Archive of Our Own

It’s raining on Planet Boring. They’ve seen a lot of things in their short time wandering the multiverse together, but this planet’s pretty high up there in terms of ‘yeah, this is basically just Earth’. Ford is marveling at the size of the plants, but it all just looks like Central America to Stan. Besides, it’s raining. 

“There’s a cave up ahead,” Fiddleford says, a hand cupped over his goggles to keep the rain off of them. “Le’s get outta this rain.”

“Sounds good,” Stan says, adjusting his hood to cover his face. It was going to take forever for the damn thing to dry. 

Fiddleford leads the way, carefully weaving up the side of the hill until he can scramble up into the cave. Stan follows, once he makes sure Ford is doing the same. 

“Well,” Fiddleford says, holding out his prosthetic to push the darkness back a bit further. “Reckon it’ll keep us dry, at least.”

Stan squints as he steps inside. Unlike the hill it’s carved into, the ground inside seems pretty flat. He wanders a bit further in, eyes catching against something white woven across one of the walls. 

“Hey, is that—“ Stan cuts himself off as his foot slips, only a small part of it landing on solid ground while the rest drops out from under him. 

He stumbles slightly, ankle slamming painfully against rock as his foot lodges itself in the crevice. He reaches out to steady himself against the wall, but pulls away in disgust as soon as he feels it.

“Spider webs,” Fiddleford provides helpfully. 

“Won’t you ever watch where you’re going?” Ford huffs, looking at the tangle of webs disdainfully.

“Oh yeah, Poindexter? Wanna tell Fidds here how many times I had to pull you out of traffic because you had your big ugly nose in a book?”

“We have the same nose! And besides—“

“He doesn’t need to tell me, I had to do the same thing for him in college,” Fiddleford chimes in with a smirk. Ford’s face flushes with indignation as Stanley barks out a laugh.

“It’s different when we’re in a potentially dangerous dimension that we know next to nothing about!” Ford huffs.

“Yeah yeah, I’m an idiot, just get me out of this shit,” Stan grumbles, tugging ineffectively at his trapped leg. It’s flexible, but at this point that really just means that it won’t break easy. 

“I gotcha,” Fiddleford says, raising his prosthetic. Stan leans away. 

“Woah, hey, I dunno if that’s really necessary!” Stan yelps, holding his hands up placatingly. 

“The claws, Stanley,” Fiddleford reassures, but there’s a worrying glint of gleeful amusement in his eyes. “I ain’t gonna blast your foot off.”

“Yeah, obviously not,” Stan scoffs, folding his arms. He knew that. 

“Hurry, won’t you? The cave opens up further in,” Ford calls, voice echoing. He's far enough away that Stan can barely see the shape of him in the dim light of the cave. 

“Don’t you go wandering off!” Fiddleford snaps, and oh yeah, he really does have a kid, because that there’s a dad voice. 

“I won’t go far!” 

“Darn right you won’t, because you’re gonna turn right around and come back over here!” 

Ford sighs, but he turns to face them and doesn’t go any further. 

Fiddleford echoes the sigh with a shake of the head that looks pretty fond from where Stan is standing. With one foot in a crack full of spider webs. He directs his attention back to Stan and kneels in front of him. 

“Woah, take me out to dinner first,” Stan jokes, hooking a thumb into his belt loop. 

“Shut your mouth, Lee,” Fiddleford laughs, steadying his flesh hand against the floor. 

Shit, he hasn’t been Lee in years. If Ford hadn’t all but called dibs already, Stan’d be all over that man like a seagull on the fries of an unsuspecting tourist. He laughed at his joke and everything! 

What a guy. A guy currently clawing at the spider webs around his leg, even. His palm is a little too big to fit in the crack Stan had jammed his foot into, but he sure is trying his best. Stan sighs and resigns himself to standing there for a bit. For lack of anything better to do, he idly looks around the cave. For the most part, he can see the rough roof of it, but there’s some sections lost in shadow. There’s one pretty much right above them, in fact, the surrounding stone pulling upwards into a deep crevice. 

It almost looks like something’s moving up there in the dark, but even Stan knows how much the human eye loves seeing things that aren’t there when you’re staring into pitch blackness. 

It really seems like something’s moving, though. 

Stan squints.

“Hey, Fidds, give it a rest for a sec, would ya?” Stan says, wiggling his foot to get his attention. “Pro’lly just my eyes playing tricks on me, but is there something up there?” 

Fiddleford hums, standing up. He lifts his arm above his head, and the dim light of his prosthetic pushes the darkness back just enough for Stan to make out what looks like eight dark eyes staring at them from the shadows.

“Huh,” Fiddleford says, voice pitching up slightly. “Yup, reckon you’re right.” 

Just as he says that, the thing in the darkness skitters closer. With its head fully lit as Fiddleford rears around to face it, Stan knows it’s a spider, if the eight eyes weren’t enough to clue him in. It’s an ugly one too, eight eyes bulging grotesquely from a dark, shiny head. Two giant fangs protrude from the bottom of its face, with two little legs shifting as it stares at them. Little is a relative description, of course, because they’re about the length of his forearm which is far too large for any part of a spider to be, if you ask Stan. 

“What are you waiting for, blast that thing!” Stan demands, and suddenly the spider lunges. 

Fiddleford yelps, throwing out his prosthetic to catch it before those fangs can hit something more delicate. They clack against the metal, shifting as they try to dig into something with no give. The sudden weight of the spider knocks Fiddleford off his feet, sending him stumbling into Stan, who’s only there to catch him because his foot’s stuck. Luckily, their combined weight is enough to wrench his foot free, which, unluckily, means all three of them hit the floor. 

Fiddleford rolls off of Stan, tugging the spider along with him. Considering the things got eight legs beneath it, the movement does nothing to knock it off balance. Its weird little legs prod at Fiddleford’s chest. Stan rolls to his feet, every muscle tensed. 

The spider pulls away, finally getting wise to the fact that it can’t bite through metal. With his prosthetic now free, Fiddleford pulls back just far enough to claw it across the face, catching at least three of its gross eyes. It rears back, legs scrambling to get the threat away from itself, and oh shit, have spiders always had a nasty pair of little claws on the end of each leg? 

Stan glances towards the entrance of the cave. 

There’s not a lot of force behind the movement, not when it’s just trying to get away, but its claws scramble against the flimsy fabric of Fiddleford’s shirt and tear it with ease. Judging by Fiddleford’s pained yelp, they make it through more than that. 

He’s spent a long-ass time looking out for nobody but himself, but there was a time before that when his brother was his first priority. Nothing much has changed, then. Ford would kill him if he let his boy get killed, and besides, Stan kinda likes the guy himself. 

Leaving his typical taunting out just this once— it would be lost on a spider anyway— Stan threads his fingers through his brass knuckles and lunges. He doesn’t know what his good ol’ fists will do against a spider as big as he is, but the answer seems to be ‘enough’. 

The spider lets out a wet noise as his fist cracks through its exoskeleton. He rears back on instinct, because gross, and that gives the beast enough time to turn itself towards him. Its five remaining eyes don’t have a shred of humanity to them, but Stan still gets the impression of a hateful glare. He pulls back for another blow, straight between those ugly eyes, but the spider lunges before he can. He steps to the side, but a person-sized spider is a lot wider than a person-sized person, and two of the legs catch him, bringing him towards that awful mouth. Those weird little mouth legs grab at his arm, and he struggles against its grip. He leans far enough away that its mouth lands far from his throat, but that’s the best he can say about it. It still lands, fangs sinking into his arm. 

Stan grunts against the sharp stab of pain, but the spider made a big mistake— it grabbed his non-dominant arm. He can’t throw his whole body into it like he should, but he can still punch this thing in the head, over and over and over until his arm is covered in bug blood and its legs stop twitching around him. 

“Stanley! Fiddleford!” Ford shouts, suddenly deciding to show back up now that the action is over. “Fiddleford! What happened?”

“Big spider,” Fiddleford grunts, sitting up. He’s got a hand pressed over the worst of the wounds, and now that Stan’s looking, there sure is a lot of blood staining his shirt. 

“I see that!” Ford says tightly, sparing the spider a glance. His eyes briefly spark with that bright-eyed nerd look, but it’s pretty quickly drowned out by concern. “Come on, there's a place deeper in where we can rest.”

“Are we sure this is the only spider here?” Stan asks, pulling his arm free of the fangs. It is not a graceful dismount, tearing at the skin around the punctures. 

“Well, the vast majority of spider species are incredibly asocial, many even resorting to cannibalism if other food sources are unavailable,” Ford says in that enthusiastic lecturer tone that Stan can’t help but roll his eyes at. “Judging by the size and web-building habits of this individual, I have no reason to believe it’s an exception.”

“Alright, pretty sure I caught most of that,” Stan says. “Lead the way, Poindexter.”

“I shall,” Ford agrees, helping Fiddleford to his feet. Fiddleford hisses against the movement, pressing his hand more firmly to the worst of his wounds as Ford swings his prosthetic over his shoulder. He slumps a bit beneath its weight. “I forgot how heavy this thing is. You really wear this every day?”

“Y’know I do,” Fiddleford says. His accent means he’s always shoving words together, but the slur is coming in hard and fast. He’s losing a lot of blood. How much space is between the surface of someone’s skin and the inside of their organs, and how long were those claws again? 

Stan isn’t a doctor, and even though the Fords have like, a hundred doctorates between them, he’s pretty sure none of them are medical. Still, it’s not like Stan of all people will be any help.

Ford half-carries Fiddleford into the next room of the cave, even if it’s a bit of a squeeze to get through the narrow passageway. While it’s further from the entrance, there’s an opening in the roof letting the rain trickle down into a shallow pool. That natural skylight is the only opening other than the one they just came through, and the room is small enough that Stan can see all of it, even in the dim light filtering through the clouds and into the cave. It’s a little slice of paradise, other than the giant dead spider a few feet away and the guy bleeding out all over his brother.

Stan’s been in worse places.

Ford lowers Fiddleford to the ground as soon as they enter the room. He sits down with him, all but cradling that scrawny little mechanic in his lap. 

“Y’kay, Lee?” Fiddleford mumbles, rolling his head towards Stan.

“Are you seriously asking that right now?” Ford sighs, exasperated, before Stan can answer. He was going to say just about the same thing, but it confirms that that’s definitely what he should do.

“You’re the one who got gored by a giant spider, Fidds,” Stan says, waving his uninjured hand dismissively. “You can worry about other people when your blood’s back where it’s supposed to be.” 

“Precisely. Now where do you keep those gauze…” Ford’s voice fades out as Stan wanders off. There isn’t anywhere to go, really, so Stan washes off the worst of the bug blood in the pond, then meanders his way over to sit against the opposite wall. There’s a clear view of both the Fords and the entrance. 

He checks that Ford is still focused on Fiddleford— he is, completely and utterly— before he carefully rolls up one sleeve of his jacket to check the bite. There’s two messy holes in his arm, still bleeding sluggishly. The skin around the wounds is flushed red. 

Stan may be the idiot of the group, but even he knows this is bad news. Spiders are usually poisonous, right? Does that apply to alien spiders that are huge? Probably. 

The small part of his brain that still cares about logic and being alive says he should tell the Fords immediately, before things get worse. The louder, larger part of his brain stomps it down and kicks its corpse for good measure.

Fiddleford looks like he’s got more blood outside of his body than in it. He is clearly the first priority for Ford, and with good reason, even if a small, childish part of Stan rankles at the idea. Besides, spider venom probably wasn’t the worst thing Stan’s had injected into his body, and he’s survived everything else. 

It hurts, but not that badly. There’s a faint ache spreading up his arm, but it’s probably just from the way that damn thing had grabbed it. He’s fine. 

He’ll sneak over and grab one of those awful bottles of whatever Fiddleford uses to keep wounds clean when Ford’s done fretting over all their medical shit. He can take care of it himself. With just a few exceptions, Stan’s been the only one taking care of Stan for the past ten years. 

He watches Ford carefully remove Fiddleford’s prosthetic and cleans his wounds, holding him steady even as Fiddleford writhes against the pain of that awful antiseptic against torn flesh. Once Ford has a cap on the bottle and is blotting away the excess blood and liquid, Fiddleford slumps against him. Ford carefully maneuvers around him to bandage the wound properly, mumbling gently all the while. Stan can’t make out the words, but he can guess what he’s saying.

Ford had never been one for reassurances. When he used to patch Stan up all those years ago, he’d run through everything he was doing and why. If he ran out of things to say on that topic, he’d just start talking about whatever else was on his mind. It gave Stan something to focus on other than the pain, so he’d always appreciated that. He can’t tell if Fiddleford feels the same way, can’t read his expression or body language beyond ‘pained’ at this distance. 

Once he’s taken care of, Ford leans against the opposite wall of the cave with a visible sigh. Fiddleford carefully maneuvers himself to curl into Ford’s lap, burying his face in his stomach and fisting his hand into the back of his shirt. Ford takes off his coat, and lays it over him. The cave is honestly pretty hot if you ask Stan, but the gesture is nice. 

“I’ll take first watch,” Ford calls, loud enough to echo through the cave. Fiddleford flinches at the loud noise, and Stan does the same, quickly adjusting his leg to make sure his arm is hidden from view. 

His attempt doesn’t matter, because Ford isn’t even looking. He runs a hand through Fiddleford’s hair as he burrows his face deeper into Ford’s stomach. 

Stan scoffs quietly. He’s a grown man. Stan hasn’t looked for comfort in another person since he was like, ten. 

It does look kind of nice, though. He hasn’t trusted anyone to look after him the way Ford is looking after Fiddleford in over a decade; even Ford got too busy to tend to his every bruise and scrape eventually, and Stan learned to stop bothering him. He learned to set his own nose at fifteen and never looked back. 

Eventually, Ford will get tired and he’ll wake up Stan to get him to take watch. Once that happens, Stan will grab the bottle of antiseptic and the roll of bandages and patch himself up. Until then, Stanley rolls his sleeve back down, and tries to make himself comfortable. 

Stan wakes up to something jostling his shoulder. That never means anything good.

Without even thinking, he scrambles away from the touch, kicking against the ground. His legs barely react, and a dull ache rages through his entire body at the movement. 

Oh, he’s in a real bad way. Even more reason to get the fuck away. His eyelids feel thick as he forces them open. As expected, someone is looming over him. 

His arm twitches towards his pocket, but that’s as far as he gets. His whole body hurts, but his arm’s definitely the worst of it, maybe followed by his chest. It’s hard to breathe. He has no idea how much of that is panic and how much of it is whatever happened to him.

Either way, he’s not about to let himself die here. He doesn’t even know where ‘here’ is. The ground is hard beneath him and the wall is hard behind him and it’s hot. He’s sweating like hell, but what else is new.

“Ge’way,” Stan slurs, raising his other, slightly less painful arm to defend himself. 

“Stanley!” a voice scolds, and the hand releases him. Whoever’s looming over him even takes a step back. “What is the matter with you?”

The voice sounds familiar, but that barely even registers. This person called him by his actual name. 

“Who the fuck’re you?” Stan says, words coming a bit easier now. 

“It’s me, Stanford! Seriously, what is wrong with you?” 

Oh, he got into some real bad stuff. As Stan continues to blink blearily at the person, their features resolve into something very similar to his own. 

This isn’t the first time his addled mind has conjured up a vision of his twin, but it’s a punch in the gut every time. To make matters worse, there’s actually someone here, and his stupid brain is trying to convince him it’s Ford. It’s not Ford. It’s never been Ford and it never will be. The last thing he could remember is…

Shit.

“… Ford?”

He blinks a few more times. The face glaring down at him remains that of his twin brother. 

“It’s morning,” Ford says. “Well, it’s midday, actually, but either way, the rain has stopped and we should be looking for a way out of here.” 

“Shoul’ Fidds be movin’ around so soon?” Stan says. Personally, Stan doesn’t feel great about moving around so soon, but he’s not about to say anything for his own sake.

“I shoul’ be fine,” Fiddleford chimes in. “Not lookin’ forward to gettin’ to know the rest of the local wildlife here.” 

“Yeah… yeah, le’s get outta here,” Stan agrees. He steadies himself with his uninjured hand and tries to use it to push himself up. He can’t get his legs underneath himself. That's no good.

“Come on, Stanley,” Ford says impatiently. 

“I’m working on it,” Stan snaps, trying to sound irritated instead of panicked. “I’m not as young as I used to be, ya know.”

“We’re 27, that’s hardly an applicable excuse,” Ford scoffs. 

“Myeh myeh myeh,” Stan mumbles mockingly. 

“Y’alright, Stanley?” Fiddleford asks, supporting himself against Ford as he approaches. 

“Tch, yeah, of course,” Stan grumbles, and tries again. 

His entire body protests, but he manages to stand. His leg spasms beneath him, and he stumbles. He reaches out to steady himself, but his arm doesn’t react as quickly as he hopes, and he ends up just smacking his injured forearm against the cave wall. Sharp, sudden pain shoots through him, so intense that he feels his stomach lurch. He grits his teeth against the surge of nausea, cupping his other hand over his mouth and telling himself he is not going to vomit until it sticks. 

“Stanley!” Fiddleford frets, leaving Ford’s side to reach for Stan. Stan smacks his hand away with a bleary glare. His eyelids still feel weird.

“I’m fine. Just a head rush, y’know how it is,” Stan says. “Let’s get out of here.”

“I…” Fiddleford glances between Stan and Ford. Without anyone to hold on to, his hand flutters down to his abdomen, gently cupping it over his bandaged wound. “Y’know, I said I’d be alright, but I’m already feelin’ a little…”

Ford looks to him with alarm. Fiddleford meets his eyes, and there’s something calculating in his expression. He’s aiming for a very specific reaction, and not even trying to hide his search. If Stan could think straight, he’d probably be able to catch onto his game, easy. 

“Are you okay? Do you— should I check your stitches? Nothing tore, right?” Ford falls for it without a second thought. 

“No, no, I think I just need another day of rest,” Fiddleford says, and there’s a caution to his expression that’s only half-faked. “Is that okay?”

“Of course,” Ford says softly. “I may not have been the most… considerate of your physical and mental limitations in the past, but I truly am trying my best to rectify such transgressions. If you want to rest, we shall rest.”

So that’s his game. Why, though? Is he just testing Ford, seeing how far he can push him until he stops playing nice? He might not be fully lying, it probably is too soon for him to be moving, but he was specifically gunning for this result for reasons beyond his own injury. He had a point, earlier, when he was talking about dangerous wildlife or whatever, so what changed? 

He's missing something that’s staring him right in the face, he’s sure of it. 

“Thank you, Stanford,” Fiddleford sighs. “Sorry to get you up for nothin’ Stanley.”

Stan grunts, and holds his arm as still as possible to avoid further irritation. Just to spite him, his arm twitches against his will. Pain pulses through him with each rapid beat of his heart. He's not actively panicking anymore, but his pulse is still racing. That's no good. 

He tightens his grip on his upper arm. He could swear he feels the rush of toxic blood from the wound to his heart beneath his palm. Spiders have venom, and Stan’s been injected with it.  

Spiders aren’t that dangerous, Ford told him that again and again. He was always sticking up for the weird little animals that everyone hates. Only two spiders in the US have venom that could kill a person. Bites are few and far between. Lethal ones being even fewer and farther between. None of that really applies to giant fuck-off big spider in an alternate dimension though. Do bigger spiders have stronger venom? Does that make sense? A bigger spider definitely has more venom, those fangs were as big as Stan’s hand. 

How fucked is Stan, on a scale from one to ten? Being locked in a car trunk in the deserts of Nevada during a heatwave was probably a nine, so maybe he’d rank this at a seven. The uncertainty could probably boost it up to an eight, though. 

When he ended up in that trunk, he’d already been in plenty of bad situations with a head injury and his hands tied behind his back. He’d even had heat stroke before, knew the symptoms and survived them once before. On some level, he knew what to do and what to expect, and he survived.

Right now, he didn’t know what to do or what to expect. He doesn’t know if he’ll survive.

Maybe it’s a nine.

“Lee?” Fiddleford asks gently. Despite his tone, Stan flinches away, sinking against the wall. He didn’t mean to do that. His legs feel so weak. It hurts. Everything hurts and it’s hard to breathe.

“Stanley, are you alright?” Ford asks, and it’s weird to have his concern again. It’s been over a decade. It was weird to see him fret over Fiddleford, but this is definitely weirder. 

“Feel… not so good,” Stan admits. He doesn’t mean to, but most of his body isn’t listening to him, so why should his big dumb mouth?

“Oh, Stanley…” Fiddleford whispers. “What happened?”

“Bit. Nasty lil’… fucker… stupid fangs…”

“Chelicerae,” Ford corrects, seemingly without thinking. He kneels down in front of Stan, holding out a hand. Part of Stan wants to flinch away, but he counts the fingers and can’t bring himself to.

One two three four five, the thumb makes six. The thumb isn’t technically a finger. Is that true? Ford would know. He’s always been called a six-fingered freak, so it doesn’t really matter. One two three four five six. 

“Where’d it get you, Lee?”

Lee. Stan wishes Ford still called him Lee. How long has it been?

Fiddleford is nice, but he’s not his brother. He missed his brother so much. He still misses him.

“Stanley, where did it get you?” Ford says, a bit more harshly. No, not harsh, just firm. Stan’s heart stutters anyway. He doesn’t want Ford to be mad at him anymore.

Ford is still holding out his hand. Oh, Stanley gets it now. Even though he really wants to lean forward and press his forehead to Ford’s hand, he extends his arm instead. It’s shaking. 

“‘S hot in here,” he says. 

“It’s really not, but we should get you outta that jacket anyhow,” Fiddleford says, reaching for Stan.

Fiddleford is nice, but he flinches away anyway, curling closer to Ford. Fiddleford doesn’t push the issue. He takes his hand back, holds it awkwardly in front of his chest. Ford used to do that too, before he got into the habit of hiding his hands. Made him look like a t-rex. 

“D’you still like dinosaurs?” Stan tries to say. He’s pretty sure most of the noises come out, but Ford doesn’t respond to him either way. He just carefully starts rolling up Stan’s sleeve.

He didn’t want Ford to see his arm. He doesn’t exactly remember why, he’s having a hard time thinking that far back, but it seems important. He tries to pull away. He’s always been stronger than Ford, but it doesn’t work. 

Is it Ford holding his arm? 

One two three four five six. In all his time traveling, he’s never met someone like Ford.

It’s definitely Ford. The brush of cloth hurts and he doesn’t want Ford to see, but it’s Ford. He’s really good at secrets, but not when it comes to his brother.

“Shit,” Ford says sharply, hand tightening around his wrist. “Sweet Moses, Stanley, what were you thinking!?”

Oh, right, that’s why Stan didn’t want him to see. He’s mad. 

“Tha’s your job…” Stan says, trying very hard to get the words out. 

“Why didn’t you tell us?” Ford continues. 

He probably heard him, he just doesn’t care. 

He misses when his brother cared about him. He misses his brother. 

“Stanley!” he scolds, and Stan swallows back a pathetic noise. He sounds like Pa when he talks like that. 

One two three four five six. The grip on his wrist is firm, steadying the shaking, but the fingers tracing the reddened skin around the bite are gentle. 

Pa wasn’t always cruel, but he was never ever gentle. 

Ma was. Her hands were bony and shook more often than not, but they were gentle.

He misses Ma too. He’ll probably never see her again. She’s getting old. She’ll die and only one son will attend her funeral. 

Shermie keeps in touch with her. Stan calls when he can but he loses track of time so easily. Ford does too. How often does he call? Does he answer when she does? Despite everything, he always answered Stan’s calls, even though he never said anything. Because he never said anything, actually. How quickly would he have hung up if he knew who was on the other end?

Ford is talking. He sounds frantic. He can’t decide whether the fear is better or worse than the anger. 

“I’m ‘kay,” Stan tries, flailing his injured hand in an attempt to pat Ford’s arm soothingly. His fingers brush against him, but that’s about it.

“No, you’re not,” Ford growls, returning his attention to Stan. It was off him, for a second, he was talking to… “that’s the problem, Stanley, how could you hide this from us?” 

“I ain’t happy about it either, but now’s not the time for a lecture,” Fiddleford says, right, yeah, Fiddleford. 

“What is it time for?” Ford says, more desperate than combative. 

“It’s time to see what all’s goin’ on. If we get an idea as to the toxin, we can figure out how best to deal with it,” Fiddleford says, sitting down beside Ford. “Hey, Stanley, can you answer a few questions for me?”

Stan looks to Ford for guidance. He seems confused, but he nods.  

“Please,” Ford requests.

“Mhm,” Stan says, nodding once. 

“Alright, thank you,” Fiddleford says, reaching over to Ford and shoving a hand into his coat. He fishes out one of those journals he’s always carrying around, and surprisingly, Ford lets him. He flips to an empty page, clicks the pen a few times, and nods to himself.

“Can you describe your symptoms, or should I give you some yes or no questions?”

Stan shrugs one shoulder. 

“I’s hot, and my stomach kinda hurts,” Stan says haltingly. “Everything kinda hurts, actually, feels stiff, an’ it’s a lil hard t’ breathe, an’ my eyes feel weird.”

Fiddleford scribbles this all down quickly. He doubts his notes will be legible to anyone other than himself later. He looks more and more troubled the more he writes, and the expression is mirrored by Ford.

“‘s not so bad,” Stan tries, and the grip on his wrist tightens. Fiddleford huffs unhappily, looking up at Stan. 

“Lemme see those peepers,” Fiddleford says, not even acknowledging Stan’s attempt at reassurance. 

He leans in close, and Stan leans away. Fiddleford isn’t particularly scary, but he can be, and Stan feels pretty frail right now. 

If he’s feeling pretty frail, the last thing he should do is show it. He should push this guy back twice as hard as he’s pushed him. 

His free fist curls weakly against the ground. That's about as far as it gets. A painful spasm jolts up his arm.

“Swollen,” Fiddleford says, and he leans away. “How’s his pulse?” 

“Elevated,” Ford admits. He sounds scared.

“‘s not that bad,” Stan tries again.

“Stop saying that!” Ford snaps, loud and harsh. 

Stan flinches, squeezing his eyes shut. 

Fuck. They got into plenty of arguments as kids, but the last time Ford used that tone with him—

“Quit your barking, boy!” Fiddleford scolds, smacking Ford upside the head.

There's no real force to it, more of a pat than a smack. Stan jolts anyway, trying to pull Ford closer. His arm just twitches in his grip. 

“Believe me when I say I ain’ happy ‘bout this either, not ‘bout Stanley getting hurt in the firs’ place, not ‘bout him hidin’ it, and not ‘bout his constant downplayin’ o’ somethin’ so serious,” Fiddleford says, accent so thick and words so fast Stan barely catches any of them. “But he’s in a real bad way right now, and you yellin’ at him ain’ helping!”

“I’m not yelling!” Ford yells. 

Fiddleford just scoffs and turns away. 

“Sounds ta me like a neurotoxin,” Fiddleford says, carefully calm now that his attention is on Stanley. 

“Neuro, like, brain?” 

That sounds bad. That sounds real bad. 

“Neuro like neural tissue, the nervous system at large,” Fiddleford says, and then, a bit more quickly, like he doesn’t want Stan to hear it, “not just the brain, but certainly including it, yes.”

Well. 

Shit.

That’s a new form of brain damage for him to blame his stupidity on. Assuming he even makes it out of this alive. 

“If it makes ya feel better, I’ve gotten quite a hefty dose of neurotoxin m’self, and the only lastin’ damage was psychological!” Fiddleford says with a shaky grin. 

Ford’s grip tightens around Stan’s wrist. 

“Really?” Stan asks. He’s not sure if he’s curious or seeking reassurance. Probably a little bit of both. 

“Spent a solid day barfin’ my guts out, so you’re doin’ better than me.” 

“… that does kinda make me feel better, actually.” 

“Happy t’ help,” Fiddleford says, faintly amused. “I’m gonna go get my bag. I know it’ll hurt, but we gotta clean out those wounds.”

Stan’s shoulder aches at the mere thought.

“It would have been easier and more effective if we cleaned it out when these wounds were first opened,” Ford mumbles angrily.

The fingers poking around the wound get a bit harsher, and Stan’s arm jerks. His fingers go soft again, an apology he refuses to actually voice.

“But we didn’t,” Fiddleford says. “It’d be easier if none of us got hurt in the first place, but that didn’t happen either. We just gotta make the best of what we ended up with.” 

“You’re being incredibly permissive,” Ford grumbles.

“I ain’t his dad,” Fiddleford scoffs, grabbing his bag. “I ain’t about to go lecture him when he’s already sufferin’ for his choices.”

Stan mumbles something about his own dad and insult to injury (further injury to injury?) and Fiddleford’s parenting, but even in his own head it doesn’t end up making any sense. 

Fiddleford returns, and Stan is suddenly reminded of what they were doing in the first place. As Stan tries to shy away, Ford’s grip tightens around his wrist, and the other grips him at the elbow. One two three four five six fingers wrapped around his arm. Counting them is the only thing that keeps him from kicking away. Well, that and the stiff ache of every part of his dumb body, but he’s even less likely to admit to that. 

“Sorry, Lee,” Fiddleford mumbles, carefully wiping away the dried blood with a damp cloth. “Shoot, it really did a number on ya, huh?”

“It’s…” Stan suddenly remembers Ford’s reaction to his earlier dismissals, and decides on, “yeah, guess so.”

Fiddleford starts to rub at the scabs, gently wiping away what little protection had formed there. It definitely hurts, but Stan knows it’s only going to get worse. 

“So, we just clean it out and hope for the best?” Stan asks between gritted teeth. 

“‘fraid so, ‘less we find a horse and a couple months of free time before you recover.”

“A horse?” Stan echoes, baffled.

“Yeup. You synthesize an antivenom by injecting a horse with a small dose of the relevant toxin over time,” Fiddleford explains, wiping away the blood that wells up to replace the scabs. “It builds up some antibodies that can be isolated and injected alongside an anti-inflammatory… which I suppose we also don’t have.”

“Why a horse?” Stan asks, watching wearily as Fiddleford rings the cloth out and soaks it again with the antibiotic. Antiseptic? Which was it? Was there a difference? There’s a topic to distract them with once they’re done talking.

“… y’know, I don’t rightly know.”

“I suppose it may work with any mammal,” Ford muses, glancing towards the way into the body of the cave. 

“Don’t even think about it, fella,” Fiddleford snaps, and Stan feels himself lose track of the conversation. “Stanley’s gonna be just fine without you doin’ anythin’ stupid.” 

“Obviously! It’s just… something to consider in the future.” 

“It absolutely ain’t. If any of us get poisoned, none of the rest of us are gonna start poisoning ourselves to try an’ fix it!” Fiddleford insists. “And besides, if we did, I would be the one to do it since I’ve already been dosed with neurotoxins!”

“We have no idea how chemically similar this spider’s venom is to that of the Gremloblin, despite the similar symptoms!” Ford protests, releasing Stan’s arm like he’s about to start gesturing before he puts it back. “Any antibodies you developed, supposing that they haven’t already been lost, may be entirely irrelevant!” 

“And besides, it’s a gradual process that wouldn’t be of any use to us now, we have no way to isolate the antibodies, and injection without an anti-inflammatory could cause an allergic response that’d only worsen the condition,” Fiddleford agrees. “So this ain’t a particularly useful line of thinkin’ at all.” 

As the period to that particular conclusion, Fiddleford finally presses the wet cloth to Stan’s wounds. For a split second, he thinks, huh, that’s not so bad, before the pain sets in quickly and very, very intensely. 

The bite has hurt like hell ever since he first got it, and it’s only been getting worse. The gradual increase in pain spikes, so intense and sudden that Stan can’t muffle a cry as his vision goes white. He tries to breathe in, but his chest locks up, his entire body seizing. 

Oh fuck, Stan thinks, and that’s the only thing he can think for a long time. Maybe not so long. It could last anywhere between a few seconds to several hours, Stan has no idea.

Fiddleford and Ford are talking, but it’s just noise to him. Stan grits his teeth so hard he’s certain he can hear them creaking. He wonders if his partials or his actual teeth are tougher. He feels like both of them are seconds away from shattering. He’s seconds away from shattering. Ford’s grip on his arm is tight enough to hurt but it’s nothing in comparison to the white-hot agony between his hands.

He thinks he might hate Fiddleford, actually. He can’t keep getting away with this.

He comes back to himself eventually. For some reason, he’s laying down now, no idea when that happened. His head in Ford’s lap and his arm propped up on a small stack of stones blanketed in Stan’s jacket. It still hurts like a bitch, but at least he can think straight. Straighter. Still not entirely straightly. 

His arm is all bandaged up now, which is nice. As Stan glances around what little bits of the cave he can see without moving his neck, he realizes he can’t see Fiddleford. Stupidly, that’s a bit of a relief. 

Ford has held him in place while Fiddleford poured white hot acid all over his wounds, but it’s Ford. Ford could dissect him alive without anything to help with the pain and he’d still trust him with his life. That’s his brother. 

He blinks blearily up at Ford’s face. He’s not looking at him. He’s looking down at a book he’s got sitting on the ground next to Stan’s head, tapping a five-fingered rhythm against the pages. 

Stan hums, just because he can. Ford jolts, and Stan hears the paper wrinkle beneath his fingers. Oops.

“Stanley! Hello, are you— how are you feeling?” Ford says, looking down at Stan like he’s a weird bug. A cool weird bug that he cares about, maybe, but there’s that bright-eyed scientific curiosity. 

Bad. So so bad I feel terrible, part of him wants to respond, loud and stupid and childish. Do you remember how you used to run your fingers through my hair when I was sick, even though Ma and Pa told you to stay away so you wouldn’t get sick too? And then you would get sick, and I had to take care of you. I miss that, I miss you, I love you.

I’ve been better, but I’ve also been worse, another says, practical and honest. Probably feeling a bit better than I was last time I was conscious.

Totally fine, another part insists. Let’s get outta here. 

“Mmmgh,” he settles on. “Could be worse.” 

“How would you rate your current pain on a scale from zero to ten, with zero being no pain at all, and ten being such severe pain that you can’t move, think, or speak?” Ford asks. “Well, I suppose it’s not a ten, since you’re speaking mostly coherently.”

Ten! Ten! We’re dying, you have to save us!

Maybe a seven. My brain’s a scrambled egg but most of it is saying ouch. 

Zero, we’re fine, let’s go. 

“Eh, a five I guess?” Stan says, rounding down.

“I see, so about a seven,” Ford muses, followed by the scrape of a pen against paper. 

“Hey!” Stan barks. 

He’s kind of mad that Ford doesn’t believe him, but the rest of him is so, so happy. His dumb genius of a brother remembers him, he knows him, they still speak the same language. 

“You’ve always been this way, Lee,” Ford says, and his eyes return to Stan’s face. 

Lee. Lee Lee Lee. Ford stopped calling him that in what, high school? Even earlier? The sudden return of their childhood nickname stirs such a flurry of emotions that he stops breathing. His chest hurts in general, but there’s suddenly a pleasant edge to that pain. 

He huffs out a breath that sounds dangerously close to a whine. He’s embarrassed by how emotional he’s feeling, but he can’t stop staring up at Ford’s face, even as his vision starts to blur. He blinks to clear it, ignoring the wetness running down his cheek, and gets to watch as Ford’s eyes go wide. 

He’s got dark circles. He always does. Bill can’t follow them everywhere, but Ford still avoids sleep whenever he can. 

“Why are you crying?” Ford asks, then immediately winces. Stan huffs out a laugh. He’s so bad at being comforting.

“‘m not,” Stan scoffs, and he doesn’t even care if Ford believes him. “It’s cave dust, genius.”

Ford’s lips twitch, even as his brows remain furrowed. 

“Yes, alright,” Ford says placatingly. “Do you think you can sit up?”

“Pfft, yeah, easy, done it a million times before,” Stan says, even as his stomach rolls in protest to the muscles flexing around it.  

Ford helps him up anyway, one hand on his back, the other holding his arm steady as he props him up against the wall of the cave. Now that he’s up and able to see more than what’s directly above him, he can see Fiddleford tinkering with some scrap metal on the other side of the cave. He’s staring over at Stan, but as soon as their eyes meet he just gives him a tight smile and looks away. For all of his usual fretting, he stays where he is. 

“Some water,” Ford says, drawing Stan’s attention. 

He’s holding out a packet of water, the lid already twisted off. They’re running low, and Fiddleford hasn’t finished his water filter, hasn’t put together everything he needs for it. 

Stan hesitates to take it, but Ford just shoves it into his hand. Stan doesn’t really have the energy to fight it. The moment the water hits his tongue, he realizes just how thirsty he is. 

He hums appreciatively, slumping against the cave wall. Fiddleford told him something about drinking slowly at some point? Eh. If he’s going slow, it's only because holding up his arm for long enough to drain the packet is kinda a pain. 

As soon as he’s done with the water, Ford exchanges the empty packet for a food bar. 

Stan frowns down at it. His stomach rolls, but he can’t really tell if it’s hunger or nausea. 

Moses, he’d kill for some plain crackers to test the water. Acid. Stomach acid. 

He really does not want to eat this thing. He’s fairly sure the only thing that kept him from throwing up earlier (yesterday? He has no idea how long he’s been out) was his empty stomach. An empty stomach that’s only getting emptier. Stan should know better than to turn up his nose to a free meal.

Ugh. 

Stan sighs, but tears it open and nibbles at one corner. His stomach tenses in anticipation, and a dull ache laces through his jaw. It tastes fine, and his stomach doesn’t hurt any worse, but he finds himself exhausted by the time he’s done. 

It must be pretty bad, because even Ford seems to pick up on it. He eases him back down. He’s still sweating like a hog, but his skin has erupted into goosebumps and he misses the familiar comfort of his ratty jacket around him. He’s glad it’s nearby, at least.

He means to run the fingers of his injured arm along the fabric of his jacket, but can’t manage much more than a twitch. So that’s still beyond his capabilities. Noted.

“Hey, Ford…?” he mumbles. 

“Yes, Stanley?”

Thank you. I love you. Why are you being so nice to me?

“Shouldn’ we get a move on?” 

“We will,” Ford says, and he runs his fingers through Stan’s hair. “As soon as you’re feeling better.”