Stan groaned, as Susan’s wording sank in. “Don’t ask him to let go!”

Bill flashed a big, innocuous smile down at Susan, before turning Ford’s head slowly, slowly, back to face Stan. 

“Turning down help, Ace? Might wanna rethink that! Cause it looks like you’re getting pretty close to the end of your rope -”

“Bill!”

Stan’s head snapped up at the sound of the muffled shout. So did Susan’s. Bill kept staring at Stan for a moment longer, his smile slowly dipping into a confused frown, before he turned to look behind him.

The crash test dummy tackled Bill around the waist.

Bill staggered forward, letting out a frustrated snarl as he tried to push the dummy off of him. The dummy clung on grimly with its single arm, wrapping both of its legs around Bill’s knees, and Bill stumbled - right over the black-and-yellow warning line. 

Both Bill and dummy left the ground, rising quickly towards Stan. For one heartstopping moment, the extension cord went slack in Stan’s hands, the portal dragging him back. Then Susan jumped to her feet and snatched the cord out of the air where it was flapping, loose. That strange electric numbness flickered at Stan's spine as Susan teetered on the edge of the warning line, the very tips of her toes brushing against the floor. “Stan! Hang on, I’ve got you!”

“Okay, but who’s got you?” Stan yelled back. 

Bill pressed one of Ford’s hands against the top of the dummy’s head, six fingers splayed, and shoved it away from him. The dummy spun backwards, its arm and legs flapping wildly, sinking down through the air towards Susan even as Bill tumbled in the other direction, heading straight for Stan. 

Stan tried to brace himself, but Bill still slammed into him like a rebounding punching bag. The impact nearly jolted the extension cord out of Stan’s hands, wrenching his shoulders in their sockets. 

For a terrifying instant, Susan slipped, skidded across the black and yellow line. The cord started to go slack in Stan's hands, and he nearly let it go. If he was falling through that portal into who knew what, then at least he wasn't going to take Susan with him.

But the cord snapped tight again as Carla ran up behind Susan and grabbed her around the waist, dragging her back across the black and yellow line. She looked up, and met Stan's eyes, giving him the tiniest of nods and just a hint of a reassuring smile.

Stan ground his back teeth together and clung grimly on.

Bill’s laughter rose from Ford’s body, and even though his back was pressed against Stan’s front, Stan could all too easily imagine the expression on his face. His shoulders shaking nearly made Bill slip away, out of Stan’s grip and into the portal’s pull, and Stan sucked in a breath before letting go of the extension cord with his right arm to wrap it more securely around Ford’s waist. Maybe his brother wasn’t in it right now, but that was his brother’s body, and there was no way he was letting it go. Ford would probably want it back.

The dummy let out a frustrated yell, kicking its legs to try to spin in midair to face Stan and Bill. “Let him go, you idiot!” it yelled, or seemed to yell, at Stan. “Send that monster back to the dimension from which he came!”

Even though it didn’t have a mouth to move, the voice seemed to come from the general direction of the dummy’s head. And though it was disembodied and strangely muffled, Stan would’ve known Ford’s voice anywhere.

Bill’s laughter only got louder. “That’s the Fordsy we all know and love! Even when you’re fighting for your life - or should I say unlife, now? - you still waste your time on grammar!”

“Ford?” Stan asked.

“Yep, that’s your brother, piggybacking off of your great ideas for once! How’s that role reversal feel, Fangs?” Bill twisted Ford’s head sharply sideways, grinning manic into Stan’s face, before wrenching it back to face the dummy - Ford. “But this little self-sacrifice act is getting old, Sixer! Giving up your body to trap me in the Nightmare Realm forever? Booo-ring!”

“Oh, good, the demon guy’s talking again,” Susan moaned, from somewhere below. “Who let him talk?”

Bill’s eyes narrowed, but his smile remained dangerously sharp. 

“Let’s make this a little more interesting!” he chirped, ignoring Susan, and snapped Ford’s fingers. 

Then he blinked, and looked over at his own raised hand as if he’d never seen it before. He was moving slower, too, like he was a stranger to his own body, and as he half-turned towards Stan, raising his other hand, Stan caught a glimpse of his eyes.

His normal, brown eyes, which widened in horrified realisation at the same time as Stan’s did.

From below them, Bill’s laughter rose again, terrible and echoing. Stan and Ford both turned to look down at the dummy, at the slash of red paint across the huge eye sketched on its face. As Stan watched, that eye flared a glowing, hideous yellow, and turned up towards them.

“Well, Pines brothers, it’s been fun,” Bill’s nasally voice crowed from the general vicinity of the dummy’s head, “but the party’s over!” His voice sank through several octaves until it was a booming bass that Stan could feel vibrating in his chest. “See you on the other side.”

“Shit!” Stan shouted, and grabbed at the extension cord, just as the dummy reached out with its remaining arm and yanked the cord out of Susan’s hands. Susan wailed, falling over the black and yellow line as she tried to keep hold of the cord. If gravity had been normal, Stan guessed she would’ve skidded flat on her face. As it was, she turned a slow somersault in midair, head over heels.

Bill raised the dummy’s hand, and waved.

Ford was shouting something in Stan’s ear, some panicked babble about what they should do, what they could do, how they couldn’t let Bill destroy the universe, but Stan barely heard him. There was a little bubble of stillness right below his ribcage, and even though he could feel the strange electric void of the portal licking at the back of his neck, all he could feel was perfect, unshakable calm.

He’d done this before. Maybe Ford knew about monsters and demons and things that went bump in the night, but this wasn’t about magic and mystery anymore. Now this was about some powerful, evil asshole trying to kill them. 

And that, Stan knew how to deal with. 

Before Bill could open his hand and let go of the extension cord, Stan looped his end of the cord around his left hand and yanked. It must have been part Stan’s own strength, part the portal’s pull, part weak gravity, but Bill shot straight toward Stan and Ford like a bullet out of a gun. 

Stan watched as that glowing yellow eye drew closer, and closer, Bill’s scream of rage trailing after it. At the last possible second, when it looked like the dummy was about to smash into both of them, he let go of the extension cord and shoved Ford to his right as hard as he could.

Bill never stood a chance. The dummy flew between Stan and Ford and straight into the heart of the portal, trailing extension cord as it vanished into the blue-white light, Bill’s scream fading slowly after it. The end of the cord whipped through the air as it was sucked through after the dummy, and then it, too, was gone.

“Stan,” Ford laughed, his face crumpling in a way that could have been either laughter or tears as he reached out across the threshold of the portal to Stan. “You idiot, you - you stupid - why did you come back?”

Stan shook his head. The blue-white light of the portal was so close now, nearly swallowing everything. It wouldn’t be long before they both passed through it. He could barely see Ford, there was no way Ford could make out the expression on his face.

“I am your brother,” he managed, and somehow even mustered up a smile.

Ford said something, but it was swallowed by the sound of the portal. That strange feeling of nothingness was spreading, up Stan’s waist and chest, and he couldn’t see anything for blue light.

But he felt it when Ford grabbed his wrist, and when Ford pulled him forwards - not out of the portal, but just enough to make the nothing-feeling retreat a little - and wrapped both arms around his shoulders. Stan froze, not sure what was happening, but all Ford did was hold him, like that, pressed against his chest. It was with mingled horror and something...else, something soft, that Stan realised his shoulder was quickly getting damp where Ford’s face was pressed into it. 

The portal gave one triumphant roar, and Stan shut his eyes.

And then his legs were on fire with the worst pins and needles he’d ever felt, and the blue light vanished, the portal clunking and shuddering through a series of ominous mechanical noises as its whine slowly trailed down through the octaves. Stan hovered for a moment, before gravity seemed to notice that he and Ford had been thumbing their noses at it and rushed in to make up for lost time. 

Both Stan and Ford crashed down onto the concrete, with a jarring thump that made Stan’s teeth rattle in his head and all of his burns and scrapes and involuntary piercings suddenly sit up and make themselves heard. He lay there, for what felt like eternity, with his brother’s arms around him, listening to McGucket hooting and hollering from the control room. 

“I done it! I dadgum done did it! I remembered how ta turn th’ thing off an’ I done it! Glory be!”

The portal was shut. Bill was gone. 

Stan leaned into Ford’s shoulder, and slowly, gingerly, brought his own arms up to wrap around Ford’s waist. In response, Ford squeezed Stan’s shoulders so hard that the burn on Stan’s shoulder screamed in protest, digging his fingers into Stan’s back hard enough to leave bruises. 

Even though everything hurt, Stan couldn’t help but smile.

Chapter Text

Stan left before the sky was all the way dark.

At least he’d got the Stanleymobile back from the impound, so he didn’t have to sneak away on Jimmy’s bike. It was one thing to run out on your partner in the middle of the night - well, day. It was a whole other thing to steal their stuff.

Which was why he hadn’t swiped any small valuables of Jimmy’s on the way out, either. He’d just cleaned out the contents of Jimmy’s wallet to add to the wad of bills he’d kept stashed under the mattress. Somehow, in the pit of his stomach, Stan knew that Jimmy would understand.

Somehow that only made him feel worse.

The last of the sun was just sinking below the horizon as Stan loaded up the Stanleymobile, casting them both in shadow. Overhead, the last rays of sunlight lit the tops of the buildings with dull fire. Stan slammed the trunk, wincing at the noise it made, and climbed into the front seat.

He let himself look back over his shoulder at the apartment building, just once. 

Then he wrenched the key in the ignition, and turned back to face the road. Probably better he got out while the getting was good, anyway. Even a guy like Jimmy’s patience had to run out sometime. 

And Ford needed him.

Stan pressed his foot to the accelerator, and the Stanleymobile shot forward.

...

Everything was a bit of a blur, after that.

Stan was vaguely aware of someone colliding softly with his back, arms wrapping around him and Ford both, of warmth and pressure surrounding him, of Susan’s voice laughing in his ear. “You’re okay!”

Stan nodded, or thought he did. Everything felt heavy, like when gravity had come back it had come back doubly strong. He realised, with a jolt of horror, that he was less hugging Ford and more leaning against him to stay upright. 

And that there was laughter rising from the person he had his arms around.

It took a huge effort, but Stan wrenched himself backwards, away from Ford. With a little distance, though, he could see that his fears were unfounded. Ford was shaking his head, a smile of disbelief on his face as he reached up and rubbed one hand against his right eye, and his laughter was purely relieved and surprised. He looked up at Stan, and sucked in one shuddering breath, the smile slipping off his face for an instant before he said, wonderingly, “We are okay.”

Stan reached out and grabbed Ford’s shoulder, giving it a reassuring squeeze. Ford was shaking so hard that Stan could feel it through his arm, but that awestruck smile bloomed back across his face as he stared down at his own hands. “Bill’s...gone?” It was almost a question, but then he clenched his hands into fists. “Bill’s gone. He’s gone. And we’re alive -”

Stan coughed. Ford started, his head snapping up to look at Stan, and Stan bobbed his head, rolling his eyes and grimacing. “Well. More or less.”

Ford blinked at Stan, and Stan huffed out a breath. “Aw, c’mon, Sixer, you’re supposed to be the smart one.”

By the way Ford froze up, Stan figured he’d put two and two together.

“Shit, that’s right,” Carla said, from somewhere behind Stan. “Better get some blood in him, or he’s going to have a really bad time.” 

“They’re both going to have a bad time,” Susan agreed, and pulled away from hugging Stan. Stan silently mourned the lost warmth. “You two both got pretty beat up, you’re gonna need something in you to heal you up.” There was a beat, and then she said, “Stan? How you feelin’, hon?”

Stan drew in a breath, and considered. 

“Like shit,” he answered, honestly. “ ‘m good, though. Don’t worry about me. What’s this about Ford needing blood?”

“Oh yeah,” Carla said, and Stan realised she was keeping her distance deliberately. “Within the first twenty-four hours, or his turning’s going to be very drawn-out and painful. You...knew that’s how it works, didn’t you?”

When Stan didn’t answer, she sucked in a sharp breath, and didn’t say anything more.

“Well, I can take care of that,” Susan said, just as the silence was starting to get awkward. “I’ve got Boyish Dan Corduroy on speed dial, he’ll be over here with a couple of bucks in ten minutes if I ask. And don't worry about him, either, he knows sometimes you just need some emergency wild game.” She reached across Stan to rest a hand gently on Ford’s other shoulder. “Uh, Stanford? I’m sorry, but -”

Ford gave himself a shake, and cleared his throat, his eyes focusing back onto Stan’s face. “No, no, none of that will be necessary.”

Stan frowned. “Hate to break it to ya, poindexter, but -”

Ford shook his head. “I’ve recorded a recipe in one of my journals, an antidote for infection by any kind of undead creature. So long as you catch it within the first twenty-four hours, it’s a complete cure. I’ll be back to my old self in no time, and then everything can go right back to the way it was.”

Stan opened his mouth, and realised he had no idea what to say.

“Hold that thought,” he said, finally. “Can we take this conversation upstairs or something? It’s freezing down here.” 

“In a moment,” Ford answered, pushing himself to his feet. “There’s one thing I want to take care of first.”

He stood, turning to face the portal. For a moment, he just stayed there, motionless, looking up at the dead, blank eye in the centre of the upturned triangle with an expression that Stan couldn’t read. 

Then Ford threw himself straight at the portal and slammed his fist into its strangely-iridescent metal face. The portal made a sound like a bass drum being kicked, and Stan could swear it wobbled, just slightly.

Ford hammered against the portal with both fists, throwing in the odd sharp kick to the point of the triangle. At first, it didn’t seem to be doing much of anything, but then the portal shuddered in its settings and started to wobble more and more violently, until it looked like it was caught in a high wind.

Ford slammed both fists against the portal’s face, and stopped, leaning against its face and breathing heavily. 

For a moment, nothing happened. Then there was a long, drawn-out groan, like a giant stubbing his toe, and the portal slowly, slowly started to tip backwards. There was a second where Stan thought it was going to stop, get stuck leaning at that shallow angle - but then, with a wrenching scream of metal on metal, it fell backwards in one long arc, collided with the back wall, and toppled off to crash to the floor on one of its three sides.

Ford watched it fall, raising an arm to protect his eyes from the cloud of dust it kicked up on impact. As the dust settled, he brushed off the lapels of his trenchcoat, and turned back to face Stan and Susan, beaming.

“Right,” he said, and then, patting the side of his face and the top of his head as the smile slowly slipped off of his face. “Stanley, where are my glasses?”

...

It was getting close to sunrise, Stan realised as they emerged from the basement. He could feel the familiar heaviness starting to settle into his eyelids, into all of his limbs.

Ford, by the looks of things, was feeling it worse than Stan, which wasn’t surprising. He wasn’t used to nocturnal life yet. Probably never would be, if he got his way. He started out leaning against Fiddleford’s shoulder, but by the time they reached the hidden door leading out into Ford’s office-slash-lab, Fiddleford was practically carrying Ford up the stairs. 

“ ‘msorry,” Ford slurred, as Fiddleford deposited him gently in his rolling office chair. 

“Now don’t you fret, Stanford,” Fiddleford said. “We’ll get you patched up -”

“No.” Ford reached up and grabbed his friend’s arm as Fiddleford turned to leave. “I’m sorry, Fiddleford.” The motion seemed to take more out of him than he had to give, and he slumped back in the office chair. “Shoulda listened t’you sooner.”

Fiddleford froze. Stan tried to find somewhere else to look that wasn’t at the trail of splatters of Ford’s blood that was soaking into the hardwood floor.

Luckily, he wasn’t stuck staring at the blood Bill had spilled for too long. Stan started when Carla’s hand settled gently on his shoulder, but he followed as she steered him out of the stairwell and away from the Fords’ conversation.

“All right,” Carla said, quietly, with a glance in Ford and Fiddleford’s direction. Stan caught a snatch of Fiddleford saying something about a memory gun, and shuddered, turning his attention back to Carla. “The day is saved, the evil is defeated, and somehow we’re all miraculously in one piece.” She looked down at Stan’s torso, and the holes she’d put in it earlier. “Admittedly, some of us more than others, but still. I think it’s about time for that explanation you owe me.”

Stan tried, unsuccessfully, to hide his wince. 

“Stan?” Carla asked, her expression turning apprehensive. “Oh, come on. Please tell me you have an actual explanation this time, and it isn’t the New Jersey Clamdiggers’ Disease all over a-”

She stopped, looking up at Stan with her eyes wide. “Oh. My god. I knew you made that shit up, but. You made it up to cover up the fact that you were a -”

Carla slapped a hand to her forehead, staring at Stan in disbelief. Her voice was very low and dangerously sweet when she said, “How long, Stan?”

Stan smiled sheepishly.

Carla dragged her hand slowly down her face.

Thankfully, Susan chose that moment to sling an arm around each of their shoulders and pull them into an awkward half-hug. “We make a pretty good team, huh?”

Carla made a choked noise in the back of her throat. It might have been a scoff colliding with a laugh, or possibly Susan was just squeezing her too tight. 

Despite himself, Stan couldn’t help but crack a smile. “Yeah,” he agreed, looking up at Susan, forcing himself to focus on her face and not the artery pulsing invitingly in her neck, a few scant inches from his mouth. This was really not the time. “Yeah, y’know, we actually do. Thanks for saving my butt all those times.”

“Awwwww,” Susan cooed, and gave Stan and Carla another crushing squeeze. “What’re friends for?”

Stan shut his eyes, and took a deep breath in, before letting it out slowly. He was a little surprised to realise he was still smiling.

“Not to ruin the moment or anything,” Carla said, and Stan reluctantly opened his eyes. “But I seem to recall somebody saying something about this guy needing blood.”

“ ‘mfine,” Stan blurted, automatically. He could feel the pulse in Susan’s arm where it was slung across his shoulders, a steady, comforting rhythm. 

“You are not fine, mister,” Susan said, letting go of Stan’s shoulders and pulling back. “I’ll go give Boyish Dan a call, he’ll be over here in two shakes. Mr., uh, Ford? Where’s your phone?”

Ford broke off what had been, apparently, a very tense but largely one-sided conversation to gesture vaguely in the direction of what Stan assumed, based on the stacks and stacks of moldy cookware, had probably once been the kitchen.

“Don’t bother,” Fiddleford said. “Professor Genius here didn’t pay the bill.”

Ford muttered something indistinct from inside the upturned collar of his trenchcoat. Fiddleford spun back to face him.

“An’ I told you that I got spooked when yer twin rolled in an’ got a little trigger-happy with that rememberatin’ gun o’ mine! Y’don’t think I just wear overalls of my own accord, now, do ya?”

Ford mumbled something else, and Fiddleford rolled his eyes, crossing his arms over his chest. “I know ya told me ta destroy it, but y’just don’t understand, it’s a revolutionary scientifical breakthrough and -”

He stopped, mid-sentence, and then looked down at Ford, eyes narrowing. Ford, slouched down so far in the office chair that his face was almost completely obscured by his collar, still somehow managed to look smug.

“Oh, don’t you go a-lecturin’ me on what you said about the portal,” Fiddleford harrumphed. “Now. If y’all’ll excuse me, I got some memory guns t’hunt down and destroy.”

“Oogh, don’t mention hunting right now,” Stan muttered. Susan laughed. Stan wasn’t sure why.

“Wait, memory gun?” Carla asked, with a glance over at Stan. “That wouldn’t happen to erase memories, would it?”

“You betcher baby corns it does!” Fiddleford stopped, and gave himself a little shake. “Though I...wouldn’t recommend a-tryin’ it on this evenin’s events.” 

Carla’s smile was more like a grimace. “I was wondering more about what happens to those memories after they’re erased.”

“Oh, they’re all stuck in a glass tube,” Fiddleford said, waving a hand. “Never know when y’might need ‘em.”

“I think there’s some of mine that I need,” Carla said. “Is there a way to get them back?”

“Years an’ years o’ intensive therapy!” Fiddleford said brightly. Stan was pretty sure he heard a long-suffering groan rose out from the depths of the collar of Ford’s coat. “But you c’n watch ‘em anytime. We got a viewer over at the Society of the - well now, don’t think I rightly oughtta tell a stranger that. But I can take ya there if’n y’let me blindfold ya.”

Carla sucked in a breath, briefly closing her eyes, before she let it out again in a single sharp burst. 

“What the hell,” she said. “I’ve done stupider things for less payoff. Let’s do it.”

Fiddleford beamed.

“Stanford, where’s your journal?” he asked, turning back to Ford’s chair. “I’ll pick up ingredients for your antidote while I'm out.” 

Ford jerked his head sharply to the left, towards a heavy, dark wood desk covered in drifts of paper. Fiddleford nodded, and started to rifle through the papers.

Stan didn’t see if he found the journal or not, because Carla reached out and took his arm. Her hand was so warm, even through Stan’s coat, her expression unusually serious as she met Stan’s eyes and held his gaze. It was enough to freeze Stan’s words in his throat.

For a moment, Carla hesitated, looking over every inch of Stan’s face like she was trying to read something written there, maybe in another language. Stan held his breath, watching her watch him, until she let out a sigh and shook her head.

“Stan -” she started, but Stan cut her off. Gripping her firmly by the shoulders and then holding her at arm’s length instead of going straight for the throat took an enormous effort, but somehow he managed.

“Nope.” It was Stan’s turn to search Carla’s face, now, for he didn’t know what. She’d aged, he realised, a little of the softness of her face melted away, a few lines winking from the corners of her eyes. “You gotta go back to California, right? That flower shop needs you.”

Carla nodded, smiling hugely, but she ducked her head almost as soon as the smile crossed her face. 

Stan nodded, too, and gave her a pat on the shoulder before taking a step back. “You go - get your memories back, or whatever. And - and don’t wipe out. Those roads are icy.”

“I won’t.” Carla looked back up at Stan, and now her smile, even though it was much smaller and more fragile, actually looked real.

Stan shoved down the urge to reach out and brush her hair back behind her ear, cup the side of her face with his hand, lean in and press his lips to hers one last time. It felt like there was still something important he hadn’t done, but what could he say? Sorry I lied to you for our entire relationship? Sorry I got you kidnapped and brainwashed? Sorry I got your memory erased? Sorry I never treated you the way you deserved to be treated and I lost one of the best things that ever happened to me because of it?

“Hey,” he said, finally, and then, when Carla just looked at him expectantly, “The, uh. Flower shop. Sounds great.”

Carla let out a long sigh, but she was still smiling.

“It is,” she said, and then, “You take care of yourself, twinkle-toes.”

Before Stan knew what was happening, Carla took one step forward, closing the distance between them, and pressed a soft kiss against Stan’s cheek.

Then she turned and walked away, with a sweep of chestnut hair, leaving only a faint scent of leather and lilies and the burning imprint of her kiss on Stan’s cheek.

Stan slowly reached up and gently, gently pressed the tips of his fingers against it.

“Take care of yourself, hotpants,” he echoed, under his breath.

The quiet in the office was suddenly broken by a loud blat. Stan half-turned, to see Susan noisily blowing her nose into a tissue that she then used to dab at her glistening eyes.

“It’s so tragically romantic!” she sniffled, when she saw that Stan was staring at her. “Your love is so star-crossed!”

“We literally broke up half a decade ago,” Stan pointed out.

Susan sniffled, and pouted, still dabbing her eyes.

“Well, I’ll be back with the cinnamon,” Fiddleford said loudly, closing Ford’s journal with a snap that made Stan jump. “You still got them barrels of formaldehyde hangin’ around?”

Ford nodded, the floof of brown hair peeking out above the collar of his coat bobbing. He didn’t seem to notice Stan’s strangled noise of disbelief.

“Formaldehyde? Poindexter, how is it that summoning a literal demon is not the weirdest thing you got up to out here?” Stan demanded. 

Ford didn’t answer. He’d slid halfway down the chair and looked like he was well on his way to the floor.

Fiddleford glanced from Ford over to Stan, who had to stifle a sudden yawn. The sun was definitely threatening to rise, now. He could see a sliver of pale light starting to creep up the wall on the other side of the office. 

“I’ll be back round sundown ta help brew up your antidote,” Fiddleford said, and then, a little sterner, “An’ then you’n’me gotta talk. I ain’t forgiven you yet.”

Ford actually pushed himself up on the seat of his chair at that, his face emerging pale and mournful from the collar of his coat. He met Fiddleford’s eyes, and nodded once. “After sundown?”

“After sundown,” Fiddleford agreed, clasping the journal to his chest and turning to follow Carla.

Susan looked from Fiddleford, walking away, to Ford, sliding back down into his coat, and then up at Stan, seeming to come to a decision. “I’m gonna go line up a couple adorable woodland creatures for the both of you two to snack on!” she said, with a weirdly knowing smile in Stan’s direction. “Don’t want anybody going all murdery!”

“Why do you have to say it so cheerfully,” Stan grumbled.

Susan just smiled up at him, the picture of innocence.

“You two play nice,” she chirped, and then shot an entirely un-Susan-like pointed glare in Stan’s direction. “Don’t go biting each other’s heads off!”

“Yeah, yeah,” Stan muttered. He shot a glance over at Ford, and then turned back to Susan. “Hey, how ‘bout I walk you to the door?”

Susan canted her head to one side, narrowing her eyes suspiciously at Stan with a strange little smile. “You know I’m not going away forever, right, silly?”

Stan shook his head, biting his bottom lip. “I know, but -” He looked over at Ford again, and didn’t say but I might be. 

It didn’t matter, because Susan’s expression softened anyway, and she leaned forward to rest a hand on Stan’s shoulder.

“You’re not getting rid of me that easy,” she said, gripping Stan’s shoulder and staring deeply into his eyes. “I still haven’t introduced you to Mr. Whiskers.”

Stan cleared his throat.

“And Pumpkin. And Mittens.” Susan gave Stan’s shoulder another squeeze. “And Admiral Pennyworth. And -”

“If you list off the name of every single cat you own, I might actually bite you in the jugular,” Stan interrupted, and Susan laughed, finally letting go of his shoulder.

“I will see you later!” she said, pointing at Stan as she backed away, until she bumped into the wall. She scooted sideways until she found the doorway, and then backed away down the hall, still pointing at Stan.

Stan watched until Susan disappeared out the door. It banged shut behind her, and then Stan was alone in the shack with Ford and the suddenly too-oppressive silence.

Ford’s house was freezing, Stan realised. Without the living people around to warm it up, it was at least as cold as the snow outside. 

Somehow, it felt even colder.

“Stan?”

Stan turned, slowly. He felt a little like he was trying not to be seen or heard, like if he moved too fast or made too much noise then something terrible would find him. 

But the only thing he saw when he turned around was Ford, still slumped in the office chair with his trenchcoat pulled up around his face. He wasn’t looking at Stan, but as Stan turned to face him, he spoke again, and his voice was...small. There was no other word for it. It sounded thin and frightened, like a little kid’s voice, strange and wrong coming out of Ford’s mouth.

“Is it going to burn?”

“What?” Stan said, stupidly. “The sun?”

Ford nodded, pulling his trenchcoat a little tighter around himself. He shut his eyes and swallowed, visibly composing himself, and when he spoke again he sounded more like himself. “Because if it is, we should probably return to the basement. I’ve boarded up the rest of the windows, but I’m certain there’s still plenty of cracks for the light to get in -”

“The sun’s not gonna burn you, Sixer,” Stan said, unsticking his feet from where they felt frozen to the floor to step closer to Ford. “Probably knock you out cold, but it’s not gonna burn you.”

Ford nodded again. He still didn’t look up at Stan.

“The antidote will work,” he said.

“Never said it wouldn’t,” Stan answered. “And then everything goes back to the way it was, right?”

Ford shut his eyes.

“Is that why you’re angry with me?” he managed, like he had to carefully choose each word as it came out of his mouth. “Because I don’t want to be...like you.”

“What?” Stan blinked. “Where’d you get that from?”

Ford didn’t answer.

Stan huffed out a sigh, and levered himself down to sit on the floor beside the office chair. Something cold soaked through the butt of his jeans, and he hissed in a breath, silently hoping that he hadn’t just sat in Ford’s blood even though he knew he had. “Look, I didn’t want this either, I ain’t mad that you don’t. If you can get outta being stuck like this, then take the money and run, pal.”

Ford made a noise that might have been a laugh. Stan took it as a good sign.

“Hey, you got, like, a space heater or anything around here?” he asked, shifting in place. Sitting down felt like sweet relief with the sun dragging its way up the horizon, but sitting on the floor was like sitting on a block of solid ice. “You’re gonna want one. Least until you get all humaned up again.”

Ford shook his head. 

“Is it always this cold?” he asked, so quietly that Stan had to strain to hear him.

Stan shrugged one shoulder.

“Pretty much, yeah,” he said, and Ford winced. 

There didn’t seem to be much of anything left to say after that. Stan waited, patiently, hoping that Ford would suddenly - what? Jump up crying and throw himself into Stan’s arms? Admit that he’d messed up and thank Stan for saving his life? The only thing Ford was gonna do, Stan reminded himself sharply, was pass out. He himself was feeling more and more like just putting his head down and going to sleep by the second.

He had to get out of here before that happened.

Stan groaned as he pushed himself to his feet. It felt like trying to bench-press a ton of lead, but he managed to make it upright, even though he felt himself sway dangerously once he was back on his feet.

“Where’re you goin’?” Ford asked, as Stan started towards the door, and Stan had to stop and refocus on his brother’s face.

“Gotta go get my car,” Stan said, with his best big showman’s smile in Ford’s direction. It felt a little sloppy, but that didn’t really matter. Ford’s eyelids were sagging so bad he probably couldn’t even see it anyway. 

“Not right now,” Ford protested, indignant. 

“Yeah right now,” Stan argued. 

“Why?”

“Because -” Stan considered biting his tongue for all of about half a second, but he was too tired and too fed up to even think about it. “Because if I fall asleep here, then the next thing you know, I’m waking up to your little buddy -”

“Research assistant.”

“Your research assistant dousing you in cinnamon and formaldehyde, and then everything’s right back to the way it was.” Stan spat. “An’ you sure as hell don’t want me hanging around after that.”

Ford blinked owlishly up at Stan. Wrapped up in his coat like that, he even looked younger. It wasn’t fair.

“Why not?” he asked, and Stan clenched his jaw, looking around for something convenient to throw.

“Why not - you were the one who said you wanted things to go back to the way they were! Well, that’s how things were for me! You sitting pretty in your - okay, creepy, neglected, but still pretty nice house, doing whatever weird-sciencey stuff it is you do, while I just hit the road until you need me again!” 

Ford blinked some more. Stan was pretty sure he was just trying to keep his eyes open. 

“That wasn’t,” Ford started, and then sucked in a breath and tried again. “Stan. I didn’t realise -”

“Yeah, because you don’t think about anybody other than yourself, do you?” Stan snapped. The look on Ford’s face almost made him regret it. Almost. “You got your stupid house and your stupid journals and your stupid - antidote - and all I got is a fifteen-year-old car and the clothes on my back and a boot in the behind! And you don’t care! You never cared! Not once, in ten years, did you wanna see me or even talk to me, until you needed me for something! And now you got what you want, and you don’t need me anymore.”

It was like giving that speech had used up the last of the energy Stan was using to stay upright. He sank down to the floor, settling on his knees beside the chair Ford was curled up in, and stayed there, too tired to move.

In the silence that descended, Stan could swear he could hear the pipes rattling in the walls. Or maybe that was mice.

“I told myself you were fine.”

It took an enormous effort to raise his head, but Stan did, looking up at his twin. “Huh?”

Ford stared into the middle distance, blinking his eyes open every few seconds. Stan could understand the feeling - his own felt impossibly heavy, and the fever ache was starting to settle into his joints. “Ma always said you’d be all right. You had personality. I never thought -”

His voice cracked, and Ford swallowed. “I never thought you’d want to see me again.”

Stan opened his mouth, and then shut it again. His brain felt like it was taking a million years to process what his ears had just heard. It couldn’t possibly have been real.

"I thought you never wanted to see me again," he finally managed. 

The strangled noise that Ford made might have been the ghost of a laugh.

“I missed you,” he said, quietly.

Stan reached up and vaguely patted his brother’s shin. There didn’t seem to be anything else to do. 

"Missed you too," he said, under his breath.

“Maybe we c’n fix th’ annidote t’work on you too,” Ford slurred, sleepily. 

Stan swallowed around the lump rising in his throat. 

“Yeah, yeah, after you wake up,” he said, giving Ford’s shin another pat. He wasn’t expecting Ford to reach out and put his hand over Stan’s, squeezing just slightly.

“Stan?” Ford asked, and Stan looked up, to see his brother’s eyes wide, clearly fighting to stay alert. His words were careful, and slow, but clear. “Stay. Please.”

The lump in Stan’s throat swelled abruptly, until he could swear it was pushing against the backs of his eyes as well, pressing against his tear ducts. 

Despite everything, he realised, he was smiling.

“Thought you’d never ask,” he said.

...

The green exit signs flashed by overhead as the Stanleymobile shot through the city. Headlights streamed past, growing brighter against the gathering dark by the second. Stan checked the map, and then the overhead signs. Two exits before his turn. One exit.

He spared a glance in the rearview mirror, at the city lights starting to bloom against the dark blue of the night sky, a huge, glittering carnival midway behind him. It grew smaller and smaller the further he drove.

The green sign flashed overhead, and Stan swerved sideways onto the exit ramp, coiling down and around until the road suddenly straightened out. Ahead of him, hundreds of miles of highway stretched, up into the unknown. 

Up into the woods where his brother was waiting.

“Oregon, here I come,” Stan said, to no one in particular.

He reached down and adjusted the postcard propped against the dash, and then stepped on the gas.