Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

When Ford fell asleep at the desk Stan rushed to wake him up. Bill was faster. In a blink it was sitting up, smiling and looking around the room. Then it pushed away from the desk, ignoring Stan and making its way towards the elevator.

Stan had a choice here. Bill was focused on going downstairs, he could hide up here, escape notice and hope for the best.

Or he could try and stall him, give Ford enough time to wake up. Defend the doomsday device downstairs.

Stan did like living on Earth, so quickly he launched himself off the desk and onto its back, digging his claws into its hair. Bill shouted, lurching back and bringing its hands up to grab him. Stan jumped down, then started biting its legs. Ford’s pants took most of the damage, but they also covered the taste of Bill.

He jumped back when Bill tried to kick at him, and it used the time to rush towards the elevator, opening the doors and slamming them shut in Stan’s face. He yowled at the doors, scratching at them.

“Nice try Little Fish,” Bill said, “But I’ve got a portal to start and a party to get to. I’ll come back for you later, so sit tight” its voice was already moving down, bringing it to the portal.

Stan looked around the room, frantic. In the corner was a spiral staircase. Stan had never gone down it, but chances were it led down to the sub-basement. There wasn’t anything else for him to try.

He ran to the staircase and went down as quickly as he could. It wasn’t as fast as he liked, his short cat legs didn’t have much traction on the metal stairs. He didn’t want to slip and fall, the last thing he needed was a broken leg. Below him he saw a blue glow, and the staircase started to shake.

Too slow.

He reached the bottom just as Ford’s body slumped over the controls. The blue light from the window changed to a sickly purple and a giant hand burst through the glass and grabbed Ford, pulling him back through. Stan ran to the open door and froze, looking at Bill for the first time.

His fur rose on end as he looked at it.

The triangle was black, with a pulsing yellow glow moving through it. In the center was a single yellow eye, staring intently at Ford in its hand. The black surface seemed to be writhing, like something underneath was moving. The shadows in the room seemed to be reaching towards it, and very faintly he could hear the sounds of screaming, voices drowning each other out. Its awful smell filled the room, making it hard to breath. It was wearing a top hat.

Everything inside him to run, get as far away as possible and hide. Hope it forgot about him.

Then he heard Ford groan, and he knew what he had to do.

Stan jumped onto the nearby machinery, trying to get higher. Bill was saying something, Ford shouting back at it but Stan ignored it. If he didn’t focus then his body would run, and he wouldn’t abandon his brother to this thing.

Once he got as high as he could, he looked back down. Figures were emerging from the portal, laughing. Slightly below him was Ford, still clutched in Bills fist and struggling to get free, yelling something.

Now or never.

Stan backed up to make space, then ran and launched himself at the arm, aiming to bite it and force the hand to let go.

Touching Bill like this felt like he was sinking in tar, the sticky feeling creeping up his legs. Stan ignored it, digging in his claws and biting the arm holding his brother. The arm shook a bit, trying to dislodge him, and its taste flooded his mouth like black licorice and acid. Stan held on regardless, determined to make Bill let go.

Something grabbed at him, trying to pull him off. Stan hissed, shaking his head and dug his claws in further. Whatever had him pulled harder, ripping him from the arm and surrounding him in tar. He yowled, trying to break free, then stopped when Bill started squishing him more, pushing the breath from his lungs.

“Little Fish! Came to join the party huh!” Bill said, giant eye filling Stan’s vision, “I gotta admit, you surprised me here! Actually attacking my physical form, you must feel terrible huh!” its giant thumb came and squished his head and Stan hissed.

He did feel terrible. In less than ten minutes it already felt like it had been holding him for hours.

“Nikola!” Ford yelled from the other hand, reaching towards Stan, “Let him go Bill, he has nothing to do with any of this!” Stan blinked at him, thoughts already fuzzy.

“Hey now, it chose to come down here. I gave it plenty of chances to ditch you, but its too stupid to know when to quit” Bill rubbed the top of Stan’s head, and he tried to bite its hand. His mouth felt like it was full of bees.

“And now look at it, still fighting me. If we hadn’t spent so long bonding like you asked, I would have crushed it into dust already!” the grip got tighter, and Stan hissed, blinking at it, “But it’s grown on me, like mold, so I’ll keep it around for a bit.”

Bill let go and Stan dropped. Then a small cage appeared below him and he slammed into it.

“There we go, now it won’t get underfoot. In the meantime,” Bill pointed to the ceiling and the house above them exploded outward, revealing the multi colored sky, “Lets get this party started!”

More figures came from the portal, cheering and laughing as they climbed out of the basement.

Stan tried to follow what was happening, but his brain was scattered and his body felt like lead. He blinked and saw Ford, who was yellow now? Then the world shuddered, and he closed his eyes.

He just wanted to go to sleep.

The only good thing about the cage was it had bars. Apparently, he wasn’t ‘as fun’ when he was terrified out of his mind. Stan was just happy he could see what was happening around him.

Once he’d gotten feeling back in his legs and didn’t feel like moving would kill him, he took a look around to see where Bill had put him. It looked like a penthouse full of nightmares. The lighting was dark, half the furniture had eyes, and the other half kept breathing. There was also a picture of a yellow Bill on the wall, wearing a crown, which just confused him.

The cage was set on a small table in between two breathing chairs. They kept looking at him, and one of them was sticking out its tongue. The whole place made his teeth buzz (or it could have been from biting Bill) and the air was thick with his gross smell. The only sounds came from the fire place.

When he was feeling better, he started working on his escape. The bars were pretty thick, but the lock was right in front of him. If he could get a claw in it, he might be able to unlock it, get free and then do…. something. There weren’t any doors he could see, but that was a later problem.

He had just managed to bend his arm to reach when something flashed in the corner of his eye, startling him. in the middle of the room was a gold statue. Of Ford.

Ok, maybe Stan had misunderstood Ford’s relationship with the demon, if it was decorating its room with statues of his brother. Gold statues with chains?

Then the gold started melting off, revealing the actual Ford underneath.

“-stop you! you…” Ford stopped, staring around the room  in confusion.

Ford! Stan meowed, banging at the bars. Ford jumped and turned, then rushed over to him.

“Nikola! You’re OK! You- oof!” Just before he reached Stan, Ford stopped, looking down at the chain wrapped around his foot. Piano music filled the air, and Bill appeared, singing and playing on a piano that came up from the floor.

Stan really misunderstood their relationship.

“Bill! Ford shouted, backing away, “Where am I!”

Stan ignored them as they started talking, going back to sticking his claw in the lock. If Bill was focused on Ford, then he wouldn’t notice-

The furniture started moving across lifting off the floor and Stan found himself floating on the opposite side of the room before being dropped to the ground. He yowled, jerking his arm back into the bars and glared at Bill.

Who was glaring right back.

“Listen brainiac,” Bill said, and the world twisted as Stan now found himself across the room, cage now in front of Bill, “I want my party to span the entire dimension, and to do that I need you to figure out how to get that barrier down. If you won’t do it willingly, then maybe you need some motivation.”

The cage melted around him, Bill snatching Stan from the ground before he could blink. He yowled, trying to get away from the feeling quickly creeping into his skin. He could hear Ford shouting, but all he could focus on was Bill.

“I’ve been meaning to dig into this things brain anyway, find out why it keeps sticking around. You just moved up the deadline” and then Bill stuck its hand into Stan’s head.

Pain exploded inside his mind. It felt like Bill was shoving needles into his eyes. He could feel it digging around, and he desperately tried to get free, get away, get it OUT!

Then he felt something inside him SNAP.

His body went numb, blood roaring in his ears. Whatever had broken had been keeping the worst of it at bay, but now it was shattered to pieces. Bill’s presence flooded his mind, filling it with laughter, and it grabbed something in him and pulled.

The world warped and he found himself on the ground, staring at the ceiling. His brain felt like static, like something important had been crushed. There was a buzzing sound in his ears, and distantly something was pulling at him.

Oh. It was Ford.

His face looked funny, and he was shaking him, but Stan couldn’t make out the words. He stared at his brother for a bit, blinking at him, then looked around in a daze. Bill was floating over them still, and it looked weird. Like someone has smashed the picture on the wall on top of it. Parts of it were still the horrifying black, but other parts were a bricky yellow.

It was saying something, or maybe laughing. Stan couldn’t tell. Then Ford was in his face again, shouting. Ugh. This guy. Didn’t he know that Stan’s brain was falling apart.

“-LEY! STANLEY! Please say something!” oh. Right, that was his name.

“Smmothing” he muttered, shoving a hand in his brother’s face. “G’wy. Head h’rts.”

“Yeah, that happens when you smash the boundaries of a soul. Gotta say, did not see this one coming” and now Bill was here. Jerk. “I thought maybe you had some kind of disease, but Sixer's dumb brother!” it laughed, then floated next to him and ruffled his hair, “No wonder I couldn’t get rid of you! You’re like a kicked dog, always crawling back. Or cat, in this case.”

Wow rude.

“Listen, I’m gonna go tell the guys, give you some time to catch up while we laugh at you. When I come back” at this Bill grabbed Ford, pulling him up to look him in the eye, “you better be ready to work on that barrier, or you wont like what happens next” it dropped him, floating away and down through the floor.

“Remember, I’m always watching! So don’t try anything.”

And then it was just them. On the floor.

“Stanley” Ford said, crawling towards him. He leaned over him, cradling Stan’s head and…

Rubbing his ears?

It felt weird. His whole body felt weird. Buzzy.

“Stanley, are you ok?” Right. Ford was here.

“’M fine.” He felt like he might be dying, “Hw’r you”

Ford looked like he was about to cry. His face twisted, and he gripped Stan’s head, pulling him up and setting him back down in his lap.

“Stanley” wow Ford loved saying his name, “What are you doing here? How did this happen?”

Ugh. “Y’knw. Ther’ wuz a witch. And th’n I was a cat. You rem’ber the cat?”

Ford sniffed but nodded. Good. “Then you w’re figh’n gnomes? And, I tr’d to tell you. but pens.” Stan sighed, “thy’r hard. And you w’re bein’ mean. So I thought. Let’s j’st be a cat.”

There. That was that and now Ford could let him go back to melting into the floor.

“Stanley,” or not, “I’m sorry. I got you pulled into my mess, and now” something dropped onto his face, making it buzz.  “Now you’re like this. I don’t know if I can fix this.”

Stan focused on Ford’s face. He was crying. That wouldn’t do.

He purred, which sorta made it feel like he was going to vibrate into pieces.

Then Ford started crying harder. Which sucked, because every tear that fell on him was like acid. And he didn’t want Ford to cry.

“Th’re th’re” he reached up and pat Ford on the face. Then stopped. His hand looked kinda weird. Fuzzier.

Meh.

“S’all good. J’st gotta….” Do something. It was hard to get his thoughts in order, “p’nch it.”

Ford let out a shaky laugh, then leaned over him more, still petting his ears for some reason.

“I’ll figure this out Stanley.” Ford whispered, “I’ll get you out of here.”

“g’t you outta h’re” Stan muttered, letting his eyes close. Ford said something else, but Stan was too tired to pay attention.

He’d figure it out later.

Chapter Text

Emma-May had just driven past the Welcome to Gravity Falls sign when the sky turned red and weird bubbles started floating around. She hit the brakes, stopping the car and looking out of the windshield at the chaos in front of her.

Definitely Stanford’s work.

Whatever was going on stopped at the town border, she could see the shimmer that separated whatever was happening here and the regular world outside. She briefly considered leaving the boys, but it was probably safer if they stayed with her.

Emma-May drove halfway to town before abandoning the car, quickly grabbing the emergency backpacks and ushering the children past the tree line.

Just in time, some kind of weird monster prowled down the road. It looked like purple bread with legs. It poked at the caravan, before shaking its face (?) and continuing on. It didn’t look twice at their foot prints in the snow.

After that Emma-May had Shifty turn into a large dog and set Tate on top.

“Whatever happens,” she said, “make sure you stick together. We’re going to make our way to Stanford’s house, so meet me there if we get separated.”

“Yes mom” Tate said, digging his hands into Shifty’s fur. Shifty nodded, looking nervously at the sky.

They stayed in the woods while they followed the road. They heard screaming the closer they got to town, but Emma-May just lead them around, cutting across the forest before they reached the back road to Stanford’s.

At some point a giant black pyramid had appeared in the sky, hovering ominously over the town. From here she could see bats flying in and out of it, carrying something.

One of them flew close enough for her to see it was just an eyeball with wings. She made sure to pull the kids down, and Shifty turned into a large bush to hide them. A moment later it flew off, and they went back to walking. It took a few hours to make it to the house, as more bats filled the sky, and they were forced to hide. They kept hearing screams in the distance, and not only human ones.

Eventually they made it to the final turn of the back road, peering through the trees into the clearing.

Only to find Stanford’s house blown to pieces.

The walls were still there (mostly), but the roof was scattered across the yard, along with furniture and flaming books. Purple light shone from the windows, and the air around it was swarming with more of the eye bats. The only good thing was that she didn’t see Fiddleford or Carla’s cars in the driveway.

Shifty made a keening noise at the sight of it. The window of the attic was smashed to pieces, and some of his toys were lying in the debris.

Emma-May shushed him, quietly backing away and heading deeper into the woods.

“Alright boys new plan” She hunkered down at the base of a large tree, keeping an eye out for anything else, “Stanford is... probably hunkering down somewhere. They tested their project the day after we left, so it’s possible this happened while they weren’t home. we’re going to wait here for a moment, then head to the house and find dad, OK”

“Yes ma” Shifty whispered, turning into Nikola and curling up in Tate’s arms. Tate nodded, then reached out and held her hand.

Together they made their way back to town, hiding whenever a bat swooped by and eventually waiting in the tree line.

After an hour or so the bats seemed to clear out. Emma-May pulled out some water bottles to rehydrate the kids, then held Tates hand as she dashed to the shadow of the nearest building.  

They hopped, house to house, keeping an eye out for any other people or more monsters. A giant head with an arm pulled its way down the road at one point, and they hid behind a trash can as it yelled for someone to walk into its mouth.

Luckly, they didn’t live too far into town, just near the outskirts. Unluckily Fiddleford’s car wasn’t here either.

Emma-May led them inside, quietly locking the door behind her and doing a sweep of the house.

Everything looked fine, although for some reason Carla had made herself very at home in the guest bedroom by the looks of it. The electricity was also out, so Emma-May grabbed all the nonperishables and brought them into the living room, along with blankets and pillows from upstairs. After that she barricaded all the windows and set the security defenses up.

“Alright boys gather close,” She set them up on the floor, surrounded by blankets, “We’re going to hunker down for a day or two, see if anyone comes by. If not, then you’re going to stay here while I look for your dad, OK?”

Tate nodded, clutching a book, but Shifty shook his head.

“But what if moms in trouble, I can help! I have so many forms I can use now!” Currently he was a purple puppet, too upset to try and be human.

Emma-May smiled, rubbing the top of his head before cupping his face.

“I know, that’s why I want you here, to help protect Tate, and have him help protect you. I can’t head out there worrying about you both following me. I need you to be safe, alright?”

Shifty looked ready to argue, but then something else screamed outside and he flinched.

“Alright ma,” he whispered, before turning into Nikola again and burrowing into Tates arms.

Over the next day or so (the light outside didn’t change, and all the clocks had stopped) Emma-May kept an eye on the windows, patrolling the house and looking for survivors. The amount of screams had lessened, although she wasn’t sure if that was a good thing.

Strange creatures prowled the streets, and the eye bats patrolled the sky. She still wasn’t what they were or what would happen if they saw her, but she suspected nothing good.

There was no sign of Fiddleford. Or Carla.

“Stay here,” Emma-May said, gathering all her supplies. She took a small backpack and stuffed her cargo pants with anything she thought she’d need. She had her warmest jumper on, and a pair of hiking boots over long socks.

“If I’m not back in,” She looked around. The clocks still weren’t working.

“The next several hours, whenever that is, then I want you to get to the edge of town and leave.” Shifty opened his mouth, but she continued talking over him, “If you can’t leave, then come back here and stay safe. Tate, you stay inside as much as possible and keep track of supplies, Ok? You’re better at reading and writing. Shifty, if supplies get low start raiding the nearby houses.”

Shifty looked up at her nervously before nodding. Tate nodded too, reaching forward and gripping Shifty’s puppet hand in his own.

Emma-May knelt down, drawing them in for a hug. She squeezed them close, then leaned back, cupping a hand over each of their tiny faces.

“My good boys, I’ll be back soon, OK? Be safe.”

With that she crept to the front door, looked around, and darted to the shadow of the next house. She made sure neither boy followed her, before taking a deep breath and heading into town.

It was several hours before she found anything. Mostly due to how cautious she was being, ducking at every sound and waiting for any kind of potential threat to leave before moving on. If the boys hadn’t been depending on her she would have run down the street and started beating these monsters in the head with her taser. But she was a mother now, she had to prioritize their safety over her own worries.

She found Carla’s truck at her work, but no sign of the woman herself. Carla’s purse was still in the employee room, along with her jacket. This wasn’t comforting.

An hour later she managed to spot Fiddleford’s car in the museum parking lot. She had to wait another hour to actually dart inside, as the amount of eye bats increased and an octopus with human hands dragged itself down the street.

Once the area was clear she quickly ran to the building and tried the front door.

Locked.

Quickly she moved around the building, looking for openings. She didn’t have a lot of time before another wave of bats might fly by.

She was on her second sweep, now focusing on the nearest smashable window, when a voice called out to her.

“Hey lady,” Emma-May turned quickly to find a young man opening the side door, poking his head out and waving to her, “Come here, quick! I don’t know how long ‘till they come back.”

Emma-May ran to the door, and the young man (more of a teenager) grabbed her arm and pulled her in, quietly closing the door and locking it behind her.

“That was close,” he said, wiping his forehead and peering out a nearby window. A flock of eye bats darted in the sky, and he looked away.

“What were you doing out in the open like that?” He led her down the hallway, into the back rooms of the museum.

“I’m looking for my husband. Or my friends. Anyone really.”

“Well, you might be in luck. The prophet managed to gather a lot of people here when that crazy triangle showed up. I can ask him; he’d know if anyone you’re looking for is here.”

Emma-May stopped. “The prophet? Who’s that?” It had definitely been less than a week since this whole problem started. Way too soon for society to fall under the sway of false idols.

The man perked up, and his eyes glazed over uncomfortably, “The prophet’s amazing! He saw the end coming, and he prepared for it here! We have defenses set up at the main doors, and food in the halls. The best part is how he makes all the problems above disappear.”

A cult had started around a doomsday prepper in less than three days. This would be dangerous to navigate, but she wasn’t going to let anyone stop her from finding her family.

“He sounds amazing,” Emma-May lied, “but I’m more concerned about my family, can we look for them on the way?”

“Sure! I’m Liam by the way,”

“Emma-May,”

Liam led her through a series of tunnels and down some stairs. The bottom opened up into a wide-open space, where a couple dozen people were huddling around lanterns and laughing. Lights had been strung up and blankets were piled around the walls. Someone on the far end was singing a song.

The atmosphere didn’t match the terror of what was happening above. She was expecting crying, people huddled into lonesome groups. Maybe someone shouting in outrage.

Instead, they looked like they were having a cook out down here, chatting away and making small talk.

With growing dismay Emma-May scanned the crowd. She didn’t see anyone she knew here.

“Hey guys!” Liam shouted, getting the crowds attention, “I managed to bring someone into the Dark! Where’s the prophet, she’s looking for her family.”

“He’s in his private chambers,” someone shouted, and Liam nodded, grabbing her hand and pulling her down another hallway.

“The prophet’s great. He’s helped so many people down here. Fed us, kept us safe. I’d be dead without him.”

“He sounds wonderful, I can’t wait to meet him.” So, she could knock some sense into whatever was happening here.

They stopped in front of a large ornate door. A man with several head tattoos stood in front of it, but he nodded and walked past them, disappearing down the hall.

“Mr. Prophet sir!” Liam yelled, banging on the door, “I have someone in need of your help!”

There was a crash on the other side, before footsteps approached the door. They opened with a bang, and the prophet stuck his head out, smiling widely. His hair was a mess, greasy and missing a few patches. His bloodshot eyes were shaky and out of focus, peering out at her from an unshaven face. The hand holding the door open was shaking.

Fiddleford looked terrible.

“Help you say!” His eyes looked straight past her, and her heart sank into her stomach as there was no spark of recognition, “Well come on in Miss! I’ll see what I can do for ye’”

Something was wrong here. The world had ended (in town), Stanford’s house was destroyed, and a cult was worshiping her husband. Her husband, who didn’t know who she was and looked like he was falling apart at the seams.

Her husband, who had begged her to get out of town for a couple of weeks ‘just in case’.

Emma-May smiled, then stepped inside the room.

“There’s a lot of things you can do to help me.” She said.

Then she turned and slammed the door in Liams face.

It was time for a private conversation with her husband.

Chapter Text

Stan wasn’t sure how long he’d been on the floor. He’s pretty sure he fell asleep at some point, but it was hard to tell with his brain leaking and his body falling to pieces.

Between one blink and the next he found himself somewhere else. The nightmare pent house was gone, replaced by what looked like a nightmare study. The walls were the same black bricks as before, and the lighting equally terrible, but instead of creepy living room furniture there were large white boards and blinking bookshelves, filled with books. A large desk was across from him, made of black wood and with a giant yellow eyeball above it.

Stan blinked. No, still the study. And now he was off the floor, maybe, lying on his stomach. It felt softer than the floor at least, fuzzier. Or maybe that was his skin, it was hard to tell.

Someone was scratching him behind the ear and rubbing his head, and there was a faint buzz above him, like someone was talking. He couldn’t focus on the words, but the voice sounded familiar. Whenever the hand touched him, it left behind numbness. Like it was brushing away whatever was melting inside him.

Stan purred, startling whoever was petting him and himself. Purring didn’t feel as bad, less like he was about to explode and more like an electric shock. Which was good, because he couldn’t really control it.

He closed his eyes, rubbing his face into whatever was beneath him. The voice above him sounded excited, and it started scratching his head more. Another voice said something somewhere else, but Stan’s brain was buzzing too much to make out the words.

Stan was supposed to be doing something, wasn’t he?

Right. Ford. Ford and Bill. Bill wanted something from Bill. No, from Ford.

He turned his head, peeking open an eye to look at the room again. The one good thing about the dim lights was that they didn’t hurt his eyes. Stan wasn’t sure if he could handle that on top of everything else.

Focusing, he managed to make out something in front of the desk. It was a chair. A creepy chair with legs. Creepy chair for creepy desk for creepy room.

He was getting distracted.

On the chair was a person. They looked familiar.

Stan blinked a few times, then realized it was Ford, looking over at him angrily and shouting something.

Why was Ford angry at him? Had he done something? Come to think about it, he was probably angry about the whole cat thing.

He stared at Ford for a minute, before he realized someone was still petting him. It couldn’t be Ford, because Ford was at the desk.

With great effort he managed to twist his head and look at who was next to him.

There was Bill, floating above him and eye twisted in what could have been a smile. His body was still that weird patchwork of yellow bricks and writhing black.

Stan hissed, but his traitorous body kept purring away. Bill just laughed, digging his hands in Stan’s fur.

Or hair?

Head.

The touch felt different, less like something sticky and poisonous, and more like ice. Which in this instance felt really good against his falling apart body. 

He hissed again, just to let him know how much he didn’t agree with this, then shoved his face in…

Stan was pretty sure it might be a bed. Or a couch. Whatever it was he shoved his face in it. Then he tried to wave one of his hands at Bill, tell him to go away.

The arm moved a bit, before flopping down back on the couch-bed.

There, now everyone knew how Stan felt about everything.

The voices droned around him. Stan ignored them, too focused on trying not to fade away. Get his brain under some kind of order.

Bill poked him in the head, scattering his thoughts. Then he poked him a few more times when Stan didn’t react.

With a groan he turned his head away from the couch-bed towards the desk, opening an eye. Ford was closer now, shaking for some reason.

A hand waved in front of his face, black and noodley. Stan blinked at it a bit, then looked up at Bill, finally managing to focus on his words.

“-we go, finally got him. Hiya Little Fish, feeling better? I managed to squish some more of your soul together, can’t have you falling apart can we. You’re much more useful in one piece right now, isn’t he Sixer.”

“Bill, I already agreed to work on it. I can’t find the solution in a day, these things take time” Ford sounded angry, still glaring across the room.

“And I believe you! But like I told Little Fish, if I hadn’t come over and done some remodeling, he might have gone brain dead! Not much fun like that. This is much better, whole enough not to fall apart, scattered enough he won’t try anything.”

Bill ruffled his head again, pulling at his ears. Stan hissed, trying to swipe at him. His arm felt like lead, so he gave up, huffing.

“G’way. J’rk” Stan blinked a bit, then dragged his arm up to his face so he could look at his hand.

It didn’t look right. Not quite like his hand was supposed to look. But it had been a while, so he wasn’t sure.

“F’rd. Somthin’s up here. Does my h’nd look ri’t to you?” he wiggled his fingers as Bill laughed above him.

“Well, I’ll leave you to it. Don’t get too distracted or you’ll lose pet privileges. I’m off to party, see ya!”

There was a flash and then Bill was gone. Stan hated the fact that he sorta missed the cooling effect he’d had on his brain, everything was getting prickly again.

Suddenly Ford was there, crouching in front of him and looking concerned. That was good, Stan couldn’t handle angry Ford right now.

“Stanley how are you feeling” Ford set a hand of Stan’s head, rubbing it a bit. A part of Stan was a little sad it didn’t feel as good as Bill’s numbing ones. He wouldn’t admit that though. It felt like a betrayal.

Instead, he kept purring, rubbing his head into Ford’s hand.

“Stanley.”

Oh right. Ford had said something.

“Feels... bzzz. But! I’m f’ne.” except he wasn’t, was he. Something about… “F’rd. My hand. Look”

Stan shoved his hand in Fords face, forcing his brother back up a bit to avoid getting smacked.

Ford frowned, looking upset again, before grabbing Stan’s hand and holding it, leaning forward so their faces were closer.

“I’m sorry Stanly, if I had more time… I’ll try to fix it when I get the chance, but for now you’ll have to bear with it OK?” Ford set his hand down by his chest, then  started rubbing his ear with his other hand. For some reason.

Something in the room let off a ding and Ford flinched. Then he sighed and stood up, walking back to the desk.

“Get some rest Stanley, I’m doing what I can here. Just hang on”

Stan blinked at Ford, then turned his attention to his hand again. His nails looked a bit sharper, he supposed, and the backs looked hairier.

Meh.

Ford said he’d fix it, so he wouldn’t worry right now. Or ever maybe.

Stan closed his eyes again, trying to get his thoughts in order.

His body continued to buzz.

Sometime later Stan opened his eyes again. It could have been seconds, but he was pretty sure it was longer than that, Ford had moved to one of the white boards and it was full of numbers now. Stan blinked at him, then looked around the room. No Bill.

He felt buzzy still, but he was tired of laying around. Maybe if he started moving, he might feel better. Get his blood going.

With a groan of effort, he rolled over and fell on the floor. Wow, he already felt worse, not a great start.

Ford shouted, and Stan could hear him moving but he ignored it, grabbing the edge of the bed (confirming it was a bed, and why was there a bed in a study?) and trying to pull himself up.

He managed to sit up by the time Ford appeared, leaning down and hauling Stan off the floor by his arms.

“Stanley! What are you doing!” Ford shouted, pushing Stan back on the bed. Stan hissed a bit, trying to get Fords hands off him.

“Leggo, I’m fine” he said, trying to stand back up, “J’st need ta get movin’.”

Ford frowned but helped him up. They stood there for a moment, before Ford slowly let go. Stan wobbled, then he started falling to the side. He didn’t get far before Ford lunged forward, grabbing him again.

“Hmm” Stan said, looking at his legs. Then behind his legs. Ford said something, pushing him back onto the bed, but Stan ignored him, reaching down and grabbing the tail behind him.

He could feel himself touching it. It was brown, fluffy and curly, just like his. The tail twitched, just like his tail always did, but holding it like this tickled something in the back of his brain.

Stan looked up to ask Ford something to find his brother back at the white board, scribbling away.

Wow, his brother had gotten really fast lately.

“Ford”

“Yes Stanley”

“Ford, what… hmm” Stan squinted at his tail. Was this normal? He’d had a tail for a while, it felt normal to have one, but he wasn’t sure, “Is th’s supp’sed to be here?”

Ford hunched his shoulders a bit, griping the marker in his hand, before he sighed. Then he walked off to another part of the room and rummaged around before coming back and handing Stan something. It was a mirror.

It was also creepy looking, somehow.

Stan grabbed it, staring at Ford. They held eye contact for a moment, before Ford sighed again, sitting down on the bed next to him. Then he took a deep breath and held the mirror up.

Stan looked at himself. That was his human face, and his hair and his old jacket. It looked nicer than the last time he saw it, cleaner. That was also his cat ears on his head, and his eyes looked a bit funky.

He squinted, looking at himself. Yeah, something wasn’t adding up here.

After a moment Ford handed the mirror back, and Stan took it, still looking at himself. His ears twitched a bit, and his hair looked a bit different than it used to. Stan ran a hand over his hair. His ears moved back when he touched them, and it felt softer than it used to. Weird.

He looked up to find Ford back at the white board, looking tense.

“Ford,”

“Yes Stanley,” His voice sounded tense too.

“Ford, my brain h’rts. What am I lookin’ at” Talking was getting a bit easier, that was good. He was starting to get used to how weird his teeth felt, brain somewhat less slushy.

Stan looked back in the mirror, opening his mouth. His teeth looked a bit sharper than they used to.

“I’m not sure what Bill did exactly, I can’t without knowing why you were a cat in the first place-”

“Curse” Stan said, poking his teeth. Yeah, they were sharper.

“… Even so, I don’t know the nature of your curse. But whatever Bill did seems to have merged your cat body with your human one, resulting in what your current appearance.” Ford was gripping his marker, standing frozen at the board.

Stan hummed, nodding. Yeah, that tracked. He felt like he should be more upset about all of this, but the brain static made it hard to hold onto anything.

He set the mirror on the bed, then tried to stand up again. He grabbed onto the bed when he started falling over and used it to help him shuffle around it, looking at the room.

This place gave him the creeps. It was a weird combination of bedroom and study, with a large table and two chairs near the center. There was a breathing dresser near the bed, and a single door in the wall. It had an eyeball on it. The bed looked like it was made of the same black wood as the desk, and on each pole was another eye. They were looking at him.

“I managed to get some living arrangements with Bill.” Ford said, making Stan jump. He was still at the white board, scribbling away, “As much as he might dislike the idea, you and I are human. We have certain needs for long term survival, and I don’t know how long it will take to solve this. Someone should hopefully be bringing food by, if Bill hasn’t forgotten.”

Wow, that was a lot of words at once. Stan held onto the bed, blinking at Ford and trying to piece all that information together.

After a moment he turned, looking at the table, then around the room again. Food sounded like a terrible idea right now, but he wouldn’t know until he tried.

For the next however long it was Stan tried to get used to his legs again, occasionally stopping and staring at Ford scribbling and mumbling away. He explored the space, mostly more whiteboards and lots of books, and checked out the door. It led to a more normal-looking bathroom, lacking any visible eyes. There were no other doors to the room.

Stan had been right at least; he did feel a bit better after moving. His body still felt buzzy and distant, and his brain was still melting, thoughts struggling to make sense, but he could mostly walk and his arms responded when he tried to move them.

Now he just felt exhausted, body tired from his short walk around the room. He made his way towards the table and pulled out one of the chairs, sitting down and watching Ford mumble. This was better, less thinking involved when he was sitting down.

Part of him felt like he should be doing or feeling something about everything. That sitting here watching Ford was a waste of time. Didn’t they need to escape? Fight back? He needed to get Ford out, for some reason.

The static ate those thoughts away.

He blinked at Ford, then jumped as a bunch of cans crashed down in front of him.

There were a lot of them, rolling around the table and falling on the floor. Stan stared at them, for a moment. Then turned to Ford.

Ford was gone.

Ok. Ford was gone. That was… bad.

Stan hissed as someone set something in front of him. It was a plate full of some kind of meat. Stan looked at the plate, then up at Ford, who was pulling up the chair next to him and glaring at his own plate of not meat looking things. Vegetables.

“Ford” Stan said, eyebrows pinching together. Something wasn’t adding up here.

Ford sighed, then turned to him “I’m not sure what you can eat like this, so let’s keep it simple for now.”

“No. Ford, why’re you so fast” Stan blinked as his brother looked at him in confusion.

“What are you talking about Stanley?” man, so fast he didn’t even notice.

“You were there,” Stan pointed to the white board, “then you were here” he looked at his own plate.

Ford frowned, looking back and forth between the white board and the plate. Then his confusion turned to horror. He pushed away from the table and ran over to Stan, grabbing his head and turning it, looking into his eyes.

“Stan, I’m not going fast at all. Bill said,” Ford gulped, crouching down and looking a bit teary, “He said your mind is scattered. You’re losing time. I just thought…” Ford started rubbing his ears again, causing Stan to purr, “I wasn’t sure what he meant. But it’s only been a day, hopefully this will fade. What other symptoms are you experiencing. I should have asked that right away, I’m sorry”

Stan blinked. Too many words.

“Too many words,” he said, purring making his voice warble strangely, “that feels weird”

“What does?” Ford grabbed his chair, pulling it closer so they were side by side.

“Talkin’ and purrin’, s’all shaky’” Stan closed his eyes, purring voice making his throat feel tingly.

“Stanley, focus, how are you feeling? Your symptoms?” Ford put a hand on his head and Stan opened his eyes again.

“Hmm...” Stan blinked a few times, trying to think. Thinking was hard, “Melting.” There, that should do it.

Ford looked at him, then sighed again, rubbing his face, “What part feels like you’re melting Stanley, I need to know what I’m working with. If you get worse…”

“Oh, he won’t, I made sure to put enough of him together that he would last”

A hand smashed into his hair, rubbing it. The cooling feeling was back, and Stan leaned into it, still purring.

“Hah! This is great, I love this vibrating thing he’s got going on” Bill said, floating above him, “and now that I smashed his little walls to pieces, I don’t have to worry about this killing him. In fact, I think he likes it, don’t you Little Fish?”

“Hmmm” Stan said, slumping forward and closing his eyes, “you suck at this” it was a weird combination of nice feeling and bad technique.

“Not a fan of the back talk,” Bill said, “I preferred the meowing really”

“What do you want Bill,” Ford said, glaring, “I need to eat to live, same with sleeping.”

“Relax brainiac, I’m just checking up on you, seeing how your first day went.” Bill disappeared, and Stan blinked.

“Not too bad for one day” Stan turned towards the voice, finding Bill hovering in front of the white boards, “Keep up the good work,” Bill reappeared above Ford, smashing his hair, ignoring Fords shouts, “It’s what, eight hours of sleep? Sheesh. Let me tell you, if I spent that much time with my brain shut off, I wouldn’t get anything done. I’d fix your brain if it didn’t short circuit the thing after seventy-two hours. Too bad I need to keep you around, huh. I need that barrier down and I can’t risk messing with your mind too much to do it.”

Bill moved to float above the table, looking down on them, “Congratulations, you’ve kept your end of the deal. Tomorrow, I want you up bright and early. So, stop worrying about your dumb brother! I put in too much time fixing him for him to fall apart that easy. Anyway, bye!”

And then he was gone.

“Stanley,” Ford said, looking at him all teary eyed again. Then he took a deep breath, “Eat up, I organized the cans, we should have enough for a few days at least. You need to build up your strength” With that Ford started shoveling food into his mouth, angrily.

Well, Food still sounded terrible, but Ford did ask. He looked at the plate in front of him and shoved his face in it, eating away.

He felt. Still not great. The mystery meat was lukewarm and hard to eat, and his insides still felt not-there and wiggly.

When he was done Ford dragged him into the bathroom to wash up, then dragged him to the bed and shoved him onto it, climbing in next to him.

The lights didn’t dim, because they already sucked. Stan looked around, then rolled over and flopped onto Ford, purring.

Ford let out an oof, then sighed, “Stanley, what are you doing”

“Sleepin’” Stan said, closing his eyes.

“Why are you on top of me” man, maybe Ford was the one with brain damage, or whatever.

“I always sleep here” poor guy. Well, he had been Bill for a while, so maybe he forgot.

Ford made a noise, and his hands came up to rub his face. Then he reached down and rubbed Stan’s head, like he used to do when he wasn’t Bill. It felt pretty nice.

Ford moved a bit under him, but Stan ignored it.

As long as they were together, everything would be OK.

Chapter Text

Fiddleford didn’t flinch as she slammed the door, simply smiled at her and waved her towards a chair in the middle of the room.

The room inside was well light, with long banners around the walls, and a small makeshift bed on the side. There was a pedestal on the other side of the room, with a box on top. Above it someone had painted a crossed-out eye in what she hoped was red paint.

There were piles of tubes scattered across the floor, along with torn diagrams hanging on the walls. Various bits of machinery were cluttered around, and a nearby table was a mess of scribbles and ripped paper.

What really worried her were the multitudes of smaller crossed-out eyes, littering the walls and stopping just above Fiddleford’s head.

“Come in, come in,” he said, “have a seat. Just tell me what your problems are, and I’ll help them go away.”

Emma-May looked at the chair, then stepped around it to follow Fiddleford to the box. He didn’t seem to notice, pulling out a key and unlocking it right in front of her.

“My first problem is my husband,” she said, watching as he pulled out a gun in his shaking hands. Fiddleford hummed, smiling and messing with the dial, “I came back from a trip and he’s very unwell.”

“Unwell, so he’s sick?” Fiddleford frowned at the gun, “Is he here? That seems more like a medical problem.”

“Yes, he’s here, and it looks like he hasn’t been taking care of himself lately. Really let himself go. I’m furious with him, and I’d like an explanation.”

“Don’t be too hard on him, it’s been crazy lately, what with….” Fiddleford stopped messing with the dial and looked up, eyes unfocused, “All those things, crawling up there. Grabbing people, the screaming. It’s watching us, always watching, always wanting. It’s the end of TIMES!”

Emma-May jumped as Fiddleford screamed, then frantically messed with the dial and put the gun to his head. She shouted, lunging forward, but it was too late.

There was a flash of light and then Fiddleford stood there, blinking at her. He smiled, looking around in a daze.

“Oh, hello miss, did you need something?”

She stood there for a moment, then took a deep breath.

“Yes, I need help. Its my husband you see, I’m worried about him.”

“My goodness, you poor woman, what’s your husbands name? I’ll fix this in two shakes of a pig’s tail.”

“Fiddleford.”

“Fiddleford, how peculiar!” Fiddleford smiled, then started messing with the dial again, “Why, we share the same name! We… we….” He stopped, then looked up and squinted at her.

“You look awfully familiar; do I know you?”

Emma-May slowly reached forward, putting a hand on top of his.

“Fiddleford, its me. It’s Emma-May, your wife.” Fiddleford shook his head, looking at her.

“No, no I would. I would remember. I….” He looked down at the gun, then back at her, “I wouldn’t…. but…”

He started shaking again, looking around the room in fear.

“But I would. It’s terrible out there, I couldn’t. I didn’t. you were gone. But I….” He tried to mess with the dial, but Emma-May kept her hand firmly on top of his, stopping the movement.

“The whole worlds gone,” he muttered, then whipped around to stare into here eyes, “Emma-May, its all gone and its my fault and I helped, but- STANFORD HE DID IT HE- but no I did it I…. I couldn’t…. Emma-May.”

Suddenly he stopped. He let go of the gun and Emma-May snatched it just as he lunged forward and grabbed her shoulders.

“Emma-May I know you, we…. And there was a boy. What was his name. Why did I…. I couldn’t handle it. You were gone and the world is gone, and I couldn’t do nothin’. Couldn’t handle knowing you were out there. What was his name. Why can’t I remember his face. It was….”

He trailed off, looking past her shoulder.

“It was always changing. But no, no it wasn’t, he was just a little baby, held him in my arms…. I….”

“Fiddleford,” Emma-May tucked the gun into her pocket, then set her hands on his shoulders.

Fiddleford had always been nervous. Had a hard time handling stress. When they’d married and moved to California, he had a meltdown unpacking the garage when cars kept driving down the street. After Tate was born, he’d built a baby-bot that monitored his vital signs while Fiddleford hunched in the corner of the room and watched him, terrified that something would happen if he looked away.

Whatever had happened in the two weeks she’d been gone, it had driven him to making some kind of memory gun. It wouldn’t take much for him to start using it over every little thing, and of course he wouldn’t think about long term effects, he’d always been more of a short-term planner.

“Fiddleford,” she said again, “The world hasn’t ended.” She was going to figure this out. Hopefully his cult could get turned around quickly, they needed to get themselves back together before someone did something they’d all regret.

“Yes, it has,” Fiddleford whispered, “I saw it. The sky was red, and that thing came out, and. And. And it’s all over now.”

“No, it isn’t.” Emma-May slowly moved her hands up and down his shoulders, trying to calm his nerves, “Whatever this is, it stops right at the edge of town. I saw it when I was driving back. We can still fix this or leave.”

Fiddleford stared at her, mouth open.

“What.”

“I said we can leave; we’ll just get everyone to the edge of town and rope off the area, it’ll be OK.”

“The edge of town?”

“Yes honey, right on the edge, the sky was still blue over there.”

“What the hell are we standing around here for, lets get out of this hell hole.”

Fiddleford let go of her and strode to the door, flinging it open and running down the hall. Emma-May followed after, making sure the gun was secure in her pocket.

“Everyone! Gather around!” Fiddleford stopped in the middle of the large room, raising his hands above his head, “I have got great news!”

The people stopped what they were doing and gathered into a loose crowd in front of Fiddleford. Emma-May stopped just behind him, keeping an eye on her husband’s cult.

“Emma-May says that the world hasn’t ended! If we can get to the edge of town, this nightmare stops! We can free ourselves of that demon!”

There was a moment of silence, before they started cheering. Some of them turned to chatter excitedly, while a few others ran off to start packing their things.

“WAIT!”

Everyone stopped as the tattooed man from earlier strode towards Fiddleford, scowling.

“How do we know this woman speaks the truth,” He said, opening his arms wide and turning to face the group, “She arrives from the outside, and brings good tidings! Right as we have finally settled ourselves! I say we are acting to hastily, what if she’s a spy!”

“How dare you!” Fiddleford shouted, before Emma-May could say anything, “That is my wife, Ivan! The mother of my children! My…” Fiddleford whipped around, “The kids, where are they Emma-May, are they safe! We need to-”

“Their fine Fiddleford, I left them at the house with supplies while I went to look for you. We should go them soon though, before they start getting antsy.”

“What if she’s just pretending to-”

Emma-May was done with this guy. She had more important things to do then listen to this man try and start some power grab or divide the cult.

She took a few steps forward and slapped him across the face. Then she slapped him a few more times when he tried to open his mouth again. Once that was done, she looked around and stepped on a box.

“Listen, I don’t care if you believe me, and despite what my husband says I’m not going anywhere.”

“What!” Fiddleford yelled, but she kept talking.

“If you want to get out of here fine, go, but I still have people I’m looking for! This is less than half the town down here, and I haven’t seen a single body or drop of blood up there. Somethings taking people, or they’re hiding somewhere else. I won’t abandon them.”

“Now I know what you’ve all been doing here,” at this she took out the gun and held it up, “but this isn’t the answer to your problems, this is just a band aid to help you feel better! Your problems don’t go away just because you forgot about them!”

“If you want to leave, pack up and I’ll guide you to the edge of town, but for those of you who want to stay and help me, stay right where you are!”

The room was silent as she stared out at them.

“I have a wife.” Someone said, “I love her, I cant leave her behind.”

The crowd mubbled, then the noise started picking up, people asking how they could help, others shouting about what they’d forgotten, asking to get those memories back. Emma-May looked at Fiddleford, raising an eyebrow.

He looked devastated.

“Start a roster of everyone in town and get all your supplies together, I need to get my children.”

She jumped down from the box, heading towards the exit. Fiddleford ran to catch up, pulling on her sleeve.

“Emma-May, we can leave. You said we could leave. We need to leave!” His voice was panicking again.

She stopped at the edge of the room, turning and holding his hands.

“I love you,” she said, silencing his begging, “but I’m not going to leave Carla and Dan out here to fend for themselves, along with everyone in town. And I need to find Stanford and strangle the answer on how to fix this out of him.”

Fiddleford stared at her, then sighed.

“I can’t. I can’t go out there. It’s too much. Stanford should be at his house, no ones seen him around town in weeks.”

“His house is destroyed.”

“What.”

“It’s the first place we looked. Something had smashed through the roof; everything was a mess.”

Fiddleford opened his mouth, but Emma-May raised a hand.

“Explain this to me later, I need to get the boys. In the meantime, get your cult under some kind of order and figure out all the supplies we have, I have a plan.”

Fiddleford made an annoyed expression, then started talking. She turned and started walking away.

“It’s not a cult! It’s a secret society! Hey! It’s not-”

His voice got fainter as she walked away, heading back to the surface.

They were definitely going to have a conversation later, about everything he’d been doing with his cult, but they could save that for after this whole mess had been solved. Give him time to recover and get himself together.

Emma-May got back to the house just in time to stop the boys’ impromptu rescue mission. They’d filled their backpacks with food and had strapped ‘weapons’ to their sides (long sticks) and were about to charge out the door.

She put a stop to that, then repacked their backpacks and grabbed as much food and bottled water as she could carry before heading back to the museum.

When she got back the central area had been cleared out of the makeshift beds and was filled with boxes and cans. People were sorting through it, while others were standing around over a list of names, adding to it. There was also a line of people along the wall holding those tubes.

Fiddleford was pacing around the middle of the room. He saw them enter and shouted, running towards them. Tate and Shifty dropped their bags, running across and throwing themselves into Fiddleford’s arms. A few people freaked out when Shifty started changing forms, but Emma-May glared at them and they settled down.

“Dad, you’re OK,” Shifty whispered, nosing into his hair with a dog snout before turning into snake and wrapping around his torso.

“We were worried,” Tate said, trying to squeeze the life out of him.

“So was I,” Fiddleford said, squeezing them before pulling away, “But. But, your ma says she’s got a plan. We’ll figure all this out yeah?”

“Yeah! And find mom!” Shifty shouted, “Have you seen him dad? The house….” Shifty turned into a mug, and Fiddleford scrambled to catch him.

“I haven’t seen him. But that doesn’t mean anything, he could be hiding in the woods somewhere. Or in the bunker, safe and sound.”

There was a dark undertone to his voice, but the kids didn’t seem to pick up on it.

“All right, lets get started on the plan,” Emma-May said, “Everyone gather round, here’s what we’re going to do.”

Emma-May went to work organizing the cult. Those who were more frightened or not mobile for various reasons, she had stay and go through the tunnels, getting all the supplies together and finding places for people to sleep. Then she got volunteers to go into town and gather more supplies and look for survivors.

Finally, she had everyone explain what exactly went down.

When they were done, and everyone left to do their assigned tasks, she pulled Fiddleford back to that room (which had been emptied of tubes, except for a large pile that had Fiddleford written across them.

“Now, you’re going to explain to me what Stanford was doing that caused all this.”

“I don’t want to remember.” Fiddleford said, hunching down and looking at the walls.

“Too bad, you’re the only person who knows what was going on in that house. Now get your brain working.”

Fiddleford glared, then sighed. He sat down on the makeshift bed, and Emma-May joined him, tucking Tate into her side while Shifty turned into a squirrel and curled up in his lap.

“We were building something,” Fiddleford whispered, gaze going unfocused, “A doorway. Stanford wanted…. He wanted to punch a hole into another dimension, unlock the secrets of the universe. But something was wrong. The calculations…. They weren’t adding up, and some of the math….”

He sat for a moment, and Emma-May squeezed his hands. He took a deep breath. Then a few more.

“That day… I got pulled through. I saw what was on the other side. It was that Bill guy, except… more terrifying. I tried to tell Stanford to stop, to shut it down. But he wouldn’t listen, wouldn’t... wouldn’t…”

“So, I left.” Fiddleford whispered, “Haven’t seen him since. Got Carla to say with me I…. I did something to her, I think… I think I used my machine. She wouldn’t stop asking, kept wanting to check up on him. I had to keep her safe.”

“We’re gonna talk about boundaries” Emma-May said, “and you’re gonna apologize when we find her. And if anything happened to her because of this, we are going to have a longer talk. Do you understand me.”

“Yeah, I get it.” Fiddleford slumped forward, “I just wanted to help people Emma-May, same way I helped myself.”

“I know honey, you’ve always been a helper.” She leaned forward, and used a free hand to tilt his head towards her, “But if you try something like that again so help me, I will bring the wrath of God upon you, do you understand?”

Ford nodded quickly, and she pulled him into her arms.

“Next time you feel like this, you just give me a call you hear? Maybe build a robot about it instead.”

“Now let’s go find Stanford, then fix this mess you helped to make.”

Over the next day (?) they managed to get a list of missing people, more supplies, and find a half a dozen or so other survivors who had been held up around town.

Emma-may also learned what the eye bats did. She had watched as it swooped down, turned a man to stone, then flew off with him towards the giant pyramid.

Which meant she knew where most of the missing townsfolk were.

Fiddleford was now given the job of building a flying surveillance robot to get up there and take a look. If they could get the layout down, it would make it easier to break into there and get everyone out as fast as possible.

One of the teams of scavengers was given the task of finding parts, which is where they encountered the gnomes.

“The fighting got intense,” Liam said, as someone bandaged his arm, “I guess all the forest folk are just as effected as we are.”

“We should try and talk with them,” Fiddleford said, hunched over his makeshift work bench, “they might have seen Stanford, and they’ll have supplies we can use. More magic-like.”

“We’ll keep an eye out,” Liam said, wincing, “Try and establish communication.”

They managed to set up a meeting with the leader of the forest survivor group. They had taken over the grocery store apparently and had been run out of their homes by all the larger, weirder monsters roaming around.

Emma-May left Liam in charge, (Kid had a good head on his shoulder, and Fiddleford tended to devolve into a nervous wreck randomly) then went out to meet them on their own turf. They were in less danger of flying eye bats, and she didn’t want them to draw attention to the museum.

She darted across the empty lot and dived behind some shopping carts, then made her way to the side door and knocked.

A giant manotaur opened the door a crack, eyed her, then held it open as she made her way in.

“Boss! The lady the said was coming is here!” he called out, leading Emma-May towards a makeshift room, empty grocery shelves moved around to create dividers around the building.

There were a few human survivors here, mingled in throughout the hoard of gnomes, fairies, unicorns, shadow people, and other strange creatures that called the woods their home. They watched her walk by, parting as their ‘Boss’ came closer.

The woman was wearing ripped jeans, and a large leather jacket. There was an ax strapped to her back, and knives on her sides. Her hair was pulled back by a blue bandana with snowflakes on the front.

It was Carla.

Chapter Text

“Emma-May!” Carla shouted, running up and hugging her, “I thought you were still out of town! Its good to see you.”

“I’m glad you’re OK Carla,” Emma-May said, pulling away, “We have a lot to discuss. First, tell me what’s happening here, how did all this happen?”

“Well,” Carla led her back through the crowd towards the shelf room. There was an older woman there, sewing something, “It started when the sky went all red and that triangle guy came to town. I was working and poked my head out, then dived back in when things started getting crazy.”

Carla sat down on a stool, and Emma-May took the other one across from it.

“I went back to the house, but Fiddleford wasn’t there. Freaked out for a bit, then thought maybe I’d head out of town. Most of the monsters were focused there, and there was more cover in the trees. I planned on waiting out for a couple of days, then come back when everything calmed down to look for him.”

“Instead, I ran into some of these guys,” Carla gestured to the group of creatures, poking their heads in over the shelves and ease dropping. They ducked out of sight, and Carla shook her head, smiling, “They were scrambling around, freaking out. I took charge, then led us here. I thought this would be the spot lots of people would go to when the world ended, what with all the food and everything.”

“A few people showed up, like Maria here,” the older woman smiled and waved, “but not nearly as much as I thought. We’ve been holding up here ever since, looking for survivors and trying to figure out what to do.”

“I’m glad to hear you’ve been taking care of yourself. Tell me, do you remember Stanford at all?”

“No? Is that someone in town? I can ask around, see if anyone here knows-”

“Don’t bother, I was testing a hypothesis that you already proved.”

Emma-May explained the museum, and her husband, and his cult, along with his admission of memory wiping Carla.

She could hear some grumbling on the other side of the shelves. Hopefully none of them got the thought of beating up Fiddleford on Carla’s behalf.

“OK. So.” Carla took a deep breath, then leaned forward, “I have a whole other roommate, that I don’t remember at all. And he’s been missing, for a couple of weeks.”

“Well, no one’s seen him. He might just been at home the whole time, he gets like that.”

“Ok. Ok. Ok.” Carla took another deep breath, then rubbed her forehead, “I’m going to have to talk to Fiddleford about that. Maybe punch a couple of eye bats to let out all the feelings I’m feeling. I’m feeling a lot of them, but this is the apocalypse. I can get through all that later.”

She sat up, looking Emma-May in the eye.

“What did you need from us, I know these guys want everything to go back to normal. The town was already weird with out that triangle messing everything up.”

“Right now? Now much, we’re trying to get supplies to break into the pyramid, I have proof that it’s where all the townsfolk are being taken. If you have anything to help with that, it would be appreciated. We also have shelter under the museum if you’re interested, it’s cramped but more secure. All of the creatures seem content to destroy the forest or the buildings, and nothing seems to actively be looking for people.”

“I’ll talk to everyone, see what they want to do and if there’s anything we can offer. I wanted…” Carla trailed off, then grimaced and rubbed her head, “I wanted to learn magic? So I can ask a few questions about it.”

“Thank you. Is there anything you need here?” Emma-May stood, looking around. Maria finished her project, revealing an apron that had been ripped across the bottom. It had a little heart on it, and she put it on.

“I’ll ask. We’ve been doing pretty well so far. Like I said, not a lot of people showed up, so there’s a lot of food here.”

“Alright then. Make a list and figure out what your plan is. In the meantime, I’ll head back and get a list of everything we might need. The sooner this is done, the sooner we can get into the pyramid, the closer we are to finding Stanford. As far as I’m aware he’s the only one who can fix all this.”

Emma-May nodded, then headed for the exit. She needed to see how far along that surveillance robot was and figure out how to get up there once they’d finished reconnaissance.

She stopped when Carla called out.

“Were we friends?” Emma-May turned to see Carla looking at her hands, biting her lip, “Stanford and me, you said I’d been living with him, right? Was he my friend or were we….”

“You were friends, one of his better ones, I think. Always talked sense into him, helped give him perspective.”

“And was he a good person? I don’t….”

Emma-May looked at her for a moment, watching her worry and twist her hands. She didn’t know a lot about Carla, other than she lived with Stanford and helped take care of Shifty. They hung out, but she had always been a private person, and Emma-May would respect that.

“Stanford is a stubborn fool, who’s too proud for his own good and thinks he has all the answers. He’s terrible at talking to people, and more than once I’ve seen him kill the mood in a conversation.”

Carla hunched down a bit, looking worried and tired.

“But he’s kind. He always wants to help solve problems, even when he’s not qualified for it. He’s clueless, but his heart’s always been in the right place. You two don’t have a lot in common, but he didn’t seem to care about that. I promise, you enjoyed living with him. At least when he wasn’t causing problems.”

Whatever worries she seemed to have eased, and she smiled at Emma-May.

“Thank you.”

Some of the people came back with Emma-May, along with some of the smaller creatures that had been living in the grocery store. Not all of them though, the museum was a way off, and some of them didn’t have feet designed for stairs.

Carla chose to stay with them, she felt responsible for their well-being at this point. She did come over briefly to have a private conversation with Fiddleford and get a look at her stollen memories. His cheek was red when he walked out, but he looked properly chastised.

They managed to set up a system to get messages back and forth, by getting the phones working. Fiddleford had been relieved to have a somewhat normal project to work on, before groaning and making his robot.

At this point it had been around five days since the world ended. The flying triangle had made a few appearances, mostly burning buildings down and monologuing to his crew of monsters, but he didn’t seem to care about what they were doing.

There was still no sign of Stanford.

“Alright, gather round,” Fiddleford called, sitting in front of a repurposed TV with a controller in his hand.

He’d set it up in the main room so everyone could see. Carla and a few forest creatures had come over to watch as well, including a witch of some kind, so that they could get a better idea of what they were dealing with.

The robot had been set up away from the museum, so that it wouldn’t put them in danger if it got found out. Fiddleford had designed it to look like an eye bat to better blend in.

He pressed some buttons, and the screen flared to life.

They watched him pilot it away from the town towards the pyramid. Fiddleford held his breath, as they approached, and more eye bats crowded around. No one made a sound as he maneuvered it around the hoard, then in through the giant front entrance.

The inside of the pyramid had the same black walls as the outside. Stairways and hallways branched off from here, some twisting into impossible angles or leading up onto the ceiling. A giant red window of an eye was set on the opposite wall, while black pillars crisscrossed around the room. A platform was set in front of the window, with a giant chair set on top.

Bill was sitting on it, flashing colors while his monster hench things partied at his feet. The robot eye bat didn’t have sound, so they couldn’t make out what they were saying. Hopefully nothing important.

Emma-may was about to direct him towards a hallway when Carla shouted, leaning forward.

“Fiddleford, see if you can get closer to that chair!”

Fiddleford grunted, flying around and behind the chair so he wouldn’t get spotted. The room gasped as they saw what had caught Carla’s eye.

The chair was made of people, frozen in stone with faces twisted in terror. Emma-May could make out a few familiar people, but what really got her attention was Dan, face stuck in the middle of outrage.

The room exploded into sound, people pointing at their loved ones and yelling. Fiddleford was starting to shake at the controls.

“QUIET!” Emma-May yelled, turning to face the crowd, “Fiddleford needs to focus, save your emotions for after we’re done here.” The room grumbled, but the noise did die down. A few people walked out in tears.

 They did a small loop, then left the chair behind to rest on a nearby pillar.

“See what details you can make of the room.” Emma-May said, directing the crowd, “We’ll need to strike fast before Bill can retaliate. He hasn’t shown a limit to his abilities, so we’ll have to be cautious-”

“Hey, isn’t that mom,” Shifty said, pointing at the screen.

Emma-May turned to look and saw him pointing at the chair.

“Excellent Shifty, we can save him with everyone else. If we wait until Bill is riding around town again then we can free everyone from the chair while he’s not looking.”

“But mom’s not in the chair,” Shifty said, pointing more, “Look, he’s right there.”

Emma-May blinked, then looked closer to where he was pointing.

In front of Bill was a small figure. Carla poked Fiddleford and he took the robot up again, trying to subtly get closer without drawing attention. He managed to get it to hover above the party, too far to make away the finer details but close enough to make out the face of whoever was sitting on the chair.

Sure enough, there was Stanford, sitting in front of Bill while Bill occasionally ran a hand over his head. He didn’t look good, he had a collar around his neck, and now had cat ears, but she’d recognize that face anywhere.

Fiddleford circled the room again, then landed back on the pillar. It looked like nothing in the room noticed them.

Emma-May looked at the screen, then nodded. She turned and faced the room.

“Continue to monitor the layout and see if you can find any patterns in behavior. Fiddleford, keep an eye on Stanford, he’s our main source of information on how to get rid of that thing. In the meantime,” Emma-May turned, glaring at the screen.

“Let’s figure out how to get up there.”

Ford sighed as he heard something crash in the room. He turned to find Stan, standing in front of a bookshelf and pulling the books from the shelves, then dropping them onto the floor.

“Stanley, what are you doing.”

Stan grabbed another book and turned it in his hands. Then he dropped it.

“Stanley.”

Stan grabbed another book, then looked over at Ford.

“Hands.” He said, then he turned and watched it fall to the ground.

Alright then.

Over the last day or so this had been about the extent of Stan’s conversational power. He could do small sentences but seemed to flounder at anything longer than six or so words. He would spend most of his time standing around or sitting, staring into the distance, then suddenly move and do something.

Some of the actions confused Ford. At one point Stan had gone around the room opening all the drawers, then got upset when Ford tried to close them. Then he’d go around picking things up and setting them down, over and over.

Others were Stan becoming confused. He’d tried to climb onto Ford’s shoulder, then been surprised when Ford almost fell over. Stan had also tried climbing and crawling under the furniture. His brain seemed to struggle with the thought of not being cat sized anymore.

It was hard to watch.

He wasn’t acting like the Stan he remembered, or his cat Nikola. Whatever Bill had done to him seemed to have left him in a dazed state, losing moments of time before latching on to stray thoughts.

And Ford couldn’t help him. couldn’t risk sitting with him long enough to force him to rest or catalogue his symptoms. Bill was always watching, and if he got too distracted, he might take his brother away somewhere.

Ford couldn’t lose him again. Especially like this.

The crashing eventually stopped, and he heard Stan walk off. He tried to keep track of him out of the corner of his eye, but it was hard to do while also working on the barrier.

Silence.

That was good, it meant Stan had sat down somewhere or hopefully laid back down. He could get a few more hours-

Ford flinched at the sound of something large smashing to the ground, then turned frantically to see one of the bookshelves knocked over, Stan looking surprised on the other side and holding something in his mouth.

“Stanley!” Ford rushed over, running around the bookshelf and patting Stan down, looking for any injuries. Stan started purring at the touch, then leaned forward and dropped whatever was in his mouth at Fords feet, looking proud of himself.

It was an eye bat. They flew in from somewhere occasionally, another way to show they were being watched. Stan’s mouth was covered in its eye juices as he smiled at Ford.

“Stanley! What were you doing?! You could have gotten hurt! And this!” Ford grimaced as he reached down and picked up the dead eye bat, “Why did you do this?!”

Stan stared at him for a moment, and Fords gut twisted at the lost expression on his face.

“Had to get it.” he said finally, nodding to himself.

Ford groaned, rubbing a hand down his face. He grabbed Stan’s hand and led him to the bathroom, throwing the dead eye bat onto the dresser. Stan lurched forward to grab it, but Ford pulled him away firmly.

He washed his brother’s face, then dragged him to the bed and pushed him onto it. Stan flopped down, then stared at the ceiling, brows furrowed. Ford waited a moment to see if he’d do anything, then went back to the white board.

He got another hour done before another sound made him flinch. He turned to see Stan crouched at the desk, tail waving back and forth behind him. He was digging through one of the drawers picking up pens and holding them.

“Stanley.” Ford sighed, rubbing his face. On one hand it was very frustrating getting disturbed so often. But he also didn’t want to work on this.

It was a delicate balance.

Stan grunted, before finally picking up a pen he seemed to like. Then he stood up and looked around, before grabbing a piece of paper off the desk and bringing the pen down on it.

Ford lurched forward, grabbing the paper out before anything could happen.

“Hey,” Stan said, squinting at him, “I need that.”

“What are you talking about! I need this! I need it to keep us safe! To keep you safe! Can’t you just sit down and rest while I try and get work done! I can’t-!” Ford slammed the paper down on the desk, then grabbed his brother by the shoulders.

He couldn’t stand this version of his brother. Not now. Not when he needed Stan to be himself so badly.

“Everything I’m doing here is to keep you safe. If I get too distracted, if I don’t work on this! I don’t know what will happen to you! Don’t you understand!” Ford wanted so desperately to start shaking him, but he held off (too afraid he’d fall apart in his hands) “Why is this so hard for you. Just! Just sit down and get some rest. Please, just sit.”

Stan stared at him, and he could see his brother trying to figure out Ford’s words.

He wanted to scream.

“Well, well, well, well, trouble in paradise huh?”

Ford jumped at the sound of Bills voice. He was floating over them, leaning on a cane and eye smiling as looked down at their position. Ford tightened his grip on Stan’s shoulder, before taking a deep breath and letting go.

“We’re fine Bill, just-”

“Frustrated? Angry? Furious?” Bill floated down and looked at him, twirling his cane around. Ford saw Stan’s eyes follow it from the corner of his eye.

“No, I’m-”

“I get it! You’re just tired of your lesser half messing things up around here. I mean sheesh, look at this place.” Bill snapped his fingers and the bookshelf rightened itself, taking all the books with it. Then the eye bat floated over and landed in Bills hand. He looked at it for a moment, before shrugging and throwing it into the mouth where his eye used to be.

“He’s confused, its not his fault.” And it wasn’t. Stan was barely aware of their conversation, looking at where the eye bat had been and frowning.

“Sure, sure. But it is your fault if you keep slacking off. Hey I know!” Bill floated down, looping an arm around Ford’s shoulders, “Why don’t I take him of your hands for a while, let you focus without having to worry about him mucking about destroying things.”

“No.” Ford wasn’t letting his brother go anywhere without him.

Bill laughed. Then his grip got painful as he pulled Ford closer.

“I wasn’t asking for your permission Sixer,” With that Bill let go, floating away and over to Stan and rubbing a hand in his hair. Stan purred, leaning into the touch. It made Ford’s blood boil.

“You can’t just take him! We had a deal; I’m still getting the work done!” Ford reached forward to grab Stan’s arm but was pushed back by Bill’s now giant finger. Bill reached down and grabbed Stan with the other hand, lifting him into the air.

Stan looked around in confusion, ears pinned back and hissing slightly.

“I think you’re forgetting something here IQ.” Bill ruffled Fords hair with his finger before floating out of reach, “Little Fish belongs to me now, you just get to see him as long as you’re working hard. You’re getting a little too forgetful, so here’s a reminder.”

Bill snapped his fingers, and a black collar with a golden triangle tag appeared around Stan’s neck. Stan hissed, then tried to use his hands to push it off him. It seemed to tighten further, and Stan flailed in the air as he thrashed.

“There we go!” Bill’s eye smiled as he watched Stan squirm, then turned back to Ford, “Well? What are you waiting for! The faster you get back to work, the faster your brother comes back! Who know what’ll happen in the meantime. Have Fun!”

Then Bill was gone, taking Stan with him.

Ford looked helplessly around the room before rubbing his face in his hands. He wanted to scream, to take the white boards and smash them to the ground. Rip the books to shreds and bang on the walls.

Instead, he walked over to the whiteboard and got back to work.

Chapter Text

Whatever warping teleporting thing Bill did that took Stan from the study to wherever he was made his already terrible feelings feel worse. His vision felt fuzzy as Bill dropped him onto something uncomfortable, and he rubbed his eyes and hissed as too many voices started talking at once. The collar felt too tight around his neck, which wasn’t helping.

“Listen up gang!” Bill shouted from behind him, “We got a new pet in the Fearamid! Say hello to Little Fish!” Bill smashed his giant hand into Stan’s head, giving him the odd sensation of being crushed by an ice pack.

“Aww, it’s so cute!” “Can we eat it?” “What is it?” “What’s it taste like?”

The voices started talking over each other, and Stan winced as the high pitch assaulted his ears.

Stan leaned back as the hand disappeared, revealing the group of monsters in front of him.

He was looking down at them from up high, but he got the impression they were bigger than he was. There were a dozen of them, each far different from the last, with wildly different colors and shapes. Few of them appeared even remotely human. They all had a similar black patchwork body going on, just like Bill.

The way some of them were looking at him made him uncomfortable.

“Hey, no eating,” Bill said, “Sixer’s obsessed with him, so I need him in one piece until we get out of here. We’ll see what happens after. I might keep him around as a mascot, who knows!”

Stan turned around to find Bill looming over him, sitting on whatever Stan was sitting on. Whatever it was, it was super uncomfortable. Stan looked down.

That was definitely a face. And some arms. Was this thing made of stone? No wonder it was making his butt hurt. Plus, all the faces staring at him were freaking him out.

“This chair sucks,” he said.

The room went silent abruptly. He looked up to find all the demons or whatever staring at him in shock. He grunted as Bill pinched the back of his jacket and lifted him in the air.

“What was that Little Fish? You have something to say about my decorating?” Bill’s eye was narrowed, and something in Stan told him to watch his mouth. Too bad he never listened.

“Chair sucks. S’not comfortable.” Yeah, that was a glare.

They stared at each other, Bills giant eye glaring, before it wiggled into a weird smile.

“Hah! You’re right!” Stan’s heart went to his throat as Bill dropped him, and he flailed until he slammed into another open hand beneath him.

“This would be pretty uncomfortable for you flesh bags, good thing I’m far more durable. But hey, if you don’t want to sit up here then….”

Before Stan could react, Bill tossed him to the crowd of demons.

He yelled, then grunted as something snatched him out of the air, crushing him. He looked up to find a giant grinning pink face. Its hands were hot where they touched him.

“Well, what are you waiting for!” Bill said, snapping his fingers and filling the room with music, “Let’s throw a welcome party!”

Stan hissed and pinned his ears back as the demons erupted into screams. Then he yelled as the one holding him swung him around in its arms, laughing.

Stan tried to struggle free, but its arms were like iron. Eventually it threw him in the air and another demon grabbed him, this one looked like a demon cow baby, its tiny hands made his skin crawl.

Stan didn’t know how long they danced around, laughing and screaming and passing him over to each other. At some point drinks started appearing in their hands, sloshing all over the place and getting his fur sticky.

They laughed as he gagged at the smell. It didn’t smell like any alcohol he’d ever had.

The music got louder, and more demons started showing up, grabbing him and pulling his tail and ears, ignoring his hissing and laughing as he tried to break free.

He got passed back to the pink cyclops and she licked his head, then laughed at another about how weird he tasted. She threw him to a small giant headed demon, and it laughed as Stan struggled, pulling his ears.

Stan was done with this.

He bent down and bit the little blue guy’s arm, filling his mouth with the taste of metal. It screamed and dropped him, backing away and shaking its arm in the air. Stan twisted and landed on his feet, then ran off, ignoring the laughter around him.

Hands reached down from above, trying to grab him. Stan ducked under them, running around strange legs and two large bodies.

It reminded him of something. Something that happened with Ford. A carnival?

Never mind, he’d think about it later.

A giant foot slammed in front of him, and he skidded to a stop, then dashed across it to the side to avoid another grab.

More liquid fell over him as the demons partied around him, smashing their feet (or whatever they were using to stand) in front of him and laughing as he ran around in circles.

The music got louder again, more intense, and the dancing intensified with it. Stan yelled as something slammed over his tail, then shouted some more when one of the demons dropped a plate of what looked like tiny pink beetles on top of him.

They skittered through his hair and got stuck in the space-alcohol, making his skin feel itchy.

Stan reached around and grabbed his tail, then burst through the crowd and slammed into something.

It took him a second to get his feet steady, then he looked to see what he’d hit.

He’d made it to the wall, the black bricks glowing with rainbow lights between the cracks. It slanted as it went up, and Stan followed the angle to see it end far above him. He looked to the sides and saw this was less of a wall, and more of a giant pyramid.

Stan stared at it for a moment, before something grabbed him by the back of his jacket and pulled him into the air.

Stan flailed, before Bill’s giant eye filled his vision, edges curled.

“Heya Little Fish, having fun down there?” Bill dropped him into the palm of its other hand, then poked him in the head, finger sticking to the liquid, “Looks like you were having quite the adventure” Bill pulled its sticky finger back and licked it.

With a tongue. From its eye.

Gross.

Stan hissed, wiping his face with his sleeve.

“Well, if you’re that eager to go back….” Bill pulled its hand back, ready to throw him into the crowd. Some of the demons started whooping in excitement.

Stan did not want to go back.

It was hard to think with his brain mushy, but the adrenaline certainly helped.

Stan started purring, huddling into a small ball and looking at Bill with wide eyes. He curled his bruised tail around his ankles, trying to keep it close.

The edges curled more, and Bill laughed.

“Good to know you learn quick Little Fish.” It dropped him back on the chair in front of it, then ran a hand down his sticky back, “That’s right, you either stick up here with me, or you have fun down there with them. I know your brains basically useless but try and remember that.”

Stan shivered as he sat on the uncomfortable chair, trying to ignore the faces of all the frozen people surrounding him. The purring became less forced as he calmed down and Bill’s icy hands made the aches feel better.

He was exhausted.

The buzzing melting feeling had come back with a vengeance, and his brain static crept back in as the adrenaline wore off. The music faded around him, and all he could focus on was Bill’s icy hand, his purring, and the giant door across from him.

The sky looked red, and a lot of those tasty bat things were flying in and out.

Stan’s thoughts drifted away, ignoring the world around him.

He missed Ford.

The problem with rescuing most of the town was the lack of transport out of a flying pyramid. They needed to get inside, free everyone, then make it back out without Bill noticing. They also needed to find wherever Bill was putting Stanford when he wasn’t in the main hall. He’d teleported away when Bill was done with him, and Fiddleford had flown around for hours trying to find him.

There were so many ways this could go wrong.

But also, how the hell had Stanford kept this thing a secret.

“How long have you known about this.” Carla asked, looking at the alien tunnels around her, “better yet how long has Stanford known about this. Aliens? How was he not bragging about this.”

“He showed me over the summer,” Fiddleford said, pulling something away from the wall, “but he said he’d been taking parts from here for years. Hold this,” He handed her a flashlight and she took it, angling it so he could see.

There was a sharp clang, and he pulled the device from the wall and handed it to a manotaur.

“That should be the last of it,” He wiped his hands on his pants, then led the group back down the tunnels towards the entrance.

They made their way up, then hauled the machinery out behind them and sealed the tunnel.

Now it was time for the hard part.

They didn’t want to stage their rescue from the museum or the grocery store in case they got caught, but they also needed somewhere secure that wouldn’t be spotted by overhead eye bats.

That meant they needed to head out of town, but not too far they couldn’t get to the pyramid quickly once they’d launched.

There was a factory up on a nearby cliff that was their best bet. The only problem was getting the parts over there.

Carla helped load the bus they’d taken from the junk yard, then climbed into the driver’s seat. Fiddleford hunched in the seat behind her, covering his eyes and muttering to himself. A manotaur sat next to him, rubbing his back.

“Alright, everyone ready?” The other manotaurs and multibabybear shouted confirmations, and Fiddleford whimpered.

With that Carla put the bus into drive and down the field onto the road.

Emma-may had figured the best way to be stealthy was to not try at all. The whole world was collapsing, and it was doing so in the weirdest way possible. All they had to do was take advantage of it.

They’d dragged the bus to the mall and blacked out the windows, then had the kids throw paint at it. A few amateur welders added spikes and twisted metal randomly to the sides, while Fiddleford did something to the engine that made it sound like it was full of bees. And growling.

The end result was a monstrous bus that no person would have designed. It seemed to have done well on the drive over here, but there was no telling how long it would last.

Carla carved a path down the road, trying to get the perfect balance of terrible but safe driving. Which was really just her normal driving. She’d learned in New Jersey after all. These wide town roads were basically child’s play.

The manotaur behind her pulled down the speaker and held in next to Fiddleford, making his terrible wailing noise emit from the bus. Carla smirked as a few of the creatures took one look at them, then turned tail and ran. She smiled when she managed to hit one of the upside-down piranha turtles that had been filling the streets lately.

Thankfully Monster Bus-bot made it back to the warehouse in one piece, and they pulled in past the doors and started unloading. Fiddleford took some gentle prodding to get moving, but he managed to uncurl and hurry over to his workbench, finishing up the final touches to their rescue plan.

Really, it would have been impossible without the knowledge of the forest creatures. They had made a list of every odd or supernatural artifact that could be found in the area, and Emma-May had taken one look at it and zoomed in on the answers to most of their problems (involving this one problem of rescuing everyone).

Size changing crystals were pretty handy after all.

Fiddleford fiddled (hah. She wished Stanford was here to hear that) with the alien machinery, then shrunk it down and started adding it to his eye bat. Supposedly it would make the ride smother, more natural looking.

“Everyone ready?” Emma-May shouted, gathering their rescue crew.

They were working small, seeing as they needed to fit the rest of the town inside, so Emma-May was staying behind with Fiddleford. Just in case the worst happened, and the rescue crew needed rescuing.

Carla was leading the mission, with three gnomes to handle getting people seated and a kid named Liam coming in to help get everyone out of the chair.

“Ready,” Carla said, standing at the designated area. Emma-May nodded at her, then Fiddleford picked up the eye bat and activated its new eye, shrinking everyone down.

It was terrifying, looking up at the giants all around them, but Carla wasn’t going to let terror stop her. Fiddleford set down the eye bat, and they opened the tiny door and piled inside.

It was strange being on the inside of a robot, even if a lot of it had been gutted to make room for all the seats they’d put in. Fiddleford had used the crystals to grow it, making the work go twice as fast and the wiring twice as small.

It looked almost like a movie theatre, with mismatching seats and half an eye for a screen.

Carla buckled in the first row along with Liam, while the gnomes buckled into their specialized seats near the door. The radio crackled to life, and Fiddleford’s voice filled the room.

“Ya’ll seated and buckled in?”

Carla looked around, then saw a button near her elbow, she pushed it.

“Let’s get this show on the road Fiddleford,”

“Alrighty, hold on tight now.”

The eye bat shook, then lifted into the air. From here they could see the warehouse room through the glass, and they watched Fiddleford at the controls, before zooming off through the open window into the sky.

It was pretty breathtaking, seeing the town from up high. Except for all the other eye bats, the monsters, and the ominous pyramid floating above it all. Fiddleford truly had a talent for machines, getting this together in less than a day.

They flew around the town, then joined another group of bats heading into the pyramid doors. Once inside they did a few laps, then landed on another pillar to get a look at the room.

Bill was still in his chair, laughing at something one of his henchmaniacs had said. Stanford wasn’t there, meaning he was hidden away somewhere else in the building.

Now all they had to do was wait for Bill to go for another joy ride and hopefully have enough time to look for Stanford after freeing the townsfolk.

Carla settled in and waited.

Ford wasn’t sure how long he’d been working after Bill took Stan. Hours, probably. His vision was getting blurry, and his hands were shaking from lack of sleep.

But he couldn’t sleep.

Not while Bill had Stan.

There was no announcement when Stan appeared again, just the thud of him hitting the floor and falling over. Ford jumped and whirled around, then threw the marker to the side when he spotted his brother lying on the ground.

“Stanley!” Ford shouted, running over and collapsing next to him.

Stan looked terrible. His eyes were out of focus, staring at the ceiling, and he was covered in something sticky and what looked like crumbs. There were beetles stuck in his hair, and it looked like half his body was covered in glitter. He was very faintly purring.

“Stanley,” Ford whispered, running a hand over his head. Stan didn’t react, just kept staring at the ceiling.

Ford gently pulled Stan to his feet, and he thankfully followed after as Ford led them to the bathroom. He sat him down on the toilet, then ran back out and approached the breathing dresser.

He wasn’t sure how long they’d been in this room, but Ford hadn’t changed his clothes. The one time Stan had opened it up Ford had closed his eyes shoving all the drawers shut. He didn’t want to know what kind of outfits Bill had picked out for them.

But he wasn’t going to let Stan stay in his dirty clothes when there were (hopefully) perfectly clean ones right here.

Ford took a deep breath, then pulled the drawer open.

Then he slumped forward. These were just his clothes. From his house. They’d been here the whole time. When had Bill gone back and raided his closet? Why?

They weren’t organized in any way or folded. Just shoved randomly in the drawers, and some of this was definitely from his dirty laundry pile.

He opened a few more drawers, pulling out clothes that looked like they’d fit Stan. They were about the same size, although Stan was a bit bulkier around the shoulders. He managed to find some more loose clothing that would probably fit.

Holding his bundle, he made his way back into the bathroom. Stan had curled up on the toilet and was holding his tail in his hands, gently running a hand along it.

He flinched when Ford walked in, then stared as he set the clothes down and started running a bath.

“F’rd?” he mumbled, eyes wide. Ford’s heart hurt looking at him, and he held out a hand.

Stan looked at it, then reached out with his own, slotting his fingers perfectly between each of Fords, like they used to do when they were small. Ford squeezed, then went back to getting the bath ready.

“H’rts.” Ford paused, turning back towards Stan.

“What hurts Stanley.” It took a lot of effort to keep his voice even, but he managed.

Stan held out his tail, looking at it sadly. Ford gently ran a hand along it, wincing when Stan flinched.

“Nothing feels broken, and it doesn’t seem to be swelling.” Ford prodded the sore spot, near the tip, “Looks like its bruised. That’s good.” Stan nodded, then held his tail in his hand, turning to stare at the bathwater.

Getting Stan into the bath was easy. When he’d been Nikola (and that thought still ached, that Stan had been here and-) he’d always been eager to get clean, which hadn’t changed. The hard part was controlling his emotions once he got Stan’s shirt off.

For one, he was covered in bruises, still fresh from whatever Bill had done to him. He was also covered in scars, long healed wounds from Stan’s life on the road, when Ford hadn’t been there to protect him. Then there was the fur.

It covered large patches of his body, like uneven spots. It was just like his cat fur, with brown in most places, turning white on his stomach, and just as curly. Looking at it now, he could see how the color matched Stan’s hair. Matched Ford’s hair. The same Pines curls in cat form.

Ford had to step back and take a few deep breaths, hands clenched at his sides, before helping Stan get clean.

It took a while to get all the stickiness out, as well as comb through and get rid of the beetles and crumbs. Ford had to drain the bath a few times before he was satisfied. Watching all the beetles writhe as they went down the drain helped ease some of the anger in his chest.

When they were done, he helped Stan dry off (the fur was difficult, especially with the weird towels Bill had given them), and then handed him the clean clothes. They stared at each other for a moment, before Ford sighed and helped him get dressed.

 He shoved all the dirty clothes into a corner. But not before finding a few items of importance in Stan’s pockets and shoving them in his own, making sure the triangle on Stan’s collar couldn’t see.

The collar was another thing. It clung tightly to Stans neck, and had no visible buckle he could find. He’d been forced to wash it with Stan, adding to the difficulty of the task.

At the end he grabbed a clean change of clothes for himself and took his own shower, then bundled Stan off into the bed, wearing a large brown sweater, black sweat pants, and a pair of fuzzy socks. He went over and organized his work at the desk (making sure Bill wouldn’t reappear) before joining him.

Stan laid his head on top of Fords stomach and wrapped his arms around his waist. His purring got louder when Ford started rubbing behind his ears.

There had been a lot of bruises on Stan. Too many.

Ford stared at the ceiling, feeling his blood boil.

Chapter Text

By the time Bill went out to cruise around the town again Carla’s butt had gotten numb. Two of the gnomes were snoring, and the third looked ready to join them.

It would have been easier if they had something to distract him outside, but they didn’t have any way of making something that would last long against Bill, so waiting it was.

She watched the demons party, then play various messed up versions of party games, like beer pong, but using heads and hot potato using a bomb. It was. Very juvenile actually, like if a bunch of edgy teenagers had been given godly powers and had a house party.

Oh my God that’s exactly what this was.

She could see the dynamics, like a twisted version of her high school life. Bill was the fun guy with all the money, so all the other kids did what he wanted. They were all ‘equal’ except there were moments of desperation from some of the noticeably less popular demons, trying to show off and gain Bill or one of his preferred minions favor. Others were hanger ons, desperate to be included even if it was as an object of ridicule.

It made everything around her feel ten times worse. At least if they had been some uncaring demons from Hell she could understand it. That would be somewhat acceptable, it made sense! Demons were supposed to end the world and destroy everything she loved and drive her friends into madness. It was basically their job.

But these ones were doing it for ‘fun’. Because it was ‘funny’ to burn down the town and build a chair out of people. It was ‘cool’ to smash homes and terrorize everyone living here. They just wanted to party and never get shut down by the police.

It was Crampelter given too much power and no one to keep him in check.

Carla glared at Bill, blood boiling. She wished she knew how Stanford fit in with this thing. And what the cat ears had been about.

She realized with a pang she hadn’t seen any sign of Nikola either. She hadn’t even thought to look.

Eventually the wait was over, Bill grew bored partying and snapped his fingers, making their edgy teen demon car pop into the room.

Carla hit the button next to her.

“Fiddleford, get ready.”

There was a long moment of silence, before his half-asleep voice responded.

“Yup, yup I am… I’m ready. Just let me-”

The sound cut off, but Carla could hear the mechanisms above her come to life so she wasn’t worried. The eye bat bot lifted to the sky and did a few circles around the room, blending in with the others, before veering up behind the throne as Bill shot off, laughing.

It was time to get to work.

The eye bat bot landed behind the throne, and Carla and Liam made their way out. They stood a little way away from the eye, then gave it a thumbs up. A second later light came from the pupil, and they grew back into their proper size.

“Alright, this might take a while,” Carla said, “So we have to work fast, let’s start-”

Carla went over to one of the corners of the chair, pulling away a young woman. She came to life as Carla pulled her away, startling her. What was more startling was the chair wobbling above them, then collapsing into a heap as all the townsfolk groaned.

“Nevermind, this will be fast,” Carla said, “Everyone! We don’t have a lot of time! Please go into the light and board the robot, this is a rescue operation!”

It took a moment to get people moving, and Carla and Liam started dragging people to the eye bat bot before others started realizing what was happening.

Then Dan was there, grabbing handfuls of people and shoving them towards the light. He ran around the area, grabbing people too out of it or unable to move. Once more people were shrunk Liam went down to help the gnomes get people sorted.

This was going much faster than Carla had hoped. She had been prepared to grab people one at a time, but the massive influx of people cut down on the time.

Dan was among the last of the people to go down, Carla following after. She ran to the eye bat bot and threw herself into her seat, yelling at everyone to settle down.

“Fiddleford! We got the last of them, where’s Bill?”

“He’s over by the lake, doing some kind of pool party, it doesn’t look like he’s noticed anything yet.”

Then they still had time.

“Get us in the air and try to find Stanford. The moment he looks like he’s coming back…”

“I know.” Fiddleford’s voice was hard. It was a tough choice, but they couldn’t risk the safety of all these people for one man, even if he was the only one who knew how to fix everything.

Dan took the seat next to hers, forcing Liam to move down one. They buckled their seat belts and lifted into the air, quickly flying down one of the hallways.

“Wherever he is, there’s no proper entrances far as I can see. I’ve mapped most of this best I could, and there’s a few spots that could hide a room, we just need to get in.”

The eye bat flew around the pyramid, and Carla kept her eyes peeled for anything that looked like it could be an entrance. They didn’t have much time.

She was glad Fiddleford knew where he was going, because she became lost in the mess of hallways and turns. Nothing here made sense, floors would turn sharply into dead ends, stairs would lead to nowhere, and at several points the hallways twisted to go up.

She supposed it didn’t matter much to Bill, seeing as he could teleport everywhere, but it was still frustrating.

A few other eye bats flew around the hallways, but they didn’t seem to notice their mechanical spy.

They didn’t have much time.

Ford rubbed his eyes as he stared at the equations in front of him.

It was hard to work on a problem without actually seeing it. This was all theoretical on his part, and the lack of actual breaks, along with the canned unheated food, wasn’t helping his productivity.

If he really wanted to solve this, he’d need to head out to the edge of town and actually see the barrier at work. Take some measurements, do some observations. If this carried on, he’d be forced to ask Bill to let him out and do some tests.

He did not want to ask.

Because Bill would keep Stan here, unsupervised or with him somewhere. The thought of leaving his brother so far away terrified him.

Ford looked over at Stan, still huddled under the blanket watching him. He hadn’t wanted to get up this… beginning period of Ford working. Ford had managed to get him up to eat, but then Stan had made his way back under the blanket, hiding.

His heart hurt looking at him, but it did give him the excuse to go under the blankets occasionally and check on him.

Ford had been fairly out of it when they’d first got thrown in here, hadn’t thought about what Stan appearing in his old clothes meant. It was the only good thing to come from Bill taking Stan away, seeing the insides of Stan’s pockets.

His brother had always been somewhat of a hoarder (and Ford, but this wasn’t about him). Thankfully that had never changed, meaning his pockets were full of potentially helpful items.

There wasn’t a whole lot, just whatever fit inside a pair of jeans and the worn jacket hoodie. He finally found Stan’s car keys, which he held safely in his coat pocket, as well as some crumbled papers, a wallet (with a fake ID), a paper clip, and some sauce packets.

But there was also a small multi tool and a lighter. He didn’t need any more than that to build what he wanted.

It wouldn’t be as effective as he would like, but if he was given the opportunity it would work to hurt Bill enough. He made his way around the room, grabbing things he’d needed here and there under the guise of looking through books or sorting through food during meals. Things from the desk were the easiest, as all he had to do was sit hunched over and rifle through the drawers.

He was certain he was being somewhat suspicious, Stan had always been the sneakier one. Ford just had to do the best he could and hope his fretting was seen as worry for his brother.

Ford looked at Stan for a moment longer, watching the tips of his ears flick, before turning back to the board. He did need to do some actual work on this if he didn’t want to get Bills attention again. And he didn’t have the excuse of taking care of Stan right now, seeing as Stan was keeping to himself for the time being.

All he needed was a moment. One chance. He didn’t have all those PhD’s for nothing.

Then he’d feel a lot better about everything.

Carla was about to give up when they spotted it.

They’d been flying around the hallways for almost five minutes, double backing at dead ends and scouring the walls for hidden mechanisms or doors.

It was one of the townsfolk who saw it, a small kid with a star on his shirt, who had yelled and pointed in the corner of where a staircase met a wall.

An eye bat flew out of the small hole there, then went off into another hallway.

“Fiddleford,” Carla said, leaning forward, “To our right, near the stairs, do you see it?”

“Yes’m I see it. Hold on tight folks.”

They did a tight circle to loop around, then went into the hole. It went pitch black for a moment, before they burst out into a room.

It was the first actual room Carla had seen in this place. It was fairly large, about the size of the entire first floor of Stanford’s house. The walls were lined with bookshelves, and a large desk was sitting under a yellow eye window. There was a large black bed on one side, next to a dresser, with a dining room table sitting in the middle.

Next to the desk was a bunch of white boards, full of equations. And in front of them was Stanford, muttering away.

He didn’t have cat ears any more, and he looked tired, but he looked otherwise fine. In fact, he looked better than the townsfolk in the museum.

 She was relieved to see him, but now she was afraid this was less a rescue and more of a kidnapping. Hadn’t Fiddleford said that machine under the house led directly to Bill’s dimension? What if Stanford had done that on purpose?

How well did she actually know him?

The eye bat bot landed on the floor by the table, and Carla quickly unbuckled and ran to the exit, Dan’s footsteps following behind.

“Stay here Liam, just in case you need to bail!” Carla shouted, flinging open the door and running out in front of the eye. A moment later they were standing at full height in the room, with Stanford looking at them in shock.

Carla took a step forward, hands coming up.

“Stanford, listen-”

She flinched as he dropped the marker and lunged towards her, grabbing one of the knives strapped to her side. She held her hands up, ready to defend herself.

Then froze as he pushed past her and ran to the bed.

“Dan! Come here I need you to carry him!” Ford shouted, pulling off the blanket and grabbing someone underneath. They hissed at him, and Carla watched in bewilderment as Ford grabbed something on their neck and cut it off with the knife, before shoving it under a pillow.

“Uh, sure thing Dr. Pines.” Dan said, hurrying over to the bed and grabbing them.

It was Ford. Another Ford. With cat ears.

Except it couldn’t be Ford because Ford was grabbing something from the bed and shoving it together, while Dan threw the other person over his shoulder and ran to the eye bat bot beam.

“Is that Stanley?” she shouted, bewildered. There wasn’t anyone else it could be.

Stan perked up as he passed her, then smiled and waved.

“Hey, it’s Carla! Hi Carla!” He kept smiling, and then he started purring(?) when she waved back in confusion.

“No time to explain!” Ford yelled, running back and slamming whatever he’d been holding on the desk. It looked like a metal can of some kind. Carla didn’t get a good look before Ford grabbed her arm and led her back to where Dan was standing waiting for him.

“We need to move quickly,” Ford said, as they shrunk down. He ran towards the eye bat bot, then shoved Dan inside and followed after. He didn’t sit as Dan sat Stan down, instead lunging forward and buckling him in, then standing and looking out the window with a maniacal grin.

Dan grabbed him and shoved him in the seat next to Stan, then forced him to buckle, before returning to his seat.

Carla didn’t even need to say anything, Fiddleford took the eye bat bot up into the air the moment they were seated. She could see Fords grin from here as they went up back into the small hole.

“Dr. Pines,” Dan said, eyeing him warily, “what was-”

He was interrupted as the small area shock, fire pushing them out and back into the hallway. The townsfolk screamed as they dropped for a moment, before Fiddleford managed to get it under control and back into the air.

“I built a bomb,” Ford said, bursting into laughter, “and now it’s all gone! All that work! Gone in an instant!” He kept laughing, wheezing and slapping his leg, “there’s nothing left!”

He didn’t stop laughing as they flew away from the room, getting a few concerned glances from everyone else.

“Wow,” Stan said, then he started purring louder and shoved his head sideways into Ford. Ford just grabbed it, ruffling his hair and laughing harder.

They flew back down the hallways, making their way to the exit. Carla was glad Fiddleford was controlling this remotely, because the hysterical laughter from Ford was making everyone here nervous. There was no telling how Fiddleford would have reacted.

Carla didn’t know how far away they were from the exit when the whole place shook, Bills screaming voice echoing in the halls.

“WE HAD A DEAL STANFORD!” Bill screamed, “WHEN I GET MY HANDS ON YOU, I’M GONNA TURN YOUR BROTHER INTO A RUG!”

“I WON’T LET YOU!” Ford yelled back, and several people around him shushed him. He didn’t react, clearly going through some kind of mental break, “YOU HURT MY BROTHER AND I’LL-”

Dans hand slapped over his face, muffling the sound. He had to lean over awkwardly to reach, squishing Liam and Stan a bit, but it did the job. Carla could still hear his muffled giggles from where she was sitting.

“GET BACK HERE!” Bill burst into the hallway, just as Fiddleford swooped up into a nearby doorway. Bill ran past, looking less like a triangle and more like a monstrous pyramid. His body had turned red, his arms yellow, and parts of his body had split open into mouths. The small glimpse she got was enough to make her shudder.

Once Bill had passed them, they swooped back down, merging with a group of other eye bats and hopefully going towards the exit.

“OH NO YOU DON’T!” Bill burst out in front of them, too many hands coming up to snatch the eye bats from the air, “WHERE ARE YOU! I WON’T LET YOU ESCAPE!”

Each eye bat he grabbed he shoved in his eye, examining it before crushing it and throwing it into one of his mouths.

“Yeah,” Stan said, startling Carla, “I get it.”

Everyone stared at him, but he didn’t elaborate on whatever it was he got.

There were more screams as the eye bat bot rotated in the air, dodging the hands and flying down another hallway. Bill continued to yell behind them, before his voice started moving somewhere else. Ford kept trying to yell back, but thankfully Dan held his hand firmly over his mouth.

Fiddleford flew through the hallways, following the different groups of eye bats. There were no more signs of Bill, but they could hear his screams echoing around the halls.

Eventually they burst back into the first room, where a giant swarm of eye bats was circling at the center. The demons were flying around, snatching eye bats randomly and examining them. Which ever ones past the test they threw to the floor, where they were lying in a heap.

“Alrighty folks,” Fiddleford’s voice cut in, “Hold tight, this’ll be a doozy.”

They joined the swarm, flying around randomly and trying to dodge hands without being too obvious. Slowly Fiddleford took them higher and higher until they were brushing the ceiling.

Then he flew by a demon and dropped.

There was more screaming (except for Ford, who was still laughing) as they free fell through the air. Carla clutched her seatbelt, forcing her eyes to stay open and watch what was happening.

Just before they hit the ground Fiddleford jerked them back into motion, gliding a little across the floor before hitting it and rolling towards the exit. There was more screaming as they rolled on the ground, going upside down, and then even more screaming when they fell out of the door and started falling towards the town below.

Just like before, Fiddleford waited until the last possible second to get the eye bat bot into motions, righting their positions and flying low over the town. Ford was still laughing, although it was turning more into giggles, and someone in the back shouted to go again.

Carla took a few deep breaths, then forced her hands to let go of the strap. Her shaking hands reached over and hit the button on the chair.

“Fiddleford, when this is over, I’m going to strangle you.”

“Why, you’re welcome!” came his cheery voice, “I’m bringing you back to the warehouse, but don’t unload. Easier to carry you back to base.”

“Fiddleford!” Ford shouted, eyes lit up with glee, Carla kept hold of the button so he could speak, “Fiddleford, I need you to help me build a bigger bomb!”

“What?” Fiddleford said. Carla let go of the button, putting an end to that conversation.

“I said I need to build a bigger bomb!” Ford kept talking, turning towards Stan, “If I can get the supplies, I’m fairly certain I can demolish the whole structure up there. Crumble it to the ground. Wouldn’t that be nice Stanley?” He reached over and started scratching Stans face, manic grin unsettling the people near him.

Stan nodded, then closed his eyes. Ford burst into laughter again.

It was going to be a long ride back.

Chapter Text

It had taken some time to get to the museum, partially from the fear of Bill coming down and finding them, but so far, he seemed distracted up above. Once they got back, they set themselves up in the main chamber and started reversing the shrinking process.

Emma-May watched Carla run out of the eye bat bot, then a few more people came stumbling out. Emma-May set to directing traffic, keeping the area clear to avoid clutter and foot traffic. Lost loved ones ran towards each other and were pulled down the hallways for tearful reunions.

Despite that, the space under the museum was starting to get crowded. This wouldn’t work long term. They needed to figure out what to do next quickly.

Dan was the last one out, carrying Ford over one shoulder, and another Ford over another. One of them was snoring, and the other was giggling like a madman.

They both looked terrible, unshaven but strangely clean. The sleeping one had cat ears on his head and a mullet, while the laughing one had dark eye bags and bloodshot eyes. He also had bandages on his hands, and his fingers were slightly bleeding around the tips.

“Bring him- them?” Emma-May stopped, staring at them, before shaking her head and continuing, “bring them this way, get somewhere quieter, Liam! You’re in charge of organizing everyone and finding places for them to sleep while we plan our next move.”

“Yes Ma’am!” Liam said, before walking off and shouting at people.

She led them to the bedroom/planning room, Dan and Carla following, with Fiddleford dragging his feet behind them. Shifty and Tate were there, playing with some makeshift blocks. They looked up when they entered, and Shifty jumped to his feet.

“Mom!” he yelled running over to Dan. Then he stopped, tilting his head at the two Ford’s.

“Shifty my boy!” giggling Ford yelled, flailing until Dan dropped him. He landed on his feet, then bent down and scooped Shifty into his arms, laughing (a bit less maniacally). Then he stopped and walked over to the other Ford, still dozing on Dan’s shoulder.

“Shifty! This is Stanley! He’s your uncle, my brother. Say hello!” Ford kept grinning as Shifty said hello, his eye twitching as he looked around the room. He spotted Fiddleford creeping in behind them and shouted happily, shoving Shifty into Dan’s arms and scooping Fiddleford into a hug.

“Fiddleford! I have so much to tell you!” he dropped Fiddleford, then clamped his hands on his shoulders, oblivious to the terrified expression on his face, “I’m sorry I didn’t listen, you were right about everything. I need your help to build a guided missile that can blow that monstrosity out of the sky, if we can-”

“Stanford,” Emma-May said, stepping forward and putting a hand on his shoulder, “What-”

“Emma-May!” Ford let go of Fiddleford and scooped her into a hug, “Its excellent to see you! I need to borrow your husband, to build a-”

“A bomb, yes, so you’ve said. Listen,” Emma-May pried Ford off her and led him toward the table they’d set up in the room. Dan set ‘Stanley’ down on the bed, where he continued snoring away.

“We need to know what happened, everything about your portal and how to fix it.”

Ford burst out laughing again, slapping a hand to his head. Then he started crying, hunching over and taking a few steps backwards until the back of his legs hit the bed and he sat down. Carla moved to sit next to him, but Fiddleford grabbed her arm, shaking his head.

“Theres no fixing it.” he said, once he’d calmed down, “Bill’s an all powerful being made of pure energy given physical form. And I let him in. How stupid am I? A few words of flattery and I thought he was my friend. And then!”

Ford shot up, then turned and leaned over ‘Stanley’, hands hovering over his shoulders. The man kept snoring, oblivious to Ford’s distress.

“Then he hurt the people I loved. Turned me against them. I’m sorry Fiddleford, I should have listened to you. and now Stanley!” he reached a hand over and set it on ‘Stanley’s’ head, rubbing a cat ear, “Now Stanley’s suffering the consequences of my poor choices. I don’t….”

Ford took a shuddery breath, sitting back down on the bed and looking down at the sleeping man.

“I don’t know what to do. I don’t know anything.”

They stood there for a moment, watching him cry over ‘Stanley’, before Fiddleford coughed.

“Not to get too side tracked here, but what’s with Stanley? That’s your brother right, the one who uh…” He looked around the room, eyes begging for help.

“Went missing,” Carla said, shrugging off Fiddleford’s hand and going to sit next to him, “He went missing months ago Stanford, are you sure he’s-”

“It’s Stanley,” Ford said, cutting her off and glaring at her. His voice had an edge, and he hunched over the man more, “I saw it happen; there’s no trick. He’s my brother.”

“OK!” Carla said, “But-”

“How can we know for certain,” Emma-May said, crossing her arms, “There’s a lot of people here depending on us, I’m not going to jeopardize their safety because you’ve lost it. Where did he come from? And why does he look like that.”

Ford glared at her hunching more, “I told you; I saw it happen. First, he was my cat, and then he was my brother. Bill was using him to threaten me, but now he’s safe.” Ford turned back to ‘Stanley’, smiling “See Stanley, we’re safe now, and you can get some rest.”

There was a lot to unpack there.

Shifty spoke first, “Wait, does that mean Uncle Stan is Dama?” Ford hummed, nodding his head, “But now he looks different. Is he a shapeshifter?”

“Ford, are you saying Bill turned Nikola into Stanley?” Carla asked gently, reaching out to put a hand on his back. Ford didn’t react, too focused on ‘Stanley’ in the bed.

“No, he’s always been Stanley, he was pretending to be Nikola,” Emma-May could see equal looks of confusion in the room, “I’m still not sure why he didn’t tell me, but I can ask later, when he’s feeling better.”

Emma-May looked at Carla, raising an eyebrow. Carla shrugged. There was the possibility this was true, and Fords cat had been his brother. It was also possible that he’d lost it up there and Bill was feeding into his delusions. They didn’t know what he was capable of after all.

“I mean, he looks like Nikola,” Tate said, peering over the bed, “the ears. So, I guess that makes sense.”

Ford beamed at him, reaching over and ruffling his hair.

“Yes, it does make sense, thank you.”

Emma-May rubbed her face, then started pacing around the room.

“OK. I’ll let it be for now, but he’s not allowed out of this room until I’m certain. In the meantime, Stanford,” She stopped, turning towards him, “I need to know if Bill has any weaknesses, anything we can use against him. If it comes down to it, we can evacuate, but I’d rather you fix this mess if possible.”

Ford sighed, rubbing his forehead, “I told you he… Ugh.” He leaned backwards, lying on top of ‘Stanley’ before shooting to his feet and pacing in front of the bed. The man snorted a bit, then rubbed his face in the bed. Ford didn’t notice, just started talking.

“He’s an all powerful being, who now controls every aspect of this dimension inside the barrier. Before he was vulnerable in the mindscape, but now he can just use his energy to reform his body of any damage taken.”

“So, no punching then,” Dan muttered, setting Shifty down.

“Then there’s nothing we can do?” Carla said, “We just leave? What about all the creatures who call this place their home? They can’t just move cities; they have nowhere else to go. There has to be something we can do.”

Ford shot her a look, then brought a hand up to his chin, thinking.

“Hmmm. There were a few points of weakness. Metal can be used to block his intrusion from the mindscape, when placed over the brain. Not very useful right now, although if you have any surgeons here, I’ll need a metal plate installed over my brain so that Bill can’t take over my body when I sleep. I don’t know if he can still do that, but it’s probably best to be cautious.”

They were definitely going to talk about that as soon as possible, but for now Ford kept talking.

“Radiation, or damage to the brain while he’s inside might also do it, although we’d have to trick him into a brain to get it to work. And a source of intense radiation. I don’t have that on hand.”

“I also had an idea for a barrier to keep him out, which should work against his physical form, but the main ingredient is impossible to acquire, especially with Bill rampaging out there. It wouldn’t fix the situations, but he wouldn’t be able to get in, and it might cut off his sphere of influence inside.”

“And of course, the bomb. It wouldn’t do anything to stop him, but, with the right supplies, it will destroy the entire Fearamid. It might even take out some of his henchmaniacs, as well as a significant portion of his eye bats. There’s always the chance he’d rebuild it, but I don’t think he would, he’d build something else. Then we could blow that up.”

Ford drifted into silence, mumbling to himself about bombs and giggling again.

Everyone waited a moment, to see if he’d continue, then Emma-May spoke.

“What’s the ingredient, and we’re coming back to that metal plate comment. I’m not letting you out of that conversation.”

“Unicorn hair,” Ford said, eyes drifting to ‘Stanley’ on the bed, “but those creatures are-”

“I can get some, how much do you need,” Carla said. There were two unicorns at the grocery store, she was sure they’d be happy to donate some hair to get rid of Bill.

Ford looked at her, mouth agape.

“You can. But. But they. They’re terrible. One of the worst creatures in the forest!”

“What unicorns?” Fiddleford asked, frowning.

“Yes, horrid animals.”

“Well, I can get some. They want to get their glade back, so they can donate to the cause. What else do you need.” Carla stood up, stretching her back out then walking over to the table and getting a pen and paper

Ford blinked, then rushed over and started writing down everything he needed to build the barrier.

“It will need to be around the perimeter, and I recommend getting everyone inside it. maybe along the wall? That should work, it would cover the whole building above us then”

“Carla, I’m leaving you in charge of getting those ingredients, then try and get everyone from the grocery store to come here, they’ll blend in more, it’ll be easier for them to move” Emma-May said, pointing as she went, “Fiddleford, keep monitoring the pyramid, let us know if Bill makes a move, and if so where. Stanford, you’re going to go around and mark off where the barrier needs to go.”

Carla and Fiddleford nodded, but Ford’s expression turned dark.

“No.” he said, taking a few steps back towards the bed.

Emma-May looked at him, taking a step forward.

“What do you mean ‘no’.”

“I’m not leaving Stanley, he needs me.” Ford went back over to the bed, hands coming over to hover over ‘Stanleys’ sleeping form.

Emma-May moved, striding forward and grabbing Ford by the coat, pulling him close.

“Stanford Pines, you made this mess. You built the door, you let that thing in. Now I know you seem to think that’s your brother, and maybe it is,” she shook him when he opened his mouth to argue, “but since you’re the only one who knows anything about how this works you are going to go out, mark where it needs to go, and set it up. Do I make myself clear?”

Ford glared, hands curling into fists.

“No.”

“STANFORD PINES SO HELP ME GOD!” Emma-May started shaking him more, ignoring his hands trying to pry her off.

They stopped when a hand grabbed the back of his coat and pulled him down onto the bed. Emma-May stumbled forward before letting go, and Ford shouted and fell backwards onto ‘Stanley’.

He kept his grip on the coat, watching Ford fall over and almost hit the wall with his head.

“Stanley!” Ford shouted, trying to roll over, “What’s wrong! What is it?”

Ford curled over, cupping ‘Stanley’s’ face in his hands. ‘Stanley’ laid there for a moment, blinking at everyone before focusing on Ford.

“Loud.” He said, before shoving his head back into the pillow and closing his eyes.

“Right, you’re resting. I’m sorry, I’ll try and be quieter.” Ford rubbed his ears before rolling off of him back to the ground. Then he crouched by the bed, staring at him, back to grinning like crazy.

“If you don’t help.” Emma-May said, eyeing him, “I will get every child down here to start screaming in this room.”

Ford gasped, turning to stare at her, “You wouldn’t, he needs to rest!”

Emma-May just stared back, crossing her arms.

They stood there, staring at each other, before Ford slumped.

“Fine, but as soon as it’s done, I’m coming back here.”

“That’s fine.”

Emma-May grabbed his arm and the list and marched out of the room. They needed to do this as fast as they could, before Bill found them. They didn’t have time to mess around.

Stan opened his eyes. The last little while was a blur, involving a lot of screaming and moving around. The whole thing made his head hurt, and this bed wasn’t as comfortable as the other one.

But he was feeling better, and he wanted to see Carla. He liked Carla, she was nice.

He looked around the small room. A table was in the middle, and various boxes stacked along the walls. A bunch of crossed out eyes stared at him, creeping him out. There was a man in the corner, snoring, but it was otherwise empty of people.

Ford was gone. He’d have to go find him.

With a grunt he pushed himself out of the bed and rolled over onto the floor, getting his feet under him. He stretched, then looked around. The door was close by, so he took a few steps and opened it, poking his head out.

There were a few people wandering about, but no Ford or Carla.

Had to keep looking then.

Stan stepped out of the hallway and started walking down the hall. A few people stopped and stared at him, giving him confused looks, but nobody stopped him.

He vaguely recognized some of them, but they were no one important, so he kept going. Some of the people weren’t human either, but they weren’t huge or laughing, so it was probably fine.

The hallways were confusing, and big, with too many bodies crowded around. It was hard to keep track of where he’d already been. Stan walked along, turning at different points and keeping an eye out for anyone he knew.

There was Fiddleford, standing and talking to someone further down the hall. He didn’t like Fiddleford. Fiddleford was mean, took away all the nice deli meats.

Fiddleford was staring at him. Ugh.

Stan hissed, then turned and kept walking. Everything was getting pretty noisy. There were way more people around here than back at Bills. It hurt to try and pick up all the different conversations, so he didn’t bother.

Someone grabbed his sleeve, and he turned and hissed at them.

It was Fiddleford.

“What are you doin’ wanderin’ around,” Fiddleford said, pulling at him, “you’re supposed to be staying in the room till we get you sorted.”

Stan stared at him, watching the man pull at his sleeve.

Well, he didn’t want to go back to the room, he wanted to look for Ford and Carla. Stan pulled his arm free and kept walking.

“Hey!” there was Fiddleford again, standing in front of him with his hands on his hips, “Listen when I’m talking-”

Stan stopped listening. He huffed, then looked around for anyone to help him. No one was doing anything, just milling around and staring back at him. Jerks.

With a sigh Stan looked back at Fiddleford. His mouth was still moving, and Stan frowned, then looked down at his hands.

He did have hands now.

He reached forwards, picked Fiddleford up, then set him down out of the way. There, now Stan could go back to doing more important things.

Hey! Carla!

She was further down the hall, looking stern and pointing at people. Stan grinned and hurried over to her, ignoring Fiddleford’s pulling and raised voice.

She turned to look at him just as he got close enough to smash his head in her stomach, rubbing it into her shirt. She stumbled back a step, and some people shouted, but Stan ignored it, just started purring.

“Uh, Stanley? What are you doing?” Stan looked up to see her hands hovering over him, looking nervous. He blinked, then stood up straight. There was a group forming around them, and Fiddleford was standing next to him, looking tense.

Stan looked back at Carla.

“Hi,” He grinned, purring some more, “Hi Carla.”

“Hi Stanley,” She looked a little less nervous, and she dropped her hands, “did you need something? I think Fiddleford was trying to get you back to the room, Emma-May wants you to hang out there until we finish the barrier. After that we can get you looked at, and then you can take a look around.”

Wow, that was a lot. Ford had gotten better at not doing that, so he was out of practice.

Fiddleford tugged on his sleeve again, and Stan frowned at him.

“I don’t like Fiddleford. He’s mean,” Stan said, looking around at the group again, “Where’s Ford?”

“Stanford’s busy right now,” Fiddleford said, sounding a bit funny, “and how am I mean? What have I ever done to you?”

Stan rolled his eyes, “You know.” Fiddleford was always being mean. Taking away the deli meat. Making him go to the doctor. Trying to take Ford from him. All kinds of meanness from this guy.

“No, I don’t. Now come on, you’re not supposed to be wandering-”

Stan ignored the rest of what he was saying. Carla had turned away to talk to someone, and that someone was Dan.

Stan didn’t used to like Dan, he was loud and big. But then they fought a ghost, and Dan’s mom fed him tasty food. He was kinda like Stan’s bud. Maybe he knew where Ford was.

He pulled away from Fiddleford and smashed his head into Dan’s side, purring some more. Dan reached down and rubbed his head, and Stan chirped at him.

“Hey Mr. Pines…?” Dan looked at Carla and she nodded, “Let’s get you back to the room. You’re not supposed to be walking around right now.”

Man, too many people wanted him in that room. Rude. Just like Bill. He didn’t want to be in a room though. Stan straightened up, and Dan took his hand away.

“I’m looking for Ford.” He said, looking around the hallway, “Have you seen him?”

“He’s busy right now getting the barrier set up,” Carla said, “how about we-”

Stan ignored her. He needed to find Ford, and all they wanted was to stick him in a room. He was done with rooms for a while, they were boring.

Stan took a few steps away and someone grabbed his arm. They were much stronger than Fiddleford. Stan turned and saw Dan’s giant hand holding him. He was giving him an unimpressed look.

“OK Mr. Pines, I’m going-”

Stan hissed, then leaned down and bit him. Dan yelled and pulled his arm back, which was a first for Stan. His new teeth were way better than his old ones.

Stan turned and ran down the hallway, desperately looking for Ford. He needed to find him. They were supposed to be together. It was important.

People yelled behind him, and some of the people ahead of him tried to block his way. Stan hissed at them, then crouched and jumped, leaping over the group of people. He staggered when he landed, not used to doing that, then he got his feet under him and kept going.

He tried to use his nose, but everything here was mixing together, and the hallways were confusing, too many people and sounds and the lights were much brighter than he was used to. He needed to find Ford.

Stan burst into a large room, looking around wildly. There were way more people in here, including Emma-May. She took one look at him, then her expression got mean and she started marching towards him.

He wasn’t going to let that happen. He looked around for another exit, then sprinted across the room towards it, jumping over boxes and shoving past confused people.

Then he saw Ford in the corner of his eye, coming in from another tunnel holding something. He had a weird shiny hat on his head.

Stan pivoted, then ran towards him, slamming into his side and throwing them to the ground. Ford shouted, dropping whatever he’d been holding, then looped his hands around Stan, laughing.

That was good, it had been a while since Ford had laughed. He’d been doing it a lot recently, which was nice.

“Stanley!” Ford shouted, sitting up, “Were you looking for me?”

Stan purred, rubbing his head into Fords chest and holding him. Ford struggled for a second, then stood, dragging Stan with him. The shouting people got closer, and Stan hissed at them, ducking his head under Ford’s arm so they couldn’t see him.

“It’s alright Stanley, I’ll handle this.” Ford leaned down to pick up whatever he’d been carrying (looked like a box) then walked over to Emma-May, taking Stan with him.

Fiddleford, Carla, and Dan were there now. Dan was holding his arm, and Stan could see blood dripping between his fingers. Someone ran over carrying a first aid kit, handing him some bandages.

Poor guy, wonder what happened there.

“Stanford, we already discussed this,” Emma-May said, “He’s supposed to stay in the room until you’re done setting up the barrier. We don’t have a lot of time, Bills already razing parts of the town looking for you.”

“It’s fine, I showed some of the townsfolk how to put it up, at this point all they’re doing is gluing it down along the line I drew. Easy. Isn’t that right Stanley?” Ford reached over and started scratching his head again.

Stan purred, then blinked. They were in the middle of the room now, and he was being pushed towards a stack of crates. Ford had him sit, then grinned down at him. Stan smiled back.

“There we go. Off your feet,” Ford grabbed his head, tilting it in the light and looking at his ears, “Now I can finally get a good look at you, see what we’re working with.”

“What’s wrong with him,” Carla said, standing off to the side, “he’s not acting like how I remember him. He’s barely responded to anything we’ve said.”

“Bill tore his soul apart,” Ford said, turning Stan’s head, “and then smashed it back together, destroying the curse that was attached to him and merging his two forms somehow. I haven’t had the means to figure out what he did exactly, but it affected his mind. Believe it or not, he has improved. The first day he could barely speak, and I believe his sentence structures been getting better.”

Stan blinked as Fiddleford peered at him, and he glared, hissing.

“What’s all that about,” Fiddleford said, glaring back, “I ain’t done nothin’ to you, what’s your problem?”

Stan glared, hissing some more.

“Stanley,” Ford said, gently rubbing his ears, “Why are you being mean to Fiddleford. You’ve had issues with him for a while, and now you can tell us why.”

Stan looked at Ford, then back to Fiddleford.

“He’s mean,” Stan said, shoving his head into Ford’s hands more, “took all the deli meat.”

Ford burst out laughing, clutching Stan’s head to his chest. Fiddleford stood there, wide eyes staring at Stan, before he threw his hands in the air.

“That’s what this is all about! The sandwich meat! It’s not good for cats!”

“Mean.”

Fiddleford stomped off, muttering to himself and heading towards a pile of wires. Ford took a few deep breaths and stopped laughing, then went back to looking at Stan’s head. Stan let him, eyes wandering around the room.

Dan was sitting nearby, bandaging his arm. Emma-May and Carla were standing a ways off, talking quietly and shooting him looks. Stan watched them for a moment, before Ford tilted his head away.

Stan watched the room. Lots of people, human and not, were moving things around and calling out to each other. Some were holding clipboards and walking around. It was confusing trying to keep track of everything, so different from the quiet of the study.

A group of kids ran by, and Stan watched them. Then he perked up.

There was Shifty! And also Tate, but Shifty! He hadn’t seen Shifty in forever.

“Shifty!” Stan tried to stand up and go see him, but Ford pushed him back down. Stan frowned at him, but Ford just smiled, then turned and called Shifty over.

“Hi mom!” Shifty said, running into Fords legs. Then he turned to look at Stan, looking shy.

“Shifty!” Stan said, grinning, “Little bug boy!” Stan reached forward and ruffled Shifty’s head. It was a little mouse one right now, and it changed into a cat as he touched it.

“Bug boy,” Stan said again, smiling. Shifty smiled back, before Fiddleford waved him over and started whispering to him. Jerk, taking his Shifty. Stan stole that kid fair and square.

Ford moved to examine his hands, and Stan looked at the ceiling, letting the sounds of the room wash over him. He was feeling pretty good right now. His brain didn’t hurt as much, and his body felt pretty good. He felt like he had more energy after all that sleep.

Then a few things happened all at once.

First the air was filled with a purplish glow, strange shapes and symbols floating around. They faded after a moment, but he could still see them wiggling around. The air felt lighter, and the lingering smell of Bill that had coated everything abruptly vanished.

“Ah, that would be the barrier,” Ford said, turning towards Emma-May grinning, “See, I told you-”

Then Stan started feeling awful. Something was inside him, wiggling around inside his insides. Deeper than his skin, somewhere that wasn’t a place but was still him. It was screaming and pulling away, and it should have been a good thing, not having it there.

Instead, it felt like he was being ripped apart again.

Whatever it was, it was holding him together. It had been, this entire time. He just hadn’t noticed. But now it was dying, withering away and trying to get out. The feeling of it ripping apart was agony, like someone was taking off a band aid and letting him bleed out. Tearing out the stiches of a not healed wound. Cutting off a cast with an ax of a still broken leg.

Stan shoved Ford away, standing up and shaking. Fords voice buzzed in his ears, but he couldn’t hear it over the screaming coming from his brain.

His heart was beating wildly, echoing in his ears. He couldn’t breathe. It was moving too much, pulling away from all the cracks inside him.

Suddenly he leaned forward, as whatever it was clawed its way out his throat. Black inky darkness came out of his mouth as he heaved, full of blinking yellow eyes that writhed on the floor before disintegrating into nothing.

Stan threw up a few more times, feeling its tiny black hands crawling out of his mouth, before it finally stopped. There was no evidence any of it had ever been there, except for agony flooding inside of him. He was breaking apart and melting and bleeding everywhere.

Stan looked up, trying to breathe as static ate away at him, to see everyone looking at him in shock. Ford took a step forward, mouth moving and reaching towards him.

Stan was already falling, darkness taking over his vision as his legs stopped working.

Even the darkness was full of screaming.

Chapter Text

Emma-May watched Nikola drop, and the room descended into chaos. People screamed, trying to get space between themselves and whatever had come out of his mouth, while Ford yelled and lunged forward, grabbing him. He cradled him in his arms, yelling his name and asking him to wake up.

“Get everyone out of here!” Emma-May shouted at Carla, “And clear out a room to contain him until we figure out what happened!”

Then she turned back to find Ford lifting Nikola into his arms and running to the exit.

“Stanford!” Emma-May ran after him, “What are you doing! We need to-”

“Bill can fix it!” Ford yelled, struggling through the crowd and trying to push through, “Bill can fix it! He did it before, I’ll just give myself up! I’ll do it all again! I just-”

He screamed as Dan grabbed him, lifting him and Nikola into the air.

“STOP!” Ford screamed, trying to get down, “I need! I need to get to Bill! Stanley’s soul is falling apart! Bill can fix it!”

“And what were you doing,” Emma-May said, running up and trying to catch his eye, “that he would fix your brother for you.” Or at least, the cat he was convinced was his brother. The man hadn’t acted any different from one, nothing pointed to him being more than a trick, designed to manipulate Ford into doing whatever it was he’d been working on when they found him.

“I Just!” Ford slumped, then stared at her, his eyes wide with panic, “I just need to find a way to take down the barrier around the town, let him out into the rest of the dimension. Then he’ll fix Stanley! He likes Stanley! He’ll do it!”

That wasn’t comforting. The fact that he was willing to free the insane demon prowling around town just to get his ‘brother’ back wasn’t a good sign of his mental health.

“And what about everyone else!” Emma-May yelled back, “What about the world!”

“What about it! Stanley needs it!” Ford went back to struggling, yelling at Dan to put him down.

“You can just stay in here!” He shouted, “You’ll be safe! But Stanley needs it! I need to help him!”

She sighed. There was no getting through to him like this.

“Liam,” she shouted, and the boy stood at attention, “get a small room cleared and put in a couple of beds. We’ll need to contain them both until Stanford calms down.

Liam nodded, then ran off. Ford started screaming louder, trying to thrash in Dan’s arms without dropping Nikola.

Liam came back a few minutes later, and they followed him down a few hallways to a smaller room with a door. It had been cleared out, except for two sleeping bags, pillows, and a pile of blankets. No way for Ford to build something and hurt himself or others. Like another bomb.

Getting Ford to stay in the room was another thing. He kept lunging around Dan, trying to squeeze past him and run down the hall. In the end they had to pry Nikola from his arms and lay him down on one of the mats, then drop him and run, locking the door behind them.

Ford yelled, then started banging on the door, demanding to be let out to see Bill.

“Stanford,” Emma-May yelled back, waving at Dan to hold the door closed, “calm down, we can get someone to look at your brother. But you have to control yourself!”

Ford just screamed back.

“Dan,” she said, turning towards him, “Watch the door for now, until he calms down, or I can set up a rotating schedule of guards. In the meantime, we’ll have to check if Bill noticed the barrier going up-”

The ground shook, and a large cry of outrage reverberated throughout the building.

“STANFORD!” Bills voice echoed down the halls, “GET OUT HERE! WE HAD A DEAL! I’M NOT LETTING YOU OFF THAT EASY!”

“Never mind-”Emma-May started to say, before being interrupted by Ford yelling through the door.

“BILL! PLEASE, I’LL DO IT! JUST FIX HIM PLEASE!” Ford continued to yell, pleading for Bill to fix whatever had happened to Nikola.

They waited a moment, listening to his screams, but nothing happened. Looked like Ford had been right, he couldn’t get in.

Emma-May nodded at Dan, then made her way back to the central room, getting the more vulnerable people to take shelter and for others to keep an eye on Bill outside. Behind her, Ford continued to scream.

Carla winced as she walked closer to the door, nodding at Dan. Ford was still screaming on the other side, and she could hear the occasional banging.

It had been about two hours since they’d locked him in. They had tried sending someone to take a look at Stan, but Ford had attacked them. Then they’d tried to get Ford out, which had gone down even worse.

Emma-May had yelled that they were willing to help whenever he calmed down, but Ford had just screamed in response.

It got worse when Bill showed up and started banging on the barrier. Thankfully Ford had been correct, he couldn’t get through, and neither could any of his henchmaniacs. It was still nerve wracking to hear him having a tantrum out there, and now they were truly stuck, no way in or out.

If Emma-May hadn’t been stockpiling supplies and rationing from the start, they’d have been in far more trouble than they currently were. The size-changing crystals also helped everything last longer.

But Ford could hear Bill, and he kept yelling at him, begging to help fix Stan.

It was kind of heartbreaking.

“Has he calmed down any?” Carla asked, coming to stand next to Dan.

“Nope. I think he’s about to lose his voice soon, it’s been getting scratchier.” Dan said, grunting as something banged against the door again, “I think his arms bruised too. He’s been throwing himself against the door.”

“Alright. I’ll try talking to him again,” she had come down half an hour ago (ish, hard to tell with no working clocks), but he hadn’t been listening then, still trying to bargain with Bill (who thankfully couldn’t hear him), “Stanford, we can help! Just tell us what you need!”

The screaming stopped, then something banged on the door again.

“I NEED! TO GET STANLEY OUT OF HERE!” Ford yelled, before coughing and continuing, “You’ll be safe, you have the barrier. Just. Let me get Stanley out. He needs- Stanley!” She could hear him running away from the door. Then silence.

Carla exchanged a worried look with Dan, and he stood up, unlocking the door. They opened it slowly, but Ford didn’t rush out. She could hear him mumbling in the corner, further into the room.

Cautiously, she stuck her head in, then came in all the way when she saw Ford sitting hunched over Stan on the ground. He was laying on top of both of the sleeping bags and blankets they’d piled in for them.

Carla took a few steps closer, hands coming up in case he lunged at her. She could hear him whispering something to Stan, and saw that his eyes were open, staring at the ceiling.

“It’ll be OK. I’m right here,” Ford whispered, running a hand over Stan’s hair, “Just hang on for a while. Can you hear me?” his voice was breaking, cracking occasionally. Either as a result of all the screaming, or from the tears pooling in his eyes. Probably a combination of both.

Stan didn’t respond, eyes looking up vacantly.

“Stanford,” Carla whispered, crouching next to him, “what can we do to help. Just let us know and-”

“Theres nothing you can do,” he said angrily, cutting her off. He crouched over his brother more, other hand coming up to cup his face, “his soul was smashed to pieces by a being of pure energy. Then Bill was keeping it together, so he wouldn’t die. All my notes and research are back at my house, and Bill-”

Ford took a deep breath, then leaned forward to rest his head on Stan’s chest.

“He destroyed it. This is all my fault, he’s dead. I’ve killed my brother. Whatever that was, it was keeping him together, and now it’s gone. He’s-”

Ford broke down into tears, clutching Stan. He didn’t react as Carla put a hand on his back.

“Maybe there’s-”

“No,” Ford sobbed, “it’s been too long. Souls are delicate, they fade fast. If I had gotten him earlier- but it’s too late. He’s gone. His body’s still here but the rest is scattered to pieces.”

Carla bit her lip, running her hand up and down his spine. Then she looked over at Stan. He was still staring at the ceiling, blinking occasionally but otherwise not reacting to Ford on top of him.

Abruptly Ford sat up, bringing his hands to cradle Stan’s face. He sniffed a few times, then leaned forward, touching their foreheads together.

“You just. Get some rest,” he whispered, “and I’ll destroy Bill for you. You’d like that, wouldn’t you. Then you-”

Ford coughed, then started laughing. He stood up grabbing his head, then pivoted and marched out of the room. Dan stepped forward, blocking the way.

“I need. I need to destroy him,” Ford said, still holding his head as he stared at Dan, “I’m sure I can do it. Tear him apart like he did to Stanley. Then. Then Stanley will be better. I’ll make him better. I just need to find all the pieces, they’re around here somewhere.”

He giggled to himself, and Carla exchanged looks with Dan.

“I’ll go get Emma-May,” she said, circling around them as Ford burst into laughter again.

Ford smiled as he got to work. They’d moved him back into the first bedroom, and he insisted that Stan be laid on a proper bed. His brother needed to rest while Ford was busy. Once Bill was gone, he could sleep a bit easier, and as long as the barrier was up his soul wouldn’t go anywhere.

The easiest way, now that he was thinking about it, would be to go back to the portal and find a way to reverse the door somehow. It would drag Bill back into his dimension and hopefully undo all the changes he’d made in town.

Ford told Fiddleford to work on that, the man had a talent with technology, and Ford wanted to do something else.

Something more painful.

A reversed portal was too easy. He needed to make Bill hurt. Make him regret ever stepping foot in this dimension. Make him feel what Stan was feeling.

Thankfully he had all this left over unicorn hair. He could probably do something with it. It repelled Bill, if he could figure out how he could harness it into something. Use its repelling attributes to tear through his physical form. Like a bullet.

Or a bomb.

“Just think Stanley,” Ford said, walking around the table and organizing all the supplies they’d managed to scrounge up, “Maybe I could blast him into the barrier, crush him against it like a bug. That would be fun, wouldn’t it? Then I could trap him there forever, forced to watch the world outside go on, just out of reach. Oh, he’d hate that.”

Stanley didn’t respond, because he was resting. Dan kept giving him concerned looks though, and so did the lady they’d sent to help look after Stan. Emma-May said at least one person needed to keep an eye on them at all times for some reason.

Hearing Bill’s screams echo around the place just made him burst out laughing again. There wasn’t anything he could do, not with how large he’d made the barrier. Anything he created would bounce off, anything with even a touch of his power would be unable to get through. He could rage and moan as much as he’d like, he wasn’t getting to Ford unless Ford came out himself.

It was a good thing Emma-May had stopped him. It gave him a chance to cool down and think. Bill wouldn’t fix Stan, not properly. And then he’d take Stan somewhere, punish him for Ford leaving. Ford wasn’t going to let that happen. Stan was never going to see Bill again.

And when Ford had smashed him into pieces, he could fix Stan.

All he had to do was find all the fragments of Stan’s soul and stick them back together. Then he’d be as good as new.

Ford would fix it.

“Now, lets see here,” Ford said, picking up a piece of hair, “this would have been much easier in my lab, but we’ll work with what we have, wont we Stanley?”

Ford kept talking, ignoring the looks from Dan and the lady and just filling the room with his voice. Stan always liked listening to it, and it helped Ford to talk it out. He smiled as he passed Stan, ruffling his hair before turning back to the table.

He had a lot of work to do.

“That’ll keep him busy for a while,” Fiddleford said, rolling out a few papers in the main room, “I’m not sure how feasible or effective whatever he’s tryin’ back there is, but at least he gave us an actual plan before losing it.”

“How quickly will you be able to work on this?” Emma-May asked, watching him look at the journals in front of him. Ford had had them in his coat the entire time, and they each had a portion of the blueprints for the machine in his basement.

“Not sure,” Fiddleford muttered, sketching something out, “I…. I don’t. I don’t remember working on this much still, and I was there more for the mechanical aspect of it. Really it would be better for Stanford to work on this, but….” He trailed off, then winced when they heard the echoes of laughter bounce down the halls.

Yeah, best to let him do whatever he was doing away from everyone else for a while.

“The harder part will be gettin’ to the portal,” he continued, looking through the blueprints, “What with that thing hovering everywhere watchin’ us.”

“I’ll work on that,” Carla said, pulling out some papers she’d taken from the museum upstairs. It looked like some old maps of the town, “I think we might be able to take the sewers, or some of the backroads. Those are used by the shadow people, but they said we could borrow them if they figure out how to access them from here.”

“Alright then,” Emma-May stood on her announcement crate, and the room went silent around her, “We have a plan! Fiddleford’s going to reverse the doorway that let that thing in, while Carla will lead a team to get there and input the commands! As long as we have the barrier, we’re safe! It’s been hours and not a single crack has appeared, so don’t lose hope! We can get through this!”

People cheered, and she stepped down and started organizing teams. They’d managed to find some resin upstairs, and after consulting Ford (which had been its own process) determined it wouldn’t mess with the barrier. She had a few individuals sealing in the hair, just in case someone got scared and turned coat on them.

“It might be a few days, so we’ll have to keep Stanford occupied and busy,” Emma-May told the group around her, “Give him anything he needs, but keep an eye on him. I don’t think he’ll run again but its better to be safe than sorry.”

“In the meantime, keep me updated. We have enough food and water to last about a month down here, maybe longer if we start rationing more. I’d rather not have to go that far though, if we can help it.”

Fiddleford and Carla nodded, then went off to their assigned tasks.

Bill screamed again, making everyone flinch.

Hopefully it would get done sooner rather than later.

Chapter Text

It took a day or so for Fiddleford to figure out how to reverse the portal. In the end he had to start asking Ford questions about it, flinching every time he poked his head in to talk to him.

Ford was. Not doing good.

He was barely eating or sleeping, and his frantic energy hadn’t stopped. He would burst into laughter randomly, and he kept talking to Nikola, who still hadn’t responded.

Going through the journals, it was obvious that this was a long time coming

He’d read through them with some of the others, which felt like a violation of privacy, but he did start the apocalypse (on accident, it looked like) so Emma-May decided he would have to live with it. Fiddleford felt the guilt crawl up his spine as they read about the portal test, and everything that came after. Two weeks he’d been up in that house, alone with that thing. No wonder he’d snapped and thought his cat was his brother.

He should have gone back. Or let Carla check on him. Maybe started calling more often years ago, before he met that demon and thought it was his friend. He felt terrible, seeing how far his best friend had fallen.

But Ford was also getting annoyed with Fiddleford’s interruptions, saying he was ‘wasting Ford’s time’ on the portal. They’d had to develop a rotating guard every two hours for him, because no one could stand to watch him mutter to himself any longer. Except Dan, but Dan was a special case, and it would be unfair to make him stay there all the time.

Poor Shifty was avoiding him too, too young to understand why his mom was acting like he was. Ford hadn’t done anything to hurt him, but every time he poked his head in Ford would start laughing, making him uncomfortable.

But finally, Fiddleford was done, meaning he didn’t have to talk to Ford and could leave him to whatever he was building in there. It was getting terrifying trying to talk to him.

Now all they had to do was get to the portal.

That was proving to be the hard part.

Bill had stopped his tantrum eventually, but he was still outside, monologuing and having his demons patrol the edges of the barrier. Fiddleford had set up cameras, connected to a few TVs in the main room, to keep an eye on him. So far he’d shown no sign of going anywhere.

The back roads, which were apparently a magic high way running along a pocket dimension connected to their own, couldn’t get past the barrier either, which ruled them out.

That left the sewers. There was only one problem with that.

“They’re small,” Carla said, rolling out the map on the table in the central room, “or don’t go far enough out of town. If half the buildings hadn’t been demolished, we might have been able to sneak by, but there’s too much open space.”

“But its our only option, besides digging a tunnel directly there. I have a team working on it, but they said it might take a while, and no telling about structural integrity with everything going on above us.”

Emma-May looked at the map, thinking, “Fiddleford will have to go, so it has to be a route he’ll fit in.”

Fiddleford groaned. He’d been worried about that. It made sense, since he was one of the ones to build it, but he’d been hoping he could just write out the instructions and give them to someone else.

“This one here is our best bet,” Carla said, pointing at the map. There was a tunnel that connected to the museum and led towards the edge of town close to Gopher Road, where Fords house was. If they could get there they could head into the woods, follow the road, and get to the house.

“I checked from the upper floors; there’s a clear view of the manhole from here. If Bill’s looks that way, its over. No redo.”

“So, we need to make sure he doesn’t look.” Emma-May said, “A distraction. Something that will keep his eye, and his demons’ eyes, somewhere else.”

Everyone turned as they heard Ford burst into laughter again down the hallway.

“I’m so glad you’ve seen it my way,” Ford said, eye twitching, “I have the blueprints done, its just putting all the pieces together that’s slowing me down. Really, the supplies down here are barely adequate for my needs. But I make do, don’t I Stanley?”

They turned to look at Stan. He still hadn’t moved, but his eyes were closed now. Like he was sleeping, and not ‘missing his broken soul’ or whatever Ford had been yelling about. It was hard to make out the details when he wasn’t giving them.

“What have you designed so far,” Fiddleford asked, looking at the room nervously.

It barely resembled the bedroom it was pretending to be. Ford had taken advantage of people bringing him whatever he asked, and now the walls were full of diagrams, held up with pins, and metal parts were cluttered around the floor, along with various random bags and a few questionable objects. The only area untouched was the bed, and the floor just in front of it.

“I’ve had to limit myself,” Ford said, grabbing some papers and slamming them onto the table, “due to lack of resources. BUT! But, but, but!” Ford laughed, then leaned forward and grinned, “Theres still so much I can do with this. It’s remarkably flexible in utility. I wish I could have had access to it before, it would have made- but that doesn’t matter. I have a few designs that have proved promising, although I won’t know for sure until we test them. Isn’t that right Stanley?”

Ford turned to grin at Stan again, and the rest of them exchanged glances.

Carla and Fiddleford were going to help him get any materials and help build…. Whatever it was he was building back here. Carla was better at talking to anything magical, and Fiddleford was better at inventing. Hopefully they could get something that would catch Bills attention. Or at least, keep Ford on the front steps of the museum trying to do something.

There had been a brief attempt at getting him upstairs to yell at Bill, but they had barely suggested it before he started snarling, so helping him build his unicorn hair weapons it was.

“First, a gun.” Ford said, shoving a blueprint into Fiddleford’s arms, “Smaller, but more mobile. It’ll fire the quickest but deal the least damage. Then, the cannon. Lots of fire power, harder to aim. The laser, I have no idea how that will turn out, it’s more experimental. I also have grenades, and some melee weapons, if we wanted to get in personal. BUT! Emma-May said to try and stay in the barrier. For safety. We like to stay safe, don’t we Stanley?”

Once again, he looked over at Stan. His eyes were twitching, and his hands kept spasming where they gripped the papers.

“When was the last time you slept?” Carla asked, looking at some of the blueprints.

Ford turned and laughed at her, then grabbed another paper. Not for a while then.

He leaned in over the table, and waved them closer, eyes getting shifty and whispering.

“I’ve also designed this,” he pushed forwards his last blue print. It looked like a large tube, and the design confused Carla. It looked like it confused Fiddleford too, as he tilted his head and squinted at it.

“I’m very excited to try this out,” he said, not explaining what it was at all, “Carla!”

She jumped as he yelled in her face, wincing. He shoved a piece of paper in her hands, and she looked at it to find a list of ingredients. His hand writing had gotten shaky, and halfway through he stopped using cursive and switched to blocky letters.

“I need these to finish the ammunition. Fiddleford!” he turned towards the man and hauled half completed machines off the floor, sliding them over to him, “I’ll need you to finish these, while I start working on what I can before Carla gets back. Everything will go much faster that way, won’t it Stanley?”

Once again, he turned and smiled at Stan, before bursting into laughter and walking over to a crate full of items and rummaging through it, humming.

Carla patted Fiddleford on the back, then went off to get the items on the list.

It took a few hours to get everything the way Ford liked it. Fiddleford worked fast under pressure and was very motivated to get out of the room as quickly as possible. Ford spent most of his time hunched over his makeshift desk, giggling to himself and talking about whatever he was doing at any given time. And to Stan, who still hadn’t moved.

The only reason they knew he was alive was because he was breathing. His ears didn’t so much as twitch.

“Alright, here’s the plan,” Carla said. She was bringing herself, Fiddleford, a couple of gnomes, and  three volunteer townsfolk (Corduroy Sr., Jimmy, and Liam), to head to Fords house. Emma-May had said his house was swarming with eye bats, and since it was so far out of town no one could see if they were still there. That meant they’d need some fire power to clear the area, or as a distraction.

Dan was helping Ford set up, carrying the weapons up into the museum until they were ready to use them.

“We’re going to head out through the sewers, and exit here,” she said, pointing at the map, “then we’ll wait underground until Stanford starts distracting Bill.  We’ll run to the trees and towards Stanford’s house. Once there, we’ll scout the area and look for any way inside. Fiddleford will work on reversing the portal, and hopefully this whole mess will be over. Any questions?”

“I have one,” someone asked, looking at the TVs, “what do we do if Dr. Pines already started?”

Carla whipped her head around. Sure enough, there was Stanford, standing on the stairs to the museum, holding a gun, and yelling at Bill.

“We move it!” Carla grabbed the map and ran towards the sewer entrance, “Quickly! We don’t know how long we have!”

She couldn’t believe he’d already gone out there. No, actually she did. What she couldn’t believe is that no one thought to keep an eye on him. Of course he wouldn’t wait, he didn’t care about the portal.

All he cared about was Bill.

Ford grinned as Dan brought up the cannon and placed it by the entrance. This was so exciting. He couldn’t wait to see the expression on Bill’s face when he showed this off. He hoped it hurt.

He hoped it tore him apart.

“That’s the last of it, Dr. Pines,” Dan said, “now we have to- WAIT!” Dan lunged forward to grab his sleeve, but Ford was already out the doors.

He wasn’t going to wait! He had everything he needed right here!

“Well, well, well, look who FINALLY showed up,” And there was Bill, floating above the street right at the end of the barrier, “Stanford Pines! The man of the hour. Where’s your dumb shadow, finally got tired of him following you around? Or did something happen?”

“DON’T TALK ABOUT STANLEY LIKE THAT!” Ford screamed, fist tightening on the gun in his hand, “You knew this would happen. That he would- but it’s fine. I’m going to fix it. I DON’T NEED YOU! I NEVER NEEDED YOU!”

“Woah calm down there!” Bill said, “Are you talking about my little soul tape I had in him? Cuz yeah, that thing wasn’t going to last a second cut off from me. Let me guess, he’s a nice little vegetable down there, not causing a fuss.”

“But of course, you like him better when he’s causing messes, don’t you” Bill floated down, the sides of his eye smiling, “How about this. I’m still ANGRY that you ran off and destroyed all your hard work. But I get it, they barged in on their own, you didn’t call them. You bring him up here, step out behind your pathetic little bubble, and I’ll fix him right up for you! All you have to do is go back to your room, just like before. Deal?”

Ford grinned, then stepped to the side, out of the way of the cannon. Dan (great kid that he was) fired.

The unicorn cannon ball shot past. It dinged delightfully as it passed the larger barrier around the museum (like little bells, sparkling purple) before going straight into Bill’s eye, and exploding.

Bill screamed, and Ford burst into laughter.

“TAKE YOUR STUPID DEALS AND CHOKE ON THEM!” Ford yelled, laughing as he watched Bill try to reform.

The residue from the cannon ball coated the sides of Bill’s body, sparkling purple. Ford watched gleefully as the areas sparked, preventing immediate healing by pushing the new flesh away.

Ford laughed some more as the demons surrounding Bill panicked, looking back and forth between Bills writhing body and Ford.

Bill was still screaming, more and more hands going to claw at the hole in his body. Ford lifted the gun and started firing into the crowd of demons, cackling as the bullets made lovely bell sounds when they passed the barrier and tore through the demons on the other side, leaving tiny purple bullet wounds.

“Dan!” Ford shouted, turning behind him while he reloaded, “get another cannon ball ready! I’m sure we can get him one more time!”

“Sure thing Dr. Pines,” Dan said. What a good kid.

Ford turned back to the crowd, the red light from the sky glinting off his glasses.

It was a beautiful day.

Carla ducked as the tunnel shook around her. They could hear the demons screaming above them, as well as Ford’s maniacal laughter.

She was so happy they managed to catch him before he ran off. He was terrifying.

Thankfully Gravity Falls was a small town, so they only had to take two turns before being right under the exit to the sewer they needed, and it was less than ten minutes to get there.

Carla reached the ladder first, climbing up quickly before slowly lifting the lid.

She could see the fight from here. Bill had half a hole in the middle, while his demons scrambled around him, screaming. There weren’t any eye bats, and all of them seemed focused on Ford, trying to avoid getting shot without running away and dealing with Bills wrath.

She looked around. The tree line was close by, right after the small alley way next to her. Gently, she moved the manhole cover, flinching whenever it scrapped the ground. None of the demons seemed to notice, too worried about the mad man with the gun.

She jumped out into a crouch, then pulled up one of the gnomes, then Corduroy Sr. Then she backed up towards the alley way, keeping an eye on the demons.

They managed to get everyone but Liam and one of the gnomes up before a lava lamp and a pair of teeth spotted them. They looked at them in the alley, then back at Ford laughing maniacally and pulling out another gun, then started running towards them.

“Liam! Head back!” Carla whisper shouted. He nodded, heading back down, and Carla turned and sprinted into the woods, giant teeth and lava lamp closing in behind them.

She ran towards the front of the group, grabbing the gnome as she went and passing him to Corduroy Sr. as she passed, then took the lead. She could hear the demons crashing through the trees behind them.

“Stupid Stanford,” Fiddleford muttered behind her, “living in the middle of the woods.”

Snow crunched under their feet, and an icy wind blew through the trees. They’d spent so long underground; it was hard to remember it was still the middle of winter up here.

“Come on, keep up,” Carla panted, turning past a tree and hitting Gopher Road. She quickly turned down it, looking for the turn to Fords house. They managed to get several yards down the road before the giant lava lamp and teeth burst out of the woods behind them, crashing into the trees on the other side before stopping.

“Hey!” the teeth shouted, “Get back here so we can eat some of you!”

“I’m sure the Boss would like one or two, so stop!” the lava lamp shouted.

Fiddleford started screaming behind her. She reached back and grabbed his hand, pulling him along.

There.

Carla lunged to the side, Jimmy and Corduroy Sr. hot on her heels. The demons ran past the turn, slipping on the snow when they tried to turn.

They were almost there. They followed the road to Ford’s house, the sounds of shouting hot on their heels, and burst into the clearing.

It was just like Emma-May had described it. The yard was littered with half-burnt furniture and books, along with parts of the roof. The walls were still standing, and sickly rainbow lights shone out from the windows and the opening where the roof used to be. There were no eye bats to be seen.

Bill must have been very angry about their eye bat bot. She hadn’t seen any sign of them since their rescue operation.

They ran towards the entrance and Carla pulled on the door.

It was locked. Of course it was locked.

Behind them the demons crashed into the clearing, wheezing. The teeth bent over and held up a hand, while the lava lamp slumped to the side.

“Give us a moment,” the teeth said, “We haven’t. havent had to run in a while.”

“Jimmy,” Carla whispered, shoving Fiddleford towards him, “Get him down there.”

Jimmy nodded, then pulled something from his pocket, armed it and threw it between the demons.

The teeth looked at it, “What is-”

The grenade exploded.

Carla worked quickly, pulling the ax of her back while Corduroy Sr. kicked down the door, then grabbed his own. Jimmy grabbed Fiddleford, pulling him into the house and out of sight. The demons screamed as the smoke cleared, purple spots covering their skin and preventing them from healing.

“You wanna eat me!” Carla yelled, brandishing her ax, “I’ll make you eat this!”

She jumped from the porch, yelling as she swung her new unicorn hair weapon down on them.

Above them something exploded.

Chapter Text

Ford grinned as the second cannon ball connected, just as Bill’s eye reformed. Bill screamed some more, then floated upwards, away from the range of the cannon.

Pity. Ford had made five cannon balls.

“Dan! Aim for the crowd! I’m sure they’d love a taste!” Ford yelled, grabbing out the laser gun and aiming it at Bill.

He pulled the trigger, and a purple beam shot out. This one sounded like a cascade of tiny bells as it passed through the barrier, changing pitch as it went. It left a scorch mark on Bills body, that bubbled a for a while before fading away. Bill screeched louder as it hit him but still focused on tearing away the contaminated areas around his eye.

How disappointing.

“Well, they can’t all be winners I suppose.” Ford aimed at the crowd of demons and shot them instead, trying to get a rhythm going with the sounds.

That sounded fun, laser gun music. Stanley would enjoy that.

Ford grinned, then put the laser gun away when he noticed Bill’s eye was almost done growing. He rushed back into the museum and grabbed the uni-tube.

He made sure it was loaded properly, then ran out of the museum and partway down the stairs, making sure he had the perfect angle. He only made one uni-bomb for this, and he wanted to make sure it counted.

“Hey Bill!” Ford yelled, getting his attention as his pupil finished growing.

“WHAT!” Bill yelled, lurching forwards and banging his arms on the barrier (but at such an angle the cannon couldn’t hit him), “WHAT COULD YOU POSSIBLE-!”

Ford shot the uni-tube, watching the missile launch out and head straight for the Fearamid. It left a rainbow trail behind it and made a magnificent gong sound when it passed the barrier.

All the demons froze as they watched it arc through the air, then collide with the Fearamid. It exploded into a giant ball of purple shimmery smoke in the shape of a butterfly. Small lights sparkled along the edges, and the air filled with the smell of pancakes. Debris fell from the sky, and he watched in glee as the smoke cleared.

Half of the Fearamid was missing, and the rest was slowly tilting over and descending to the ground.

Ford had packed so many explosives into that thing. Many of them magical (so Emma-May wouldn’t notice).

Bill screamed in outrage, form shifting as he grew to tower over the museum. His body changed into the red pyramid form he’d used during Fords escape. His yellow arms slammed into the barrier, teeth trying to scrape at it.

“STANDFO-”

Another cannon ball hit him in his mouth, cutting him off. Ford burst into laughter, then pulled out the gun and started shooting him in the eye, leaving little purple dots. Bill let out a strangled scream, once more tearing off his contaminated flesh.

“Excellent shot Dan!” Ford shouted, then pulled the laser gun out with his other hand and fired that one into the crowd of demons below him, laughing as they jumped and dodged out of the way.

It was like he was making them dance to his music.

“Ah, Stanley would have loved to see this,” Ford said, “I wonder if Fiddleford has this recorded!”

Then he turned and shot Bill in the eye with the laser a few times, laughing as the liquid inside bubbled.

He really needed this all on video to show Stanley later, when he was feeling better.

Carla swung down the ax, stumbling as the sky above them exploded. The teeth demon screamed, jumping back on its other foot, while Corduroy Sr. smashed his ax into the lava lamp.

It sunk into the glass, shattering it as he pulled away.

The yellow liquid from inside it started leaking out of the cracks, sizzling the ground and melting the snow.

Carla looked away as the teeth lunged back at her, focusing on it. She sidestepped, then swung her ax at its legs as it stumbled past her. It screamed again, bouncing.

“I’M GONNA EAT YOU SO MUCH!” it yelled, opening its mouth and jumping, trying to bite her.

Carla ducked under it, sliding the ax down its jaw stomach, leaving a purple trail behind.

“That doesn’t make sense!” she yelled, watching it stumble and fall onto its front, writhing and clawing at the mark.

She watched in horror as it tore away the purple skin and more grew back in its place. A glance to her side showed that the lava lamp had regrown its glass as well.

Fiddleford needed to get that portal done fast.

Fiddleford whimpered as something above them exploded, shaking the house.

This was terrifying. He wished he didn’t have to be here.

Especially since they’d have to climb down into the basement.

They had taken three steps in before the floor disappeared. He could see the portal from here, a few floors below them and swirling with ominous colors.

“I got this,” the gnome said, then reached into his pocket and pulled out a folded piece of cloth. He unfolded it into a parachute, then climbed onto Fiddleford’s back and tied it around him.

“What’s happing here,” He asked, trying to look at the gnome.

“Don’t worry about it! Now stand over there.” The gnome pointed to an area near where the floor was missing. Fiddleford shuffled closer, swallowing.

“OK, Now- AHHHHH” Fiddleford screamed as Jimmy pushed him off the side, watching the ground come up to meet him. A second later the gnome pulled something, and the parachute caught the air, a few feet from the bottom.

They gently dropped to the ground, and Fiddleford’s legs gave out, shaking under him. The gnome jumped off of him and started untying him.

“Alright science guy, time to get to work!” the gnome said, as Jimmy came down with a similar parachute. Did everyone else know about that part of the plan but him? It made sense, but it was still hurtful.

He made his way to his feet, then dashed into the control room. The window was smashed open, from the portal side, littering the controls and floor with broken glass. Fiddleford grimaced, then went to work, slamming buttons and inputting commands on the computer.

There was no telling if Bill would notice this, so he had to work as quickly as possible.

Everyone was counting on him.

It was terrifying.

Fords laughed as Bill scrambled around the barrier, trying to avoid the cannon again. They had two more shots before they were out, and Dan was saving them.

That was fine, it gave him more time to shoot Bill himself.

The other demons tried running away at several points, but Bill had screamed at them to continue trying to break through the barrier and grab Ford.

“ILL CUT OFF YOUR LEGS SIXER!” Bill screamed, skittering across the top of the dome like a spider, “ALL I NEED IS YOUR BRAIN! ILL STUFF YOU IN A JAR AND FORCE YOU TO WORK!”

“YOU WOULDN’T DARE!” Ford screamed back, cackling, shooting at him more, “YOU CAN’T RISK KILLING ME! I’M THE ONLY ONE WHO CAN GET YOU OUT!”

He ran out of bullets and reached for another clip.

Nothing.

Ford turned back to the entrance to find the box of ammunition empty. Looks like he’d be relying on the laser gun for a while, until it ran out of charge.

“Ah well,” Ford smiled as he dropped the gun, “once I run out, that when the fun begins.”

Ford cackled, shooting Bill in the eye before blasting some of the other demons in their faces, making them drop and squirm on the ground.

“Like worms!” he laughed, shooting a few more before aiming for Bills hands. He managed to shoot three of them in quick succession, making Bill lose his grip and slide down the dome.

Right into another cannon ball, this one on his lower mouth.

Ford cackled, then fired the laser gun again. And again.

And again.

Laughing all the while.

“Should we be concerned,” someone asked.

“No,” Emma-May said, watching the screen, “He’ll drop like a sack of bricks when this is over, I don’t think he’s slept in the last three days.”

There was a rumbling of voices, then they turned back to watch Ford laugh maniacally and shoot demons brains out.

“I can’t believe he’s lived here for six years,” someone else muttered.

“Yeah, he’s kind of terrifying.”

Carla grunted as the teeth scrapped across her arm. She managed to pull it loose before it could close its mouth all the way, but it had been close.

It licked the blood off, then tilted forward and snapped its mouth a few times.

“You taste delicious little girl,” it said, wiggling its fingers at her, “why don’t you let me have another bite.”

“I’m a woman, and you’re disgusting.” Carla snarled back, panting.

Corduroy Sr. managed to get the lava lamp further away, but there were patches of molten goo all over the yard, making the layout hazardous for them. The demons ignored it, of course, and barely seemed winded from the fight.

The humans weren’t so lucky. Corduroy Sr. had burns on his arms and legs, while Carla’s arm now had a large scrape, and the bottoms of her feet were burnt from stepping in the goop.

This couldn’t go on much longer.

“Hurry up Fiddleford,” she muttered, before dodging to the side and slicing into the gums of the teeth. One of the teeth popped out, slamming into the ground next to her and she jumped away, narrowly missing another puddle.

The teeth howled, then rushed back to grab the tooth and shove it back in its mouth. Carla used this moment to glance at the house.

The lights were the same, and she hadn’t heard a sound since they went in.

She hoped they were OK.

Fiddleford hated this machine, and he hated Stanford for building it.

Most of all he hated seeing all the dried blood everywhere. There was only one person it could be from.

He smashed through some of the buttons, typing away and rewriting lines of codes, then jumped across the room and peeled a panel open with a crow bar, reaching in and redoing some of the wiring.

This would have been easier with Ford, but that lunatic was laughing away distracting Bill. So, it fell to him to do it himself.

When he was done with the wiring he jumped back to the control panel, slamming buttons and inputting more codes.

The portal was starting to change colors, back to the gentle blue that haunted his nightmares. The wind was picking up as well, pulling at his clothes.

“Get in here and hold on!” Fiddleford yelled, “I’m almost done, and its gonna get crazy out there.”

Jimmy and the gnome nodded, running inside and grabbing onto the railings of the stair case.

Bill paused mid-yell; eye darting around before looking into the distance. Then it snapped back to Ford.

“What did you do Stanford!” he yelled, getting to his feet and glaring, “Henchmaniacs! Head to the portal! Something’s going on there! We’re moving out!”

The demons sighed in relief, jumping to their feet and racing away towards his house. Bill glared at Ford, form growing larger as he prepared to follow.

“Don’t you get cocky, I’ll be right-”

Well, Ford was running out of charge on the laser gun, might as well get to his favorite part.

Ford raced out down the museum stairs, ignoring Dan’s shouts and crossing the barrier. It made a pleasant tingling sound, like the entrance to a store.

Bill looked down at him in surprise, then grinned and slammed his hand down on Ford.

“YOU IDIOT, JUST CHARGING AT- AAAHHHHHHH” Bill yelled as his hand slammed down on Fords mobile barrier, splitting the skin open and giving Ford the perfect opportunity to climb on top of Bill, run up his arm, and pull out the knife he’d made, just for this moment.

“THIS IS FOR STANLEY!” he screamed, bringing it down into Bill’s body and slicing it across his arm. He jumped onto Bill’s face, barrier pushing against the demon, and grabbed onto his upper eyelid.

Then he slammed the knife into his eye, over and over again, laughing as Bill’s frantic hands smashed against the small unicorn barrier he’d sewn into his clothes without telling anyone.

He wasn’t sure it would work after all.

Bill screamed, falling from the sky and trying to grab at Ford. Then he tried to bang Ford against the museum barrier in an attempt to flatten him.

Ford laughed as he passed through harmlessly, just digging the knife in further and further, trying to tear the demon apart from the inside.

“I think we should tie him to the bed,” someone muttered.

“I don’t think that would work, he might chew his way free,” said someone else.

“Just put him next to the cat guy, I think he’d be fine,”

“Then lock the door.”

“Shush, I’m trying to watch!”

The room quieted down as they watched Ford cackle and drive a knife into Bills eye, getting himself covered in blood and eye juices. It didn’t look like he’d noticed.

“I wish we had popcorn,”

Carla screamed as she hit the tree and slid down. The teeth laughed across from her, then stopped and turned around. More demons were approaching through the trees. It looked like all the ones from the museum had finally figured out what they were doing.

Corduroy Sr. grunted from across the clearing, chest heaving. They were both exhausted. He had one of his eyes closed, a cut across his hairline covering half his face in blood.

“End of the line, girly” the teeth said, stepping closer and clicking its teeth together threateningly, “Don’t worry, this won’t be quick.”

It lunged forward, mouth open and ready to bite her in half.

Then it yelled in surprise as it was jerked into the air.

Carla watched as the rest of the demons shot into the air as well, slowly floating away. Then they all screamed as they were pulled towards the house, rising into a tornado of colors that started to lead past the destroyed roof into the portal below.

The wind tugged at her a bit, but she watched in amazement as all the weird things from all over town flew across the sky and were sucked in.

Fiddleford had done it.

Now they just needed to wait on Bill.

Ford laughed as he ripped away more and more pieces of Bill, flinging them into the air and throwing them into the sky, leaving purple slash marks behind. The wind was tugging them, but Ford wasn’t letting Bill escape that easily.

“Dr. Pines!”

Ford blinked, then looked below him to see Dan. He grinned, waving at him with the hand holding the knife before plunging it back into Bills side.

“HELLO DAN!” He yelled, turning back to continue.

“Dr. Pines, jump!” Ford looked back to see Dan holding out his arms.

“Can’t you see I’m busy! I need to-”

“DR. PINES, IF YOU DON’T JUMP, HE’LL TAKE YOU WITH HIM!”

Ford blinked, then looked around him.

Bills weirdness was getting sucked into the air, flying across town and towards his house. The only reason Bill hadn’t was because he was clutching onto the barrier below him.

“NO! NO! NO! I WON!” Bill screamed, hands starting to slip, “THIS WAS MY DIMENSION! I WON’T LEAVE!”

Ford looked at Bill, then back down at Dan.

“But I’m not done! I need to tear him apart!”

“What about Stanley! If you go, who’ll take care of him!”

Well, that was true. No one else would look after Stan properly. That was Fords job. He couldn’t leave his brother.

Ford jerked the knife up, then plunged it as deep into the eye as he could reach. Then he let go and pulled his arm free, dropping out of the air and into Dan’s arms.

Bill screamed again, one hand coming up to try and pry it out.

And making him lose his grip.

They watched him jerk into the air, flying with the last of the weirdness towards the portal.

Ford burst into laughter again, watching him flail his arms.

“Why, that was all very satisfying, don’t you think Dan?” Ford said, smiling at him.

Dan grimaced back, face twisting in disgust.

“You need a shower Dr. Pines.”

Ford blinked, then looked down.

He was covered in blood and clear liquids, probably from Bill’s eye. Ford burst into laughter again, slapping Dan on the back. Dan frowned harder, then looked up into the sky. People were walking down the museum steps, turning to watch Bill and everything he brought drift away.

Fiddleford clung to the control panel, watching everything disappear into the portal and fighting against the winds blowing through the room. Jimmy and the gnome were screaming, arms and legs clinging onto the staircase.

More and more things disappeared, screaming and trying to grab onto something in the room. Nothing worked at this point, the portal just kept pulling on everything and dragging it back to their nightmare dimension.  

The longer it went on, the less things were coming down. But Fiddleford couldn’t relax. Not until he saw-

Bill.

Bill screamed as he slammed into the portal, eye black and crying blood. His yellow arms clutched at the portal mechanisms around him.

“NO! I HAD IT ALL! I WAS HERE! IT WAS MINE! YOU!” Bill’s damaged eye focused on Fiddleford, looking half blind and furious, “WHEN I GET MY HANDS ON YOU SPECS-”

“GO AWAY!” Fiddleford yelled, “YOU’RE NOT WELCOME!”

Bill screamed in wordless rage.

And then he was gone, taking the machinery he’d been clutching with him.

A flash of light burst from the portal, sweeping through the room-

And leaving him in near pitch darkness.

Fiddleford blinked for a moment, then carefully walked over to the door to the control room.

Was it night outside? They’d lost track of the days a while back so maybe-

But it wasn’t the sky that greeted him when he looked up.

It was the ceiling.

“What in tarnation-”

Carla yelled as a flash of light burst from the house then groaned as the bright blue sky burned her eyes. She’d gotten used to all the dark red light.

She blinked for a moment, trying to adjust, then gasped.

The furniture on the ground was gone, and so was the roof. Instead Fords house was sitting in front of her, looking intact. Except for the attic window, for some reason.

She stood up with a groan, then walked with Corduroy Sr. to the front door. It wasn’t broken down anymore, and it was still locked. She peered inside to see Fords messy house, furniture back where she remembered it.

“Its all back,” she whispered looking back at the man.

They stared at each other, then looked back at the town.

They couldn’t see anything from here, too many trees, but she was pretty confident everything would be exactly how it was before this all started.

Like a bad dream.

The townsfolk watched in amazement as the bright light swept through the town, restoring buildings and houses as it went. It glided over the museum, leaving it untouched, before continuing on the other side.

The sky was bright and blue, and several people jumped as the clock tower came to life, signaling nine in the morning.

There was a moment of silence, then they burst into cheers.

A few people came up to Ford to congratulate him, before grimacing and walking away. Ford giggled, then flopped his head on Dan’s shoulder.

Bill was gone.

Now he could finally fix Stanley.

Chapter Text

Emma-May looked out at the sky, then shivered in the cold air.

Everyone was staring at each other, unsure what to do next. She was about to make an announcement of some sort, when she was distracted by Fords shouts.

“Let me go!” he yelled, trying to scramble out of Dan’s arms, “I need to get to Stanley! Now that Bill’s gone, I can finally get working on finding his soul and glueing it together!”

“You need to take a shower,” Dan said, “you’re disgusting.”

And he was. Blood and other fluids were soaked into his clothes and hair, smearing across Dan’s arms. They were starting to create a small bubble around them, as the others took notice and stepped away. The smell wasn’t better as Emma-May got closer, demons blood mixing in with his sweat.

“Stanford, take a shower,” Emma-May said, crossing her arms and frowning, “He’s been fine so far, he can wait a few more minutes for you to clean up. Also, do you really want to smear all that over him?”

Ford frowned, then held up his hand, like he was looking at it for the first time.

“Stanley shouldn’t see this. You’re right, thank you Emma-May.”

With that he squirmed out of Dan’s arms and marched to the closest house, kicking down the door and marching inside.

“Hey, that’s my house,” someone shouted.

“Did you want to go in there and kick him out?” someone else replied.

“No, I think I’m fine out here.”

“I’ll keep an eye on him,” Dan said, following after, “I need to wash this off.”

Emma-May nodded at him, then turned to look at everyone. Then shivered again. Maybe they should go back inside.

The group from the house came back after a half hour or so to find the town hall throwing an impromptu party. They’d hauled food from the basement, while some people had found all the perishables in their fridges had also been restored and were cooking it up over several grills. People were walking around town, running their hands along the new old buildings, and checking on their homes.

Most of the forest creatures had gone back into the woods, but many of them came back as well, bringing along lost friends and party supplies of their own. The townsfolk helped them set up, chatting with them and meeting all the new faces that had been lost the last week(ish).

Carla and Corduroy Sr. were ushered over to a makeshift hospital, while Fiddleford had been thrown into the air while people cheered. Some of his former cultists were looking at him in awe.

Emma-May would have to put a stop to that.

That was also around the time that Ford emerged from the house he’d broken into. There was no evidence of the carnage that had been splattered all over him, and he was also completely dry and wearing the exact clothes he was in before. His hair was sticking up at odd angles, blowing in the wind as he marched back into the museum.

“He took a shower with his clothes on,” Dan said, walking up next to her, “Then used some magic spell to dry himself off. Said he didn’t use it much because of what it did to his hair.”

“I’ll go check on him when I’m done here,” Carla shouted, wincing as they bandaged her arm, “I don’t think he’ll be able to stay awake much longer.”

“All right then,” Emma-May said, “In the meantime, lets celebrate!”

The townsfolk cheered around her, as well as the various creatures that called these woods their home.

True to word, Carla went down to check on Ford, feeling a bit shocked as she went down the stairs.

A trucker had pulled through, asking about the crazy costume party they were throwing. Emma-May had marched up and demanded to know what day it was, determined to find out how long they’d been stuck in that nightmare dome.

Not a single day had passed.

It was still the same date and time as it was the moment Bill had come out of the portal. Emma-May theorized that was why all the clocks had stopped working. Bill had paused time, trapping them in his little nightmare bubble, with no hope of anyone outside helping them.

It was a good thing they hadn’t left the first chance they got. Not only would they not have gotten far, but then Ford would have been trapped inside, still helping Bill bring down the barrier.

They’d have taken one step towards freedom then found the rest of the world in shambles.

Ford would have loved to talk about the implications of all the time stopping, she was sure, if he wasn’t currently huddling over Stan muttering to himself.

The adrenaline crash was hitting him hard. He was slumped over the bed, squishing Stan’s face and mumbling. His head kept drifting down to Stan’s chest before jerking up, fighting to stay awake.

“Stanford,” Carla whispered, going into the room and walking over. He didn’t respond, just kept mumbling and rubbing Stan’s face. Stan’s eyes were still closed, and he was breathing softly.

“Stanford, you need to get some rest,” she said, coming around to look him in the eyes. This proved ineffective, as his eyes were already closed. They’d flicker open every couple of seconds, but he was clearly losing this battle.

Ford didn’t respond, head drifting down again before jerking up, mumbles raising in pitch.

Carla sighed, then bent down and hauled his legs onto the bed next to Stan. Ford rolled over on top of him before smacking into the wall. He shouted, eyes widening as he looked around in panic, before they snapped to Stan next to him.

Ford sighed, then rolled over, threw an arm around him, and laid his head on the pillow. He mumbled for a few more seconds, before they quickly changed into snores.

Carla smiled sadly, then fixed the blanket to cover them both. She’d get some food and help some of the forest creatures out for a few hours, then head over to Ford’s house and see if she could find any of his books on souls. Maybe get some reading done after she took a shower and changed.

She left the lights on, just in case he woke up looking for Stan again, then went back upstairs to join the party.

The world was dark.

Pitch black.

Everything hurt, ached in ways he didn’t know they could.

He could feel his lungs pushing against his ribs with every breath.

Felt something rubbing against his skin, feeling like sand paper.

Noise filled the air around him, muffled by the river in his ears.

And it was dark.

It had been dark for a long, long time.

Why was it so dark?

Wasn’t he-

Oh.

His eyes were closed.

With more strength than he thought he had, he forced one of his eyes to open, squinting at the ceiling above him.

This was better. A ceiling. That meant there was a light somewhere.

Something was tickling his ear. A soft breeze.

His neck felt like it was snapping as he slowly turned to look at what was next to him.

And saw his own face.

No, wait.

That was his brother’s face.

Good. Good. His brother was next to him, right where he should be.

He was sleeping, both eyes closed and facing towards him. That was good too, he needed his rest.

What had he been doing before? Something important, he was sure. He had vague memories of jumping at a triangle. And laughter.

And a room.

He didn’t want to think about it.

Something brushed against the other side of his head.

Ugh.

Turning the other way felt twice as bad, neck cracking and making him feel like it was about to twist off. Really, he’d rather not move ever again. Too painful.

On the other side of him was a man, sitting in a chair and waving a sandwich around. His mouth was moving, but he couldn’t pick up the words.

All he could focus on was the sandwich.

When was the last time he ate? It felt like it might have been a lifetime.

There was an ache deep in his chest he now recognized as hunger.

He needed that sandwich.

Thankfully the man set it down on the plate next to his head.

Perfect.

The man was focused on something else, some distant part of wherever they were, not paying attention to the sandwich next to him.

His arm moved with agonizing slowness out of the blanket and towards it, half from stealth, and more than half from the pain of lifting his arm up. The blanket felt like it was scraping his skin away as he pulled it free, but he didn’t see any blood when it finally came into view, so it was probably nothing.

There was a flash of something, pride maybe, as his hand came up and landed on his target, lifting it up, and shoving it into his mouth.

Nice.

His teeth felt like they were falling out as he chewed, and opening his mouth felt like it might make his jaw pop off, but he was eating this thing no matter the consequences.

He idly watched the man reach out towards the empty plate, then pat it as he found nothing.

Then the man turned and faced him, mouth open as he watched his food disappear.

He looked vaguely familiar. He was pretty sure he knew this guy.

The man’s mouth started moving, but none of the words made it in. His ears were too full of cotton and water. Actually, that might have been his blood. Blood did that, didn’t it?

He finished the sandwich, then yawned and closed his eyes.

He was already exhausted.

Darkness again.

Thankfully he knew what to do here.

It was somewhat easier to open his eye, and this time he managed to get the other one too.

Double vision. Twice as wide, twice as painful.

He looked to his side to find his brother still sleeping next to him, as he should be, before checking to see if the man was back with another sandwich.

He wasn’t, but now there was a lady. She did not have a sandwich, but she did have some crackers.

They were also on a plate next to his head. Excellent. And his hand was still close by from his sandwich snatching.

He managed to grab a few of them before he noticed her looking at him. She stared at him, and her mouth was moving, but she didn’t try and stop his cracker munching, so he ignored her.

He had a few more handfuls before exhaustion hit again.

Yawning, he turned back to his brother and closed his eyes.

Hmm. He knew this one.

One eye. Then two eyes. Sleeping brother. Nice.

Another man, this one much bigger than the last. And now he noticed past the man was a room, and there was the lady and the first man. Their mouths were moving, and they had a bunch of papers in front of them on a table.

No, wait. Books. That’s what those were called.

The man was waving his arms, and the woman pointed to a book. They might have been arguing, maybe.

Something poked him in the head. It felt like a bullet.

He looked back at the big man to see him holding something. It looked like a cup.

The cup shook a few times, and he realized it had liquid in it.

Hey. He was thirsty. That might have been what some of the pain was from actually.

He tried to grab the cup, but the man pulled it away. Which, wow. Why even show it if he wasn’t going to share.

The big man reached forwards with his other hand and pried his mouth open, then poured the liquid down his throat.

It felt like lava, burning a path down him. He wanted to struggle, to pull away, but all he really did was twitch.

A moment later it stopped, and the big man leaned away. He glared at him, then turned back to his brother.

His brother was still sleeping. Good. He didn’t want the big man to pour lava down his throat.

Despite the pain, he was feeling a little better.

He closed his eyes again.

Sleeping brother. Sleeping brother with open mouth.

Sleeping brother with open mouth snoring and bad breath.

Had he been snoring the other times? He couldn’t remember.

He wrinkled his nose at the smell, then turned to see who was sitting next to him this time.

Wow.

A ghost.

Or, he assumed it was a ghost, because no one was there.

That was new. There had always been someone there since forever.

He looked around the room to see the lady and first man, sitting at the table looking through the books. The lady was holding her head in her hand. The man’s mouth was moving again, and he was pointing at something in the book he was reading.

He looked at the plate to see if they had left anything.

The plate was gone.

That was fine, he was pretty sure he wasn’t hungry.

He watched them sit there for a while, before the lady noticed him watching.

She stood up, mouth moving, but he was already closing his eyes again.

There was a little bug.

Little bug staring at him over the chair.

He smiled at the bug, and the bug smiled back.

Then he blinked, and the bug was a boy. Hmm. That seemed normal maybe.

He tried to make a happy sound, but it felt like it was tearing his insides to shreds, so he stopped.

Maybe later.

No one was there.

Not by the chair, not by the table.

Just his brother, curled up next to him snoring.

He needed.

Hmm.

He needed something.

He wasn’t hungry. And he wasn’t thirsty. Some secret, third thing maybe.

He’d have to go find it then.

Carla rushed towards the room when she heard Ford’s screaming.

It had been seventeen hours since he’d collapsed in the bed next to Stan.

In that time, they’d cleared out most of the basement, cleaned up, and brought over every book with the word ‘soul’ from Ford’s house to the makeshift bedroom (after cleaning up Fords mini weapons manufactory).

Fiddleford and Carla had worked on going through the books, while Emma-May helped everyone return to normal and started cleaning up Fords house. Shifty and Tate stayed with them at the museum, playing with some of the other children and checking in on Ford.

That’s when Stan started ‘waking up’.

He didn’t do much, but it was already more than he had been doing since throwing up the black goop keeping his soul together. If they left food near him, he’d eat it, and they found him watching them sometimes. He never spoke, and didn’t give any indication of understanding what they were saying, but it was probably a good sign.

Hopefully.

Only Ford would know for certain.

So of course, the moment no one was in the room something happened. They had left him alone several times by now, she figured it would be fine.

Apparently not.

Carla burst into the room to find Ford throwing the blankets around and overturning the bed, yelling for Stan.

“Stanford!” she shouted, rushing forward and grabbing his arms before he flipped the table full of books. He whipped towards her, grabbing her shoulders and shaking her.

“Carla! Have you seen Stanley! I can’t find him! He was right here, and I was going to fix him and now! STANLEY!” he shoved her away, rushing towards the door, “STANLEY! WHERE ARE YOU!”

“This is all my fault,” he muttered, as Carla hurried after him, trying to keep up with his frantic pace, “I shouldn’t have let my weaknesses overcome me. Who needs sleep? Not me. Not anymore. I just need- STANLEY! WHO TOOK HIM! I’LL KILL YOU!”

“No, he won’t!” Carla yelled, when the few people still down here started giving him looks, “He’s just very worried. Has anyone seen Stanley? He looks like Dr. Pines but with cat ears.”

Anyone they saw backed away as they saw Ford run down the halls, shaking their heads when asked if they saw Stan.

“How did anyone manage to grab him?” Fiddleford muttered, once he’d heard Ford screaming and ran over, “He’s got cat ears! Everyone should have seen him!”

“STANLEY!” Ford screamed, cupping his hands and throwing open doors.

“STANLEY!”

First off. Standing. Huge struggle.

His legs felt like lead and every step sent shockwaves up his body that made it feel like he was tearing apart.

Also, kept falling over. Not fun. Eventually he made it to the wall and managed to slide for a while until he got the rhythm back.

Second. Purple.

Way too much purple light around here. And the squiggly floating letter things kept getting in his face and shoving stuff at him.

Didn’t like that. Made it hard to see where he was going.

Finally. Had no idea where he was going. He knew he’d know it when he saw it, but the seeing was taking too long. He was falling apart.

But then, triumph.

He opened another door and found exactly what he was looking for.

The bathroom.

Once that was done, he turned on the sink and had some water. It hurt to drink, but it was better than the lava from earlier, so.

Then he turned around and went back the way he came, following the squiggly lines to keep track. They all looked different, so it was pretty easy to find his way.

New problem.

Someone had trashed the room.

His brother was gone, and the bed was knocked over. Which was terrible, because he was very tired. But also, his brother.

Needed to find his brother.

What was his brother’s name again? He had one, he was sure.  

Well, he could always ask him when he found him.

“STANLEY!” Ford screamed, standing in the middle of the central room and standing on a box, “HAS ANYONE SEEN STANLEY!”

“I’ll look through the tapes,” Fiddleford said, slouching in front of the TVs, “See if anyone took him outside. Why they would, I have no idea. I’ve seen the recordings. They all saw the recordings.”

Carla had too. It was very cool and extremely unsettling watching Ford go at it with the demon.

“Maybe he stood up and wal-”

“NO!” Ford yelled, jumping down and running over to Carla, grabbing her shoulders and pulling her in close, “Stanley’s soul was smashed to pieces by Bill, then he went and used his power to hold it together. When that went away, it would have fragmented again. There's nothing inside of him to walk away. Not yet. Not until I get all the pieces and GLUE THEM TOGETHER!”

Ford let go, running down another hallway and shouting for Stan. Carla rubbed her ears and grimaced. She should probably mention all the times Stan had responded while Ford was asleep, but at this point he was getting hard to talk to.

His shouts echoed around the museum basement. If Stan was down here, there was no way he’d be able to miss it if he was wandering around. So, someone else must have moved him.

But why?

There was a loud noise in the hallways. It hurt his ears.

He avoided it, looking for his brother.

The purple squiggles made it hard to see anything. And they kept shoving stuff at him. Very annoying.

Hey. It was the big guy. He knew that guy.

Better not let the guy see him. Didn’t want any more lava poured down his throat.

He looked around, then up. There was some space up there. Perfect for hiding.

He dug his fingers into the walls, then climbed up and swung his body over one of the beams across the ceiling.

Man. He had great fingers. Also, ow. That hurt.

The big guy kept walking down the hallway, stopping every once in a while to look around the boxes and shouting a loud noise.

The noise sounded familiar. So did this guy.

What was this guys name? People had names, didn’t they?

He needed a closer look.

He waited until the big guy was under him, then jumped on top of him so he could see his face.

The guy did not like this, based on all the noises he was making. He dug his hands into his shoulders and told him to stop, using his mean voice.

Must have worked, because the big guy stopped moving, looking up at him and moving his mouth.

He swung his legs to hang around his neck, then held the guy’s head in his hands, turning it.

Yeah, he knew this guy’s name. just had to think about it.

He squished his cheeks a bit, then peered into his eyes. This guy was very red. Very red guy. With spots.

He was startled a bit when the guy started moving but then focused back on his face. It was on the tip of his tongue. It started with. A sound.

“Dan!” ah, there was the lady!

Dan! Hey! That was this guy’s name!

“Dan!” he said proudly, squishing his face some more before rolling backwards off him. There, now he knew Dan’s name he could go back to looking for his brother.

Dan grabbed him, holding him by the back of his shirt and pulling him towards the lady.

Her mouth was moving at him. Hey! He knew this lady too. He reached up and started squishing her face, peering at her.

She didn’t like this either, slapping his hands away. Then she turned and yelled another loud noise down the hall, and someone down there started screaming.

He lifted his hands up again, slowly reaching towards her face. If he could just-

Hey! That was his brother! He’d been looking for that guy!

His brother crashed into him, grabbing his arms and making a lot of loud noises at him.

Excellent, now he could go to sleep.

He leaned forward and closed his eyes.

He was very tired.

Chapter Text

“Stanley, you were-! But-! No, don’t close your eyes, I need you to-”

Too late. They watched as Stan slumped forwards into Fords arms, eyes closed and breathing even. Ford scrambled to hold on to him, grip slipping under his weight. Dan came over and tried to pick him up, then helped lay him on the floor when Ford growled at him.

Ford stared at Stan, hands hovering over his chest before coming to cup his face.

“I don’t understand,” he whispered, fingers rubbing Stan’s ears, “he shouldn’t- it’s not- there shouldn’t be anything there.”

“He’s been waking up more often,” Carla said, “While you were asleep. He was mostly watching everyone and eating, I didn’t think he could get up.”

“Why didn’t you say anything!” Ford snapped, glaring at her and trying to scoop Stan into his arms.

Carla raised an eyebrow, “I tried, you yelled in my face about gluing his soul together then ran off.”

Ford’s face flushed, and he looked back down at Stan. Then he grunted as he tried to get him into a bridal carry. His arms were pretty shaky, and she could hear him wheezing from all the running he’d been doing.

“Ford, let Dan carry him,” Carla said, “You’re still tired, and I don’t want to think about when the last time you ate was.”

Ford looked back up, glaring, and opened his mouth, probably to start yelling again. Dan beat him to it.

“What if you drop him?”

Ford paused, then paled. He looked frantically at his own arms, the floor, then at Dan.

He stared for a while, eyes wide, before Dan huffed and crouched back down, easily picking Stan up and settling him in his arms. Ford shot to his feet, then stumbled as he almost fell over.

“You get back to the room,” Carla said, “and I’ll get you something to eat. Try not to do anything too crazy in the time I’m gone.”

Ford nodded, probably ignoring her, and started walking off, Dan close behind. She watched them for a moment, before shaking her head and heading back towards the main room to get Fiddleford and something light for Ford.

It was four in the morning, but someone was probably up making something. Everyone’s sleeping schedules were still all over the place.

When Carla came back with Fiddleford and a bowl of oatmeal, she stopped. Then rubbed her forehead with her free hand.

“I told you not to do anything crazy,” she said, walking in and setting the oatmeal on the table.

The whole room had been rearranged. The table had been shoved into a corner, books stacked in messy piles under and around it. The bed had been stripped of its mattress and shoved in another corner, while the mattress was in the middle of the room, Stan laying on top of it. Around him Ford was in the middle of drawing some kind of magic circle with a sharpie, looking at a book on the floor and muttering to himself.

“Dan,” Carla said, walking up to where he was leaning back in a chair watching Ford, “what-”

“I tried to stop him,” he said, watching Ford, “but then he started growling at me again, and I wanted to see where this would go.”

“Of course,” Carla sighed, then went over to Ford. She’d only taken a few steps when Ford’s head shot up and he yelled, grabbing something from a bag next to her and throwing it at her.

“OW!” it was a rock, “What is your problem! Use your words!”

“Don’t! Step any closer. This is a delicate configuration; the slightest misalignment could cause the whole thing to collapse. What do you want.” Ford glared, one hand gripping his sharpie and the other inching closer to the bag next to him.

“Can’t this wait? You need to eat something. Anything.” Ford glared, then looked over at Stan and sighed.

“I suppose I can take a small break, so I don’t collapse mid chant. You wait right here Stanley.” He leaned forward and bumped their foreheads together, before slowly standing up and inching his way to the door, careful not to step on any of his lines.

“What’s all this then,” Fiddleford asked, pulling a chair from the hallway inside and sitting down next to Dan, “is this gonna help you glue him together?”

Ford scoffed from where he was shoveling oatmeal into his mouth, then bent over choking as it got stuck in his throat. He coughed for a second, before straightening up and trying again.

“Of course not, I have no idea how to glue a soul together. Yet! I’m sure I can figure it out, but first!”

Ford tipped the bowl back, pouring the rest of the oatmeal down his throat without chewing. Carla watched in fascination as none of it got on his clothes. Was this something he already knew how to do? Why?

Ford slammed the bowl back onto the table, then carefully tip toed to where he’d left off.

“First, I need to assess the damage. I was sure that there was nothing left, just an empty vessel, hopefully with some scraps left to work as a base. But now!”

Ford giggled, crouching and grabbing his sharpie, then looked at the book before continuing.

“Now, I know there’s more there. He wouldn’t have been able to eat or walk around otherwise. The soul is the power source of our existence, it ties together our minds and bodies and is where our desires come from. No soul, no desires. Not even for anything that would keep you alive.”

“I’ll admit, I’m not as well read as I’d like to be. My research mostly focused on the souls of the departed, I’ve only dabbled in living souls occasionally. Dead souls are static, which makes them easier to study, and living ones are more flexible. They’re always changing, adapting to our experiences and environments.”

“It makes it incredibly difficult to get a grasp on them. I attempted to catalog my own several years ago, but I found that it changed drastically even second to second. The true self is ever changing, and thus ever frustrating to capture.”

“But not impossible. This circle will allow me to get a general read on the current status of Stanley’s soul. It won’t show me the intricate details, but I’ll be able to get a broad sense of the damage and shape of it. Most souls share a base design, so his curse shouldn’t affect anything. The only difference between a cat’s soul and a human soul is the size and power.”

“Does that mean his human soul is overpowering his cat one?” Carla asked, leaning against the table and watching him draw steady lines across the floor. “And that’s why he looks like that? or something?”

Ford stopped, then looked up and frowned at her.

“Of course not. Cats’ souls are more powerful, just smaller. I’m unsure what exactly Bill did that warped Stan’s forms together like this, but I suspect that when he broke the cat portion of his soul, it bled into his human one. Since doing so also broke the human portion, the fragmented parts flowed together and affected his physical appearance.”

“With this I can see what I’m working with, and from there work on a solution to fix the rest of the damage and hopefully untangle it.”

“Right. Of course.” Fiddleford said, “untangle the cat soul from your brothers.” Fiddleford took a deep breath, leaning forward, and Dan stomped on his foot. Fiddleford yelped, then glared at Dan.

Dan just shook his head.

Carla sighed. No one else believed that Stan was actually Ford’s twin brother. They were all convinced Ford had gone crazy up there, and that Nikola was just suffering the consequences of Ford losing his mind and being tortured by a demon. Emma-May and Fiddleford had gotten into a few discussions on how to break the news to Ford in such a way he wouldn’t go on a rampage.

But Carla knew it was Stan.

Stan and Ford were nearly identical, so most people confused them for each other in middle school. It wasn’t until high school hit and Stan started bulking up that it stopped happening. Then it was easy to tell buff Stan from nerd Stan.

But there were other ways too.

Their hands, for one. Easy to miss when you weren’t paying attention, and easy to fake by a demon. Their chins were another, Ford had a cleft chin that Stan lacked. Also easily faked by a demon. In fact, anything physical could easily be replicated.

But there was something about Stan that Carla found familiar. The way he’d gotten so cheery reminded her of the time they’d snuck out to the docks one night with a drink from Carla’s ma’s stache. Half a bottle in and he’d gotten very cuddly. There was also the way he smiled and said hello, the first time he woke up under the museum.

It was just like how he’d greeted her on their first official date, chubby cheeked and bursting with happiness.

So, she wasn’t going to let Fiddleford or Emma-May try and start something with Ford over it. Luckly Dan was happy enough to help out, even if he didn’t really believe it either. Carla was the one who pulled him from a horror chair, so apparently she got first dibs on whose side he was on.

She watched Ford finish up his lines, then walk around with the bag and place rocks around it, muttering as he went. He grabbed another bag from the table, then walked around a few more times, speaking in a language Carla didn’t understand. It made her bones tingle, listening to it, so probably something magical.

When he had done a full lap he stopped, then reached into the bag and grabbed something. His chanting got louder, and he flung his hand out, throwing some kind of powder into the air.

The powder turned gold and started glowing, then swirled into the air above Stan. It formed into a misshapen circle, looking somewhat like a deflated basket ball with bite marks in it. Several black lines shot through it, and parts of it turned from gold to red.

Carla had no idea what any of that meant, but Ford seemed happy with it.

“This is much better than I was hoping for,” he said, walking around the circle and grabbing one of his red journals. He grabbed a pen and started writing, looking up occasionally and nodding to himself.

They sat there for a moment, until it became clear that Ford wasn’t going to elaborate.

“So, what are we looking at,” Carla finally asked, watching Stan’s soul turn around, “what does all this mean.”

Ford hummed, “The gold is Stanley’s human soul. It’s missing pieces, but it’s still holding a basic shape, which means its stable. As long as nothing else comes along and messes with it, it won’t fall apart any further than this.”

Fords expression turned dark for a second (probably imagining what he would do to anyone who’d try) before he shook his head and gestured with his pen at the soul.

“I believe the red portions are where the curse flowed in to fill in the gaps Bill tore out. This is less than ideal, as it’s helping to support his base soul. I won’t be able to detangle it without causing further damage at this time.”

“The black,” at this Fords face twisted, and his voice became furious, “is from Bill. Residue from that thing he put inside Stan. I can’t say for certain, but it looks like it might have been strangling Stanley’s soul. Less holding him together and more holding him in place. He wasn’t getting better. He was just getting used to it. It probably doubled as some kind of demonic adrenaline, giving him enough energy to function. Just so that he’d react when Bill messed with him.”

“Which meant Bill was lying about his soul fragmenting. I don’t know why I believed him. Just another failure on my part, trusting that demon on the welfare of my own brother, after everything he’d already done to him. To me.”

Fords grip tightened on the pen, and it snapped, ink running down his arm. He glared at it, then muttered something under his breath. Carla watched as the ink flowed backwards into the pen, leaving Fords arm clean but the pen still broken. He looked around, before dropping it in the oatmeal bowl and getting a new one.

“The good news is that it allowed him to take care of his basic needs,” Ford said, back to walking around the circle, “without it he’d probably have been comatose this entire time. There’s no way he would have survived, not with Bill demanding all my attention on the barrier. One good thing from it being there I suppose.”

“Now I just need to….” Ford paused, staring at the glowing half-ball in front of him. Then he rushed around it, scribbling faster in his journal as he came to the other side.

Carla leaned forwards to see what caught his eye. Then she gasped.

A tiny purple fish had appeared, right on the inside of the circle. It slowly swam through the air, then into Stanley’s soul. She watched it squirm for a second, before turning gold and disappearing.

“What was that?” she asked, looking to see if anything had changed.

Ford stopped scribbling, then looked at her with wide eyes.

“I have no idea.”

Ford glared as another fish swam into Stan’s soul. This one turned red as it disappeared.

He’d been watching them for the last several hours. So far, he hadn’t noticed any kind of pattern to their appearance. One would show up, and then after a few minutes three more might, then nothing for twenty minutes, then two more. They were all the same size and color, right up until they collided with Stan’s soul, after which they’d turn red or gold, depending on where they landed.

As far as he could tell, they weren’t harmful. In fact, he was fairly certain that Stan’s soul was slowly starting to get better with each one.

But he didn’t know why.

It was infuriating.

What were they? Where did they come from? Was this normal? Were there any long term effects?

He hadn’t been able to find anything so far, but Stan’s was also a special case. Not many people had a demon punch through their soul and lived to tell about it, even less were under the effects of an active curse.

Thankfully Fiddleford and Carla had brought all his books on the subject from his house without him asking. They’d also sorted them by most to least helpful fairly successfully. He’d been going through them as he watched the tiny soul fish fling themselves to their soul death. Some of them would be fairly useful once Stan had more of his soul together. Ways to promote healing and prevent entities from taking advantage of his current state.

He’d have to find a way to thank them properly, after he figured out what was happening with Stan.

Ford sighed, turning back to the table, when Stan’s voice made him flinch.

“Dan.”

That was the other thing.

Ever since they’d found Stan wandering the hallways, he kept calling out for Dan. He didn’t do anything else, just called his name, stared at him, then went back to sleep. Ford was finding it very hard to control his temper with Dan over it.

Stan should have been calling his name. Ford was his big brother. Not Dan.

Why Dan?

“Dan.” Stan repeated, blinking and looking around.

“Dan’s not here Stanley,” Ford said, getting up from the table and crouching at the edge of the circle, “He went to get lunch. Did you need something? I can get it for you!”

Stan just stared at him.

Then he yawned and closed his eyes.

Dang it.

Ford sighed, then stood up and glared at the small school of fish making their way across the circle in front of him.

The color looked familiar. That might be something to look into

He opened his eyes.

Then shut them again.

That was way too bright.

Who put the sun on top of him?

He turned his head to the side and squinted. Thankfully the sun wasn’t as blinding like this.

He was in a room, on the floor. Some more of those symbols were swirling around, but they were keeping their distance, so he ignored them.

Instead, he focused on everyone else.

His brother was here, standing at a table and looking at some books. So was the lady and the man.

But most importantly…

“Dan!” He perked up. He knew Dan and could say Dan’s name. Dan was a pretty easy name to say.

Dan looked at him, eyes wide, before looking at his brother and moving his mouth.

His brother ran over and stood next to Dan, then looked at him, moving his mouth and making noise.

He was pretty sure he knew what those noises meant, but he was too tired to really try and think about it.

“Dan!” he said again. Dan looked back at him. Nice.

Dan looked at his brother again. He wondered…

“Dan!” yup. Dan looked back at him. They stared at each other for a moment, before Dan looked at the man.

Time to fix that.

“Dan!” Ha! Dan looked at him again. This was awesome.

Oh! There was his brother again. He looked upset for some reason.

What was his brothers name again? Something… Something….

Hmm. His brother definitely had a name.

He was pretty sure it started with a…. sound.

He stared at his brother, willing his name to pop in his head.

Then he huffed, looking at the lady for help. She had told him Dan’s name, now she just had to tell him his brother’s name.

She made a few noises, but one of them caught his attention.

Stfrd.

No. That wasn’t right.

He yawned but shook his head. He needed to get this. It was very important.

He looked back at his brother, trying to think.

Stfrd wasn’t right. But it was close.

Stfrd. Stfuuurd. Strud? Sfred?

No it was….

He closed his eyes.

He’d figure it out later.

Mom was hunched over several books, illuminated by the glow of Uncle Dama Stanley’s soul.

And the lights, but the soul light bathed the room in interesting patterns.

Shifty crept in the rest of the way, careful not to touch the circle. Carla had been very stern about it. Mom needed it to look after Uncle Dama Stanley.

“Come on in Shifty,” mom said, making him jump into a bird and fly over to the chair. Mom smiled at him, scratching his head as he turned into a ferret and looked at what he was reading.

There were a lot of words, and barely any pictures. Kind of boring.

“What did you need my boy?” mom said, moving over as he turned into his boy self and peered at him.

“I wanted to see you,”

Mom smiled, then ruffled his hair.

“Yes, it has been some time since our last family day. And then everything with Bill and Stanley…” mom sighed, “I’m sorry I haven’t been available. I promise, once this is all settled, we’ll spend a lot of time together. No work. How does that sound?”

Shifty hummed, then looked over at Uncle Dama Stanley.

“Will Uncle Dama Stanley be there?” he asked, “I want to ask him about being a cat. He was a very good cat, so I wanted to ask him how he did it. Tate says he always knows when it’s me and not an animal, because I don’t act like one.”

Mom laughed, then ruffled his hair again.

“I’m sure he’d love to teach you. He was a pretty good cat, he even fooled me.” Mom smiled, then turned and scooped Shifty onto his lap, looking at Uncle Dama Stanley.

“Did you know, he once fought off an entire mansion of ghosts to protect me?”

Shifty gasped. He had no idea!

“That’s so cool! How did he fight ghosts? Did he bite them? How many were there? Did you-”

“Calm down Shifty, I’ll tell you all about it. Let’s see, it started a few months before you were born. I was getting frustrated and thought taking a vacation would help. Give me a moment to take a step back”

Shifty leaned back, listening to his mom tell him about how he’d accidentally summoned all those ghosts. Then he took out his special book and showed him some pictures, as long as Shifty promised not to be these ones. Just in case Uncle Dama Stanley woke up and got scared.

“Do you think,” Shifty asked, after mom finished his story, “that if I turned into a cat, I could touch ghosts? I haven’t seen one, so I haven’t had the chance to try.”

Mom chuckled, resting his head on Shifty’s.

“No, I don’t think so. While you’re able to copy physical abilities, you haven’t been able to copy mental or spiritual ones. Otherwise, you would have noticed whatever Stanley was noticing with Bill. He knew right away Bill was bad news.”

“Wow,” Uncle Dama Stanley was amazing. “How come you didn’t know?”

“Excuse me?” mom’s face went funny, and his voice sounded a bit hurt.

“Well, you said Uncle Dama Stanley knew right away. And he’s your brother, who was only pretending to be a cat, so shouldn’t you also have a special thing that lets you know like him?”

“No, because Stanley was a cat, his cat form gave him those abilities.”

“But you said he was only pretending to be one. So, he must have already been able to do that stuff.”

Mom opened his mouth. Then closed it, looking thoughtful.

“No,” he said slowly, looking over at Uncle Dama Stanley, “He said a witch cursed him. Witches are notorious for their ability to inflict curses. The one on Stanley didn’t just affect his body, it changed the nature of his soul into that of a cat. A total transformation. That’s what gave him those abilities, and why I didn’t suspect anything. He acted like a cat, because on a fundamental level he was a cat. He still is, technically.”

Mom stared at the fancy soul light, then shook his head and smiled down at Shifty.

“Thank you Shifty, you’ve given me a lot to think about. Here, have some sugar.”

Mom stuffed a hand into his pocket, and pulled out a sugar packet, dropping it in Shifty’s hands.

“Thanks!” Shifty tore it open and poured it into his mouth. Then he shoved the paper in after, mixing the flavors.

“Run along now, I have a lot of work to do to get Stanley back to full health.”

He ruffled Shifty’s hair again, then turned to grab some of the books off the floor. Shifty watched him for a moment, before turning into a humming bird and flying out the door. Once he was there, he made himself a rabbit, taking one more peek at Uncle Dama Stanley before hopping off to find Tate.

Hopefully Uncle Dama Stanley would be better soon.

Chapter Text

Ford wasn’t sure why he hadn’t thought about it. Too obsessed over Stan’s human half he supposed. He’d overlooked what his brother’s appearance and curse filling in parts of his soul meant.

It wasn’t just a human soul anymore, which meant it didn’t just fall under human rules.

What happened when a cat broke its soul?

Ford had no idea.

He didn’t really want to find out either. Fixing Stan’s soul was one thing, breaking a bunch of cat souls to do it felt a bit much.

He’d save that for later. Maybe not tell anyone about it.

He did need to repurpose his basement space. How many cats would fit in there?

Ford would have to look into it.

In the meantime, he would focus on what functioning cat souls looked like. Which meant he needed to get a cat.

“Why do you want a cat.” Fiddleford sighed, rubbing his face.

“Comparison. While there are many texts on the nature of human souls, I fear cat souls have been greatly overlooked. I’ll need to remedy that at some point, but in the meantime all I require is a live specimen for observational purposes.”

Fiddleford squinted at him distrustfully, then at Stan on the floor.

“I suppose I could rustle one up from somewhere. As long as it’s just for observational purposes. If I come down here to some black magic soul stealing ritual, I’m done.”

Ford scoffed. He wouldn’t be stealing a cat’s soul for his brother. Stan already had his own.

But he made sure not to mention his potential future project. He was getting a pretty strong impression that Fiddleford wouldn’t approve.

After that he redid his soul spell around the animal in the hallway. There wasn’t enough space in the room, and the hallways were fairly large. Plenty of space.

The only people who came down here anymore anyways were the ones still cleaning out all the place and the museum employees. None of them said anything so he assumed it was fine.

Once the cat was safely secure inside the circle (inside a crate, hissing at him) he recast the spell and pulled out his journal.

Like before, once the star dust activated it changed colors. This cat’s soul was green. It was smaller than Stan’s soul, but it was glowing brighter. Probably a representation of the cat’s innate power.

Ford peeked back into the room and squinted at the red spots of Stan’s soul. It was hard to tell, but he was fairly certain those areas glowed brighter than the gold around it. Interesting.

He spent the next hour or so walking around it, writing down observations and comparing it to the cursed sections of Stan’s soul. The few people who came down gave him a wide berth, and one of the museum employees tried to give him a lecture about drawing on the floor in sharpie. But he was otherwise left to his own devices.

The results were inconclusive.

He’d need to find some cats soon. Unrelated to the one Fiddleford found.

Sighing, he gathered the amethysts from around the circle, disrupting the spell and covering the floor in star dust. He’d have to get Fiddleford to return this cat at some point, but in the meantime, he went back into the room and sat on the floor near Stan’s head.

Stan was watching him, brows furrowed.

“Good afternoon, Stanley,” he said, smiling at him, “It’s almost dinner, are you hungry?”

Stanley blinked, then squinted at him.

“I’m sure Carla will bring some more crackers. You seem to find them easy to grab, and I haven’t noticed any adverse reactions.”

Stan didn’t respond, of course, just kept staring. Then Ford watched as Stan’s eyes flickered to the side, his expression changing into a glare. Ford turned to look, but didn’t see whatever was catching Stan’s interest.

“I was thinking,” he said slowly, turning back to Stan and resting his head in his hands, “that when you’re feeling better, we could go down to the lake. Once the weather gets warm, of course. I know, I know you’ve already seen it, but I haven’t shown you my favorite spots yet. It reminds me of….”

Ford trailed off as another fish entered the circle. He looked back at Stan to be sure, then back at the fish. Ford was fairly certain it came from the direction Stan was already looking.

“Can you see them?” he asked softly. Stan huffed when the fish disappeared, then went back to looking at Ford, once more squinting.

“You can, can’t you. Even without the circle. Whatever it is, whatever its doing, you can see it.” Ford groaned, “and you can’t tell me anything about it. Because all you can say is Dan.”

“Dan.” Stan said, looking around the room.

“Dan’s not here, it’s just me Stanley.”

Stan glared at him.

“Dan.”

“Yes, I know. Dan.” Ford huffed, staring at the far wall. “What’s so great about Dan. Dan didn’t look after you when you were a cat. Dan didn’t inflict massive damage against an undying demon hoard in your name. Dan isn’t trying to figure out what’s going on with your soul. I did that. Me, your big brother. I’m the one looking after you now, why can’t you say Stanford? Or even just Ford? Sixer would be fine to, as long as it’s from you.”

The walls still held diagrams for the unicorn weapons. He glared at them, fuming. Maybe he could make an anti-Dan barrier, really test the limits of the-

“Ford.”

Ford paused, then snapped his gaze back to Stan. Stan looked pleased with himself, and he purred for a second before stopping abruptly.

“YES! That’s right, its me, Ford!” Ford leaned forward, grinning at Stan from the edge of the circle. Stan smiled back, then yawned and closed his eyes.

That was fine. Stan needed all the rest he could get. Ford jumped to his feet, feeling alive. Stan had said his name. Stan had said his name. His name! From Stan’s mouth! Not Dan’s name! His!

He rushed back to the stack of books. Ford was going to use this energy and throw himself back into studying souls. Surely something here would explain the fish, he just had to keep looking.

He turned to grin back at Stan one more time and saw a few more fish making their way towards his soul. The purple light shimmered as it mixed with the gold and red, making him pause.

He had definitely seen something like that recently. Very recently. Ford turned back to the diagrams, then up at the ceiling. It was a very similar shade to the barrier, when he first put it up and when Bill was slamming into it.

He needed to get more hair immediately.

“CARLA!” Ford yelled, scrambling around the circle and into the hall, “CARLA! I NEED MORE HAIR!”

Fiddleford groaned as he saw the mess in the hallway.

Hopefully no one was too upset about the magic circle. Sharpie came off eventually, didn’t it? And if not, Ford probably had a spell for it.

He swept up the dust, then grabbed the crate. The cat was still inside, not looking too traumatized, so he counted it as a win. He’d have to thank the diner lady for lending it. She’d been very appreciative of all the hard work Ford was putting into looking after his ‘cat brother.’

Fiddleford set the crate on a nearby crate, then held his head in his hands.

Every time he’d tried to bring up the Nikola subject, Dan would jostle him painfully or Carla would glare. It wasn’t right to let Ford delude himself like this. They needed to talk about it before Nikola got himself together enough and realized how messed up his life had become.

They’d have to teach the poor thing how to be a person now. Whatever fixing magic had gone through the town couldn’t pierce the unicorn barrier, and now he was stuck like this for the rest of his life.

And Ford was still convinced Nikola was his brother. The longer they let this go on, the worse the fall out would be.

Fiddleford would have to call Emma-May about it soon. She’d left it to him to handle, but he was outnumbered here. He needed back-up.

Fords shouts echoed around the hall as he came back from whatever errand he’d been screaming about when he passed Fiddleford. He came around the corner holding a plastic bag full of unicorn hair, with Carla trailing after.

“-energy comes from the same source,” Ford was saying, “There’s a possibility that it senses his current state and is lending him its own energy. Of course, this depends on how sentient or compatible the- Oh, hello Fiddleford!” Ford said, smiling manically at him as they stopped in front of the door to Nikola’s room, “What are you doing here?”

“Grabbing this guy,” and making sure you didn’t kill it Fiddleford said, pointing to the crate holding the cat, “I figured you were done, seeing the mess you’d made on the floor and all.”

Ford blinked at him, then looked around the now clean (except for the sharpie) hallway.

“Ah, thank you. Now,” Ford rushed over to the door, throwing it open, “I just need to- STANLEY!”

Fiddleford winced, then poked his head in.

Nikola was gone.

Again.

Ford turned and grabbed Fiddleford, shaking him.

“Did you see him! How long have you been here! How long has he been gone! AWNSER ME!”

Fiddleford winced, then smacked Fords hands away. Ford kept staring at him, hands twitching.

“I haven’t seen him-”

And Ford was gone, running down the hallways and yelling for his ‘brother’.

“We better help him look,” Carla said, clapping him on the shoulder, “before he starts interrogating other people.”

Fiddleford rubbed his face in his hands, before nodding. They didn’t need anymore reports of Ford assaulting people in the hallways. Not after the last time Nikola had disappeared. If he kept on like that the museum curator might actually build up enough confidence to talk to Ford. Probably wouldn’t kick him out, but there was always a chance.

They searched through the hallways and the rooms of the basement, then went through them again when Dan came down and mentioned how Nikola had jumped him the first time. This time paying special attention to the beams crisscrossing overhead.

When he still hadn’t shown up, they moved upstairs and checked the main museum. Dan went towards the entrance, while Fiddleford and Carla followed Ford and did damage control with civilians.

They found Nikola curled into a ball, near the nature exhibit and covered in dust. He was sitting in front of a wall full of different kinds of fish found in the valley. A mixture of paintings, mounted fish, and a few skeletons. Nikola was staring straight ahead, making a faint keening noise.

“STANLEY!” Ford yelled, once they spotted him. He ran over and crouched in front of him, hands coming to hover around his shoulders, “Stanley, thank goodness you’re OK. Please stop wandering off like that, you worry me.”

Nikola didn’t respond, still keening and staring at the wall.

“Stanley?” Ford reached out and set a hand on Nikola’s shoulders, then let go when he flinched hard. Ford made a wounded sound, looking hurt.

“What’s wrong, are you injured somewhere?” Ford said, shuffling around Nikola while trying not to touch him, “I don’t see anything. Is it your soul!? I don’t! I can’t see it here Stanley! Let’s go back-”

Nikola hissed at him when Ford touched him again, then huddled further into his ball. Fiddleford and Carla exchanged glances, then came up to crouch next to them.

“Maybe it’s his mind,” Carla said softly, “He wasn’t doing so well before, maybe more of it came back and he remembers something.”

“Or he’s just plain frightened.” Fiddleford added, “He’s been down in that basement this whole time, maybe the different environment startled him.”

“No.” Ford said, looking at Nikola in concern, “Not scared. If he was scared then he wouldn’t hide from me, unless….”

Ford took a deep breath, then rubbed his eyes.

“Unless he remembers me as Bill. I was. I told you about the possession, correct? Bill wasn’t kind to Stanley before the portal opened. There was… An incident. Another failure on my part, I didn’t think to hide him before I fell asleep.”

Fiddleford paled. He could think of a few things that demon could have done in Fords house to that cat. None of them pleasant.

“Stanley,” Ford took off his glasses, then crouched low and tried to meet Nikola’s eyes, “Its just me, its Stanford. Your big brother, remember? I’m not-”

“No.”

They froze as Nikola spoke. Ford opened his mouth, looking excited, before Nikola spoke again, causing his expression to fall.

“Y’re not my big brother.”

From here, Fiddleford could see Nikola’s glare, directed at Ford.

This wasn’t going to end well.

He made sure to turn his head before he opened his eyes.

Staring at the sun hurt too much.

There was no sign of Ford (his brother! That was his brother’s name!).

Or Dan. Or the lady or man. Or the bug.

Just him, alone with the sun.

He needed to go to the bathroom.

With a groan he sat up, then pushed the blanket off and tried to crawl out from under the sun.

He didn’t want to get burnt. He hurt enough.

The moment his hand touched the floor the sun exploded.

He flinched as it covered him with stuff, then sneezed.

Gross. Sun blood. Or sun body?

He held his hand up and squinted at the grey stuff on it.

Whatever. Bathroom.

He made his way to his feet, then shuffled over to the door.

There was more sun stuff outside on the ground.

Was there more than one sun? That didn’t sound right.

He followed the floating symbols to where he vaguely recalled the bathroom . More of them were pushing stuff at him, and he hissed.

Didn’t they know he was trying to go places? They made it hard to see.

Once he made it to the bathroom and had some more water, he turned around to go back to the room. Or find Ford.

He hadn’t decided yet.

He was distracted by another symbol shoving stuff at him.

Hey.

Hey, that was his stuff.

He wasn’t sure how he knew, but he did.

Where did they get his stuff from? He needed that, it was his.

Ford would be fine; his brother could find him wherever he went. He’d always followed after him after all.

New goal in mind, he followed the symbols around, trying to find where the ones shoving stuff at him came from.

He made sure to avoid all the Not FordDanLadybugman people. Something told him it was a bad idea for other people to see him.

He wandered around the hallways until he hit the stairs.

Ugh.

Stairs.

He tested his feet, lifting one up on the first step, then pulling up the other.

There. One whole step.

There were a lot more in front of him.

Screw it.

He tilted forward, then climbed the stairs using his hands and feet. Way faster than that other thing.

Once at the top he looked around. This area was full of all kinds of stuff. Not his stuff though, so he kept walking, pausing occasionally to touch some of the stuff up here.

Eventually he found it. The place where his stuff was coming from.

It was a wall, with a bunch of things all over it. In the middle of the wall was a lizard.

They stared at each other, then the lizard opened its mouth and let a bubble out into the air. It floated up, then turned into a symbol holding his stuff and shoved it at him.

Rude.

Now he just had to find his words to tell it that.

Never mind, words were too complicated.

Instead, he reached out and poked it.

Stanley Pines groaned, leaning forward and holding his head in his hands.

He felt awful, like too many beatings in too many nights, then sleeping on a cheap mattress in a cheaper motel. His head was pounding, pressure pushing against his temples and behind his eyes.

Jeez, what had he been doing that made him feel this way? And where was he?

He looked up, expecting to find the roof of his car, or the stained ceiling of a motel.

Instead he was in space.

The distant sky was a deep dark blue, full of bright winking stars and swirling nebulas. Around him soft pink clouds faded into white and a lighter blue, filled with tiny baby stars. The sound of soft twinkling bells filled his ears, soothing some aching part of him. He felt weightless, despite the pain, like he was floating on…. Well on a cloud in space, which he was.

Stan turned around, watching as the clouds twisted and glittered. They tickled as he ran a hand through them, small lights rubbing against his hand and sending shivers down his spine.

Was he dead?

Had he died?

If he had, then he had some questions. Stan was pretty sure he wasn’t supposed to be here.

Hello.

Stan startled at the not-sound echoing around him, turning around to find a giant lizard staring at him.

“Holy Moses!” he shouted, trying to throw himself backwards. He didn’t move, just flailed in the air as it smiled down at him.

It was huge and pink, with weird little fins sticking out of the sides of his head. Twisting around, Stan could see its giant body curled around him. He was trapped.

“What do you want, you giant lizard!” he shouted, trying to turn and face it. He flailed for a few more seconds, before its tail reached out and turned him upright.

I don’t want anything. You came to see me, remember?

“What are you-”

Then he remembered. He remembered everything.

“Oh my God,” he moaned, holding his face in his hands, “The whole town saw me act like a drugged-out hippie. And Ford just let it happen. And Bill! When I get my hands on him, I’ll-”

Don’t worry, Bill Cipher is gone from your dimension. Your friends took care of him.

“Hmph.” Stan crossed his arms and legs, glaring at it as it stuck its tongue out at him, “Figures, of course I’d miss out on all the action because that guy, what, shredded my soul or something? How am I even alive? Hey!”

Stan pointed at the lizard, “You have something of mine! Give it back!”

I already am.

Its two front hands were clutched together, holding onto something tightly. Stan watched them open a little, and several tiny purple fish swam towards him. They collided with his chest, then disappeared. He didn’t feel different, just more himself.

“Hey, don’t think you can pull a fast one on me pal,” Stan said crossing his arms again, “I know there’s more. Gimmie.” He glared at the lizard.

It just smiled at him.

Are you sure? It’s going to hurt if it happens all at once.

“It already hurts, lets just get it over with.”

It will hurt a lot more.

“Hey, at the pace you’re going this’ll take forever. I don’t want to be invalid for that long. It’s embarrassing. Better to do it all at once.” Stan looked at the lizard, determined. He didn’t want to be lying on that bed for the next several months, saying Ford and Dan like a parrot. He was ready to get back to being his regular self. Well, mostly his regular self.

He looked down at his tail.

“Any chance you can do something about this while I’m here?”

The way its smile turned sad was answer enough.

“Eugh, never mind. Stop looking at me like that.” He took a deep breath, then looked the lizard in its giant black eyes.

“Well? What are you waiting for, a kiss on the cheek?”

It laughed, which sent a wave of coziness through him. Gross.

If you say so.

And with that it opened its hands. Inside were what looked like thousands of tiny fish, shimmering in purple light. As one they turned towards him and started swimming, like a tidal wave of purple.

“Wait, actually-”

Too late.

The little fish collided with him, swarming around clouding his vision. The last thing he saw was that damn lizard, smiling down at him and sticking out its tongue again.

Then the world went white, and he screamed.

Stan was back in that room. With the stuff on the walls.

At some point he’d made it to the floor, which was where he was going to be for forever.

He hurt.

He could feel every blood cell in his body, moving through his veins. The way his hair touched his skin was like fire, and every breath ripped his lungs to pieces. He couldn’t scream, because even the thought of opening his mouth made him want to cry. He didn’t cry because his eyes were too busy liquidizing in his sockets.

Something pounded behind his eyes, and he felt something in his brain pop uncomfortably. Electricity was moving up and down his spine, and he was pretty sure he could feel his intestines moving around inside his body. And whatever food he’d eaten.

His thoughts felt sluggish, memories slipping through his hands like water. He was pretty sure he’d been talking to someone just now, but whoever it was drifted away.

Footsteps approached him, the vibrations sending shockwaves through his bones and making them rattle.

“STANLEY!” Ford yelled, causing his ears to bleed. Hey words. He knew what those meant now.

He’d cheer if even the thought of moving in any way made his muscles scream.

Then there was Ford, crouched down in front of his face and looking worried. Stan would look back, but his eyes were too busy dripping down the back of his brain.

“Stanley, thank goodness you’re OK. Please stop wandering off like that, you worry me.”

Stan really wanted to say something, say he was alright. But his throat was too busy shredding itself.

“Stanley?” Ford reached out, then set a hand on Stan’s shoulder.

It was like molten lava. The heat from Fords hand seeped into him, lighting every nerve on fire and sending fresh waves of pain down his arm. Stan flinched away, then immediately regretted it. Partially because of the look on Fords face, but also because the movement separated his muscles from his bones.

“What’s wrong, are you injured somewhere?” Ford moved around him, but thankfully didn’t touch him again. He wasn’t sure he could handle it a second time.

“I don’t see anything. Is it your soul!? I don’t! I can’t see it here Stanley! Let’s go back-”

Spoke too soon. Another touch tore a hiss from his mouth, which he regretted immediately for similar reasons. He really wished Ford would just go away for a bit, let him melt into a puddle in peace.

And now there were more people. The lady from before, and the man. They crouched down next to Ford on either side, looking at Stan with the same worried faces.

“Maybe it’s his mind,” the lady said softly, “He wasn’t doing so well before, maybe more of it came back and he remembers something.” Stan was remembering how much being alive sucked.

“Or he’s just plain frightened.” The man added, “He’s been down in that basement this whole time, maybe the different environment startled him.” Like Stan would be scared of a museum.

“No.” Ford said, still focused on Stan, “Not scared. If he was scared then he wouldn’t hide from me, unless….”

Ford took a deep breath, then rubbed his eyes. Stan really hoped he didn’t cry.  

“Unless he remembers me as Bill. I was. I told you about the possession, correct? Bill wasn’t kind to Stanley before the portal opened. There was… An incident. Another failure on my part, I didn’t think to hide him before I fell asleep.”

Both of the others made faces at that. Stan would have too if he could. He had a dark memory creeping on him he’d really rather not think about right now. Or ever.

 “Stanley,” Ford took off his glasses, then crouched low and tried to meet Stan's eyes, “It’s just me, its Stanford. Your big brother, remember? I’m not-”

Ford’s words filled Stan with fury. It flooded his mind, eclipsing the pain he was going through. He wouldn’t let this slide, even if it killed him.

“No.”

The rest of them froze, and Ford started looking excited. Stan wouldn’t let him though, not until he ground out some harsh truths and killed whatever thoughts were getting into Fords head.

It was agony forcing his eyes to move, grinding them against his eye lids to glare at Ford.

“Y’re not my big brother.”

God. Every word was like paper cuts in his throat. Awful.

“Stanley,” Ford said, looking sad and confused, “What-”

“We’r twins,” Stan forced out, holding onto that fury to push through the pain, “We’r the same age.”

There. That was done, now Ford-

“Well, yes technically,” Ford said, but his face changed, and Stan knew-

“But” there it was, “I was born fifteen minutes before you were, so I’m also technically your older brother. That also technically makes you my little brother.”

If Stan’s body wasn’t actively killing him, he’d tackle that smug look off his face. He’d have to improvise.

“Lady,” he said, glaring at Ford harder, “Punch ‘im for me.”

The lady punched Ford in the arm immediately, elevating her to his favorite person in the room.

Ford yelped, then glared at the lady and Stan.

“Really Stanley, its not my fault that I was-”

“Punch ‘im again.”

“Ow!”

“Sweet sarsaparilla,” the man said, looking between Stan and Ford, “he really is your brother.”

“What do you mean ‘he’s really my brother’,” Ford said, giving the man a strange look. Stan would have too, but he was busy still glaring at Ford. It was too painful to make another expression at someone else.

“I told you he was my brother,” Ford continued, “Who else was he going to be?”

He could see the lady smirking from the corner of his eye, and the man opened and closed his mouth a few times before finding his voice.

“But.. but… he was your cat? How was he, your brother, and also your cat? How does that happen? We thought…” he cringed, looking away.

“I told you; he was put under a curse that turned him into a cat, then pretended to be a regular cat. I only found out after Bill destroyed the curse, which surprised us both. What, did you think I was lying?” Fords expression was starting to darken, glaring at the man.

“Well, no. Not exactly,” the man said, pulling at his collar, “we just thought. That is. You were-”

“Everybody thought you were crazy Dr. Pines,” Dan’s voiced boomed from behind Stan, making his bones vibrate unpleasantly.

Ford looked offended, glaring at everyone in the room.

“I didn’t,” the lady said smugly, “I knew it was Stan the whole time.”

The man sighed, nodding his head and wincing at the harsh glare Ford sent his way.

“Did you want me to-” whatever Dan was going to say, Stan missed it as Dan’s hands came down and touched his back.

White hot agony shot through him, blocking out the noise and filling his vision with static. His ears buzzed and his heart beat crawled up his throat. He might have been screaming, but he couldn’t make out anything over the blood rushing to his brain.

Eventually it was over, and Stan found himself lying on his back staring at the ceiling. His breathing was heavy, and the skin around his eyes felt like it was falling off. The others worried faces looked down at him, and he realized he was making a high-pitched keening noise.

“Don’t.” he said eventually, once his pulse went down and he felt less like he would shatter to pieces, “Don’t touch me. Hurts.”

Fords mouth was moving, and he was crouched down over him again.

“Stop.” Stan said, squinting at the harsh glare from the overhead lights, “Words. Not working.”

Ford nodded, then looked up and started talking to the others. Stan closed his eyes, ignoring the sand paper feeling and focusing on his breathing.

He was so tired.

Chapter Text

Through trial and error, they managed to figure out Stan felt the most amount of pain when someone touched him directly. It wasn’t a fun process, especially for Stan, but they did need to get him off the floor and back into the basement.

Ford hadn’t wanted to. He’d been ready to set up his ritual right here, but the museum curator had drawn the line at sharpie on the museum’s main floor. And Ford wasn’t willing to let Stan leave the confines of the barrier yet, so back to the basement it was.

They made a makeshift stretcher using two pipes and a large blanket, then rolled Stan onto it as quickly as possible. The keening noise rose in pitch when they did, tugging at Ford’s heartstrings, before dropping back down once he was settled. Ford tried to comfort Stan using just his words, but Stan didn’t respond. Whatever energy he’d had, he’d used to bicker with Ford earlier. Typical.

Ford had no idea what had happened to Stan in the short time he’d been missing. Less than an hour ago he’d barely responded to anything, and now he was speaking in small sentences and arguing with Ford.

The circle in the room was useless now, disrupted by Stan shuffling through it, so Ford dragged the mattress out into the hallway and made another circle further down. The museum curator (who had followed them down to make sure they didn’t break anything) made a wounded sound at all the marks on the flooring, but backed away when Ford started growling at him, so it was probably nothing.

In short order he’d redrawn the circle, placed the amethyst, chanted, and thrown the stardust into the air. Just like before, it glowed gold and swirled above Stan, before some parts turned red and faint black lines started cutting through it. Unlike before it didn’t look like a half-formed sphere with missing pieces.

It was a full soul. And it wasn’t a sphere at all.

Stan’s fully formed soul took the form of a fish, identical to the one that had been on his collar.

The red portions were glowing much brighter than the gold, and the black lines only went through the middle, around where Bill had been strangling it. Some of the parts that Ford thought were missing were actually just the shape of his soul, curving in and out to look more fish-like

All the parts that had been missing were blurring at the edges, still somewhat unstable.

“Wow,” Carla breathed next to him, “Its beautiful.”

“Why does it look like the collar I got him for Christmas?” Fiddleford asked.

“I have some theories,” Ford said, walking around and looking at where the newer parts were blending with the old, “It could be a result of his curse, but more than likely its due to some innate aspect of Stanley himself. I’d have to do more research to be sure though. Like I said, I’ve only dabbled in living souls.”

Ford frowned as he looked at Stan’s soul, watching it intermingle with itself. Then he sent Carla back into the room to grab a few books for him. He’d let Stan out of his sight enough times already.

“I think I see the problem,” he said, after an hour or so of reading. Dan and Fiddleford had left to go home shortly after setting up the ritual. Dan needed to get ready to head back to school, and Fiddleford had to get Shifty and Tate dinner, as well as tell Emma-May that Stan actually was his brother, and not his cat.

Ford couldn’t believe everyone thought he’d lost it. Of course a regular cat wouldn’t be his brother. Nikola had just been special. Because he was actually Stan, which in hindsight explained a lot of his behaviors since he’d shown up.

“See these parts of his soul,” Ford said to Carla, pointing at the blurring edges with a long stick, “Its unstable. It’s still functional, but it came back all at once and needs to readjust to his physical body. He’ll be fine in a couple of days, once it settles, but he won’t be able to touch anyone without it hurting for a while.”

“Why not,” Carla asked, sitting on a box and looking through another book, “how come its only when people touch him that it hurts so much.”

“Oh, he’s still in a lot of pain right now,” Ford said, looking at Stan sadly, “from his soul reattaching to his body. As to why touching people makes it worse…”

Ford moved over and sat next to Carla, hesitating before holding out his hand and looking away. He studied the wall for a moment, before Carla reached out and grabbed him.

“When we touch,” he explained, focusing on the wall and not on Carla’s steady grip, “an exchange takes place. We can feel each other’s heat, the skin, even our heartbeats. Theres also an exchange happening between our souls, small portions going back and forth, sharing energy and making a connection.”

“So, it hurts when Stan’s soul tries, because it’s still trying to settle. Adding the energy and trying to give it away is too much for it,” Carla said. Ford could feel her turning his hand in hers, tapping his fingers. After a moment Ford pulled it away, twisting his hands together and deliberately not looking at her.

“Correct, it’s too unstable to accept new energy right now, and giving anything away disrupts its fragile state. Thankfully inanimate objects don’t have souls that can intermingle as easily with living things, so he’ll be fine laying there for a while.”

“No.” Stan said, startling Ford and Carla. Ford jumped to his feet and rushed over to the circle. Stan’s eyes were open, squinting at him and glaring from the mattress.

“Stanley! How are you feeling? Wait, don’t answer that, just.” Ford sighed, then sat on the floor near the edge of the circle, “I’m glad you’re… awake? Sorry, I know you’re in a lot of pain right now. What did you need?”

Stan glared at him, then took a deep breath and wheezed.

“No.” he said again, “I’m not. Laying here. Done with laying. Ready to. Move.”

“Stanley, you’ve just reattached a significant portion of your soul. It will take some time for it to adjust. Let your body-”

“No.” Stan said again. Then he turned and glared at the image of his soul floating above him before turning back to Ford.

“Bright. What. The hell. Is that.” he had to keep pausing every couple of words, probably from the pain of moving his mouth and talking.

“It’s a representation of your soul. I’ve been monitoring it to keep an eye on your health. And you will lay there, because I’m fairly certain you can’t move your body right now, can you Stanley” Ford grinned at him smugly, then grinned wider when Stan’s glare got harder.

“Just get some rest Stan,” Carla added, sitting down next to Ford, “you’ll get better faster if you don’t push yourself.”

Stan looked at her intensely. Then sighed.

“What. Is your name again? Brain. Ugh.”

Ah. Ford hadn’t even thought about that. It was very possible he’d forgotten everyone’s names due to the damage inflicted on his soul, among other things. He almost felt bad for giving Dan a hard time about it. Almost.

“It’s Carla,” she said, smiling softly at him, “I’m-”

“I know.” Stan interrupted, glaring again, “Who you are. Just. Fuzzy. On some things. Not. Stupid.”

“No one said you’re stupid Stanley,” Ford said softly, trying to replicate Carla’s tone, “we just don’t know how else you’ve been affected by this. You haven’t been… talkative lately. There was no way to see how your mind has held up after everything that happened. Do you remember what happened?”

He felt bad, interrogating his brother so soon, but he really needed to know how he found the rest of his soul so quickly. And if he remembered some of what Ford had been doing with Bill. Specifically, around when he’d been planning his hopeful murder spree. He was starting to regret some of his actions at that time. Really just all the laughter (he could never regret all the work he put into tearing Bill’s eye out of his socket. Repeatedly). He hoped Stan didn’t remember that.

“Bill.” Stan said, “Portal.”

“Ok, you remember Bill coming out of the portal,” Ford pulled his journal closer to him, jotting down what Stan said, “It’s been a week and a half since then, what else do you remember.”

“Tasted gross.” That one made Ford pause, before he remembered how Stan had bit Bill that first day, “Then felt gross. Ugh. Creepy room. Bill. Playing piano?” Stan's eyebrows furrowed, and he stared at Ford in confusion. So did Carla.

Ford coughed, “Yes, he did do that. I forgot you were there.”

“Why was Bill playing the piano?” Carla asked. Ford felt his face flush, and he hid behind his journal.

“He, uh, was trying to persuade me? I think? He brought me up to his penthouse and tried to get me to join him and take down the barrier. Offered me drinks and sung a song. Let’s move on.”

“No.” they both said, and Carla grinned as she leaned forward.

“The evil triangle demon from hell sung to you and offered you drink in his penthouse. Stanford, what was your relationship-”

“It was purely professional!” Ford shouted from behind his book, “At least on my part. I’m uncertain about what demons consider professional. He was always. Touchy? I don’t know. He wasn’t around enough for me to question his culture.”

“Hah.” Stan said, instead of laughing, “Demon. Crush.”

“He did not have a crush on me! And if he did, then he did a terrible job of showing it!” Ford yelled, eyes smashed into the pages, “Please let’s move on. I don’t want to rethink every interaction I’ve had with him. I don’t want to think about him at all.”

There was a moment of silence, and Ford slowly lowered his book.

“Sorry,” Carla said, looking apologetic.

“I’m not.” Stan said, and Ford glared at him. Stan purred for a second before stopping.

“Ow. Ow. Ow.”

“Moving on,” Ford said, once Stan stopped breathing so heavily, “So you remember the penthouse, what else.”

“Hmm. Bill. Hurt. The floor?” Stan took a deep breath, wincing, then squinted at Ford, “Blurry. After. Different room? Also, creepy. And. Ugh.”

Stan’s face twisted, looking angry, before he grimaced and took another breath.

“Bill petting. My head. Ugh. Creep.”

“I’m so sorry Stan,” Carla said, “I can’t imagine being stuck with that guy for so long.”

“Yes, especially when Bill kept treating him like an animal,” Ford finished writing, then peeked over at Stan. His brother’s breathing was getting heavier, and he was starting to look pale.

“We’ll take a break here; you get some more rest. Sleep if you can.”

“No.” Stan said softly, but he closed his eyes. Ford was fairly certain he was still awake, but Stan didn’t continue talking, so it was still a win.

“You should also get some sleep,” Carla said, standing up and stretching out her back, “and if you don’t then I’ll tie you down to a mattress myself.”

Ford opened his mouth to protest, then closed it, sighing. She probably would. And if he left it to her, there was a chance she’d do it in the room, away from Stanley.

Ford got to his feet, then shuffled backwards towards the room. He stared at Stan intently, then dashed inside, grabbed the extra bedding, and dashed out again. Stan was still there, and Carla was giving him a knowing look.

Ignoring her, he walked back down the hallway and laid out the bedding on the floor close to the circle, just far away enough that he wouldn’t risk crossing the line in his sleep. Carla watched him get sorted, then raised an eyebrow.

“We really need to get you a change of clothes. And a shower. You’re starting to reek.”

“Ha.” Stan said, eyes still closed.

“I’m not leaving Stanley.” Ford said, glaring at her from the blankets, “and you can leave now.”

“I’m not leaving until you actually fall asleep.”

“Ha.”

“Quiet Stanley, stop straining yourself.” Ford continued to glare, then huffed and closed his eyes. He’d just wait for her to get bored and walk away, then get back to looking into souls.

Less than a minute later Ford was snoring, mouth open and already drooling on his pillow.

“Ha.” Stan said again, and Carla snorted.

“Get some rest Stan, I’m sure you need it.” Carla stacked the books off to the side, then went over and pried Fords grip off of his journal, sliding it under his pillow. Once that was done, she made her way out of the museum and back home.

Ford could sleep on the floor all he liked; she was using her bed.

Stan didn’t know what time it was when Ford finally woke up. Or what time it was in general. He’d been down here for… a while. So there wasn’t any way to keep track of the days.

He wasn’t even sure if he’d slept really. Sleeping sounded like something that should have made you feel better. He did not feel better. He also didn’t feel worse.

Also, it was hard to sleep with a giant glowing ball hovering over him like this. He had a vague recollection of it being on top of him before, and he had no idea how he managed it then.

He listened to Ford snort awake, then some rustling as he moved around, muttering to himself. Some footsteps approached and there was some talking, too quiet to make out, before Ford spoke.

“Stanley, if your awake, I’m leaving Carla here to look after you while I go to the bathroom. Do not! Go anywhere. Again. Wait right here.”

Then the rapid footsteps of someone running down the hall.

Stan opened his eyes, squinting down the hall until he found Carla. She was sitting on a crate, looking through a book.

“Want.” He said, startling her, “To do something. Funny?” Every word took his breath away, but at least it felt less like knives going down his throat.

Carla looked up, then shook her head at him, smiling.

“I’m not helping you run off. I think Stanford would actually kill me if I let you disappear again.”

“Boo.” She was no fun. Looks like he’d have to do everything himself.

The movement of trying to lift his arm made his skin catch fire, and it felt like his joints might break. He stopped, arm shaking and sweaty. Carla gave him a knowing look, then went back to her book.

He’d have to try this later, when he was less likely to fall to pieces.

Stan watched Ford sprint back down the hallway, hands still soaking wet, looking at Stan in relief. Man, what was his issue. It’s not like Stan was going anywhere like this.

“Thank you, Carla,” he said, grabbing some books and sitting down on the floor near Stan, “I appreciate you looking after him for me.”

“No problem, I’m going to get you breakfast,” Carla said, standing, “I wanted to ask, what do you think we can feed him? He mostly did it himself before, but now…”

“Something liquid, we’ll have to find a way to pour it down his mouth without disrupting the circle.”

“I’ll. Kill you.” Stan said, glaring, “I want. Bacon.”

“That’s far too greasy, and we need to be mindful of your diet. When you’re feeling better, I’ll run some tests to see what foods you can digest, until then its broths and crackers. And ham and cheese sandwiches, apparently.”

That was a very random addition. Stan couldn’t remember the last time he’d eaten a sandwich. Not a full one anyway, he could name the exact time and date he’d last eaten sandwich meat. That was when…. the man had shown up.

Stan glared at Ford, then closed his eyes again. His eyelids still felt like sandpaper over pudding, but it was better than the air cutting into his eyeballs. It made them feel like they were evaporating.

He listened to the sound of Ford muttering to himself, papers turning, and tried to think about what he remembered. Everything before the creepy penthouse was pretty clear, with a few fuzzy spots here and there. Names mostly, and certain dates. The order things had happened. A few less important faces. Everything after Bill stuck its hand in his head felt like a dream. Or a nightmare. Fragmented moments, vague thoughts and feelings. Flashes of light.

“Stanley,” Fords voice cut through his thoughts, and Stan opened his eyes to look at him.

Carla was back, along with the man and the bug. And another kid. Ford had a paper plate next to him, full of pancakes, and a bowl. With a funnel. And some sort of tube.

“No.” he said, turning away. His neck felt tight, and he was half-convinced the muscles on his neck would snap, but he managed to face the opposite wall regardless.

“Come now Stanley, you need to eat to regain your strength,” Ford came back into his vision, walking around the circle. Time to fix that.

“No.” Stan turned the other way. The man was putting the funnel on the tube and eyeing him. He eyed him back.

“Hey.” Stan said, bothered by the fact he couldn’t remember his name, “What. Was your name?”

The man blinked at him, then tightened the funnel.

“Its Fiddleford-”

Stan burst out laughing, then regretted it immediately as his chest felt like it’d exploded. He let out an involuntary keening noise and  started shaking. It took him a second to get his breathing under control, and he watched Ford’s worried face from where he was standing next to Fiddleford.

“Ow.” He said, “Wow. Ow. I can’t. Ow. Believe your. Ow. Parents.”

“Haha.” Fiddleford said, “Stanford, I feel less bad about this whole thing, how do you want to do this.”

“Wait.”

“We’ll need to tip it at an angle,” Ford said over him, ignoring Stan’s protests.

Them feeding him chicken broth with a funnel and tube, just so Ford’s magic circle wouldn’t get touched and Stan couldn’t feed himself, was awful. Thankfully Carla took the kids for a walk when Stan glared at her, so it was a little less of a spectacle.

He was going to get out of this bed by lunch, even if it killed him.

“So,” Ford said, sitting by the edge of the circle and pulling the bug into his lap, “This is Shifty, and this is Tate. Do you-”

“I. Remember. Your stupid bunker.” Stan wheezed out, almost chuckling at the expression Ford and Fiddleford shot him. “And. The kid. You were feeding beans. Hey kid.”

“Hi.” Shifty said shyly.

“Then. The other kid. I told you. I remember. Just. Fuzzy.”

“Right, I just wanted to be sure,” Ford said, looking sheepish. He pulled out his red book again and grabbed a pencil, “Now, you remember the study, anything after?”

“The study.” He’d been very bored, and spacy. “Bill again. A party?” Bill and Ford had been yelling at each other, and then Bill had grabbed him and taken him somewhere else. The colors bled together there, but he recalled… “Sucky chair. Uncomfortable.” Then music, and a lot of touching and general awfulness.

“He must mean Bills entry hall,” Carla said, “We managed to sneak a camera in there and saw him with Bill. We thought he was you, because. Well, Stanley was missing. And he looks like you from far away. They were sitting on the creepy chair Bill had made from the townsfolk.”

Ugh. Yeah, he remembered that chair now. Sort of.

“That would have been when Bill took him. I’m sorry Stanley,” Stan looked to see Ford frowning, pen gripped tight in his hand, “it was my fault. He only took you away because I was slacking on the barrier, going too slow on purpose.”

“S’whatever.” not like Ford had taken to some crazy demon party while he was spaced out of his mind.

“Room again. Movie theater?” He distinctly recalled sitting in a chair, watching Bill lose it on a big screen, but it didn’t fit in with the rest of what was happening.

“The rescue,” or he guessed it did? “I did think it looked like a theater,” Carla said, “glad I’m not the only one.”

Well as long as someone else said it made sense. What else. He recalled being in a room, then looking for Ford. Probably in this basement actually, the hallway looked similar, just a different color. There had been a lot more people down here then, a lot more noise.

“Crowd. Got lost. Then...” then pain. An awful pain, like what Bill had done to him, “Hurt.”

“Around when you woke up here, then when the barrier was set up.” Ford said, voice going quiet before continuing, “That’s when whatever Bill had put onto your soul died. Anything after that?”

Stan laid there, thinking. What did he remember after that? Not much really.

“Laughing.” Ford winced at that one. Interesting. “Then. Purple. Then the fish wall.”

That was about it. The period between the barrier getting set up and waking up in the museum was practically nothing. Fragments of noise, lights, and something pink, then bam! Stan was back.

Ford coughed, looking very intently at his journal before continuing.

“Yes, the laughter. That happened. But nothing else? What happened at the fish wall? Something must have; you were missing half of your soul before you went up.” Ford leaned forward, eyes peering at Stan, searching for answers.

Too bad. “Don’t know.”

Ford groaned, then shoved his face into his journal and slumped forwards. “Typical.”

“What do you mean by purple?” Tate asked, piping up for the first time, “Its mostly kinda beige down here.”

Stan raised an eyebrow at the kid. What was he talking about? It was so purple in this hallway, with all kinds of weird magic symbols floating around. He’d assumed Ford had something to do with it, some magic thing.

“What. Are you talking. About.” Stan asked, looking at the nearest glowing symbol. It looked like an A with a top hat. “This place. Is so purple.”

Ford sat up, pulling his head out of his book, and looked around. So did everyone else. They glanced at each other funny, before turning back to Stan. Stan didn’t like that. It meant they knew something he didn’t.

“Stanley,” didn’t like that tone from Ford either, “What do you mean. What does the hallway look like to you?”

Ugh. Fine, but then Stan was taking a break. He needed to save his energy to book it at lunch.

“Really. Purple. Lots of blue. Glowing symbols everywhere.” It was actually kind of annoying, now that he thought about it. Everything had a purple tint to it, including everyone here.

Ford sat up straight, grinning and flipping to another part of his journal. He scribbled something down, then turned it so Stan could see.

“Do any of them look like this?”

Stan stared at the picture. It looked like two C’s, back-to-back with a line through it. He glanced down the hall and squinted. Yeah, one of them looked like that, way down there.

“Yeah.” Stan said, looking back to see Fords grin split his face in half.

“Fascinating!” Ford shot to his feet, almost throwing Shifty to the floor before he scooped him up and set him on his shoulders as a snake, “You’re seeing the barrier! I suspected you might have some abilities, based on your reactions earlier, but now I have confirmation! What else- oh.”

Ford stopped, staring at him, then sighed, sitting back down.

“I can ask later, when you’re feeling better. In the meantime, you should get some rest.”

“No.” Stan said, closing his eyes. He really hated being told to rest. He wanted to get up and start moving already.

Despite that, he was relieved. All that talking hurt, and his arms were still shaking slightly from the laughter earlier. He was so tired.

He listened to them talk around him, then the sound of people moving and walking away. He peeked an eye open, but Ford was still there.

For some reason, that made him feel better.

Lunch time. Time for action.

The last several hours had been agonizing. Both from his body attacking him, and from pure boredom. Ford had spent the time reading his nerd books and talking to Stan about them. Mostly about soul things, and stuff Stan had to do once he felt better to strengthen his. Occasionally Stan would grunt, to show that he was listening, but he put most of his attention into focusing his energy.

He was ready to move. To get off this mattress, and back to normal. At the very least, he wanted to eat real food. Not out of the tube.

He peeked an eye open when he heard footsteps. Shifty had come by a few times, asking Ford questions and watching Stan. It was interesting listening for him, because he had different feet every time. This time it was more than one pair, so it was probably Carla and Fiddleford.

And he was right. Carla had another paper plate, and Fiddleford was holding a pot. They’d left the tube down here, but Stan was determined to avoid using it.

Ford looked up, then walked over to greet them. The perfect moment.

With agonizing effort Stan rolled over off of the mattress. He slammed his stomach onto the floor, then sneezed as a bunch of dust rained down on him.

Then he didn’t move for a while, because he was half convinced his nose had fallen off and his lungs had collapsed.

After a moment he realized he was still breathing, and he was keening again. Loudly. That tracked, it felt like every bone had shattered, and like he was on fire. The dust coating him felt like ants, crawling over his skin and leaving a trail of blood. Something on his head kept shaking, sending little shocks down his neck.

He opened his eyes again (when had they closed?) and was relieved to see he wasn’t actually bleeding. And Fords feet were there. Stan turned his head to look up at him and saw Ford hovering his hands over his back and moving his mouth, thankfully not touching him.

“Stop. Words.” Stan grumbled, closing his eyes again. He took a few more deep breaths, then coughed when he inhaled some of the dust. There wasn’t any blood, but it felt like there should have been. His head stopped vibrating too,  which was nice.

“I’m. Not eating from. A tube.” He ground out, pushing against the ground and rolling over onto his back. The floor was less comfortable than the mattress, and something kept digging into the bottom of his back. Ford was standing above him now, frowning with his hands on his hips.

“Ok. Try again. With words.” Stan said. He felt like he might be ready to hear words now.

“Stanley,” nice, “what do you think you’re doing?” less nice.

“Moving.”

“I told you; you need to rest. And we can’t touch you without making it worse.”

“Don’t care. No tube. Embarrassing.”

Ford threw his hands in the air. Then he came back with the bowl and a spoon and started hand feeding him on the floor. Stan wasn’t sure if this was more or less embarrassing than the tube.

“I hope your happy with yourself,” Ford muttered, shoving soup down his throat, “I’ve been told I can’t redo that ritual anymore, so now we can’t keep an eye on you.”

Stan couldn’t talk, because Ford was shoveling soup into his mouth too quickly, but he made sure to give him a smug look.

Yeah, this was better than the tube.

After three days, Ford determined that it was acceptable to move Stan out of the museum and back to his house. A large part of this was because of Stan, pushing himself to get better. Ford was worried if he didn’t move him soon, he’d get himself hurt down here. The museum curator wept when he told him, and the employees had a small party. They didn’t invite him, which was rude, but he wouldn’t have gone anyways.

He needed to stick with Stan.

This was going to be a delicate operation. He needed to trust that Carla had set up the barrier correctly at his house, and make sure nothing tried to attack his brother in his delicate state. He was still hesitate about touching him, as the last time he’d tried (this morning) Stan had said it felt like his skin was melting off.

They borrowed Fiddleford’s car, and the man himself picked them up from the front steps of the museum, wearing a low hat and sunglasses for some reason. Carla had already picked up his books, so all they needed to do was move Stan.

They also had to wait until the afternoon, after Dan had gotten out of school, so that he could help lift Stan in an emergency. Ford was still recovering from his time with Bill, and while he was feeling much better, he hadn’t picked up his exercise regime yet. He was worried he’d drop his brother.

They struggled up and down the museum stairs, Stan cursing all the while and swatting at the air, but they managed to get him inside the car without having to touch him too much.

Now it was the hard part. Getting from barrier to barrier.

“Ford.” Stan said tiredly, after Ford had whipped his gun and shot something out the window again. Ford wasn’t sure what it was, but he didn’t like the speed in which it was approaching the moving vehicle, “Ford, please stop. shooting things with your laser. Gun.”

“I can’t be certain of their intent.” Ford muttered, keeping his eyes peeled, “And I can’t take any risks. Now please, stop distracting me.”

Something else moved by the trees. Ford wasted no time pulling the trigger, sending out another purple laser beam.

Stan sighed. This was fine, it was Ford’s job to keep him safe right now.

They pulled up to the house, and Ford wasted no time flinging the doors open and throwing himself out, then scanning the area as Stan shuffled out of the car next to him.

“Wow.” Stan said, squinting at the house, “More purple. We’ll need to do something. About that for my eyes. It’s a nightmare trying to look. At anything in there.”

“I’ll work on it,” Ford said, walking next to Stan as he slowly made his way to the house. He only relaxed when Stan blinked and shook his head, then started glaring at the air.

Safe.

“Let’s get you inside,” Fiddleford said, voice shaking as he walked by, “We’ve set something up for you. A little welcome party.”

Thankfully there were less stairs to get into Fords house. In quick order they were inside and directed towards the kitchen.

Emma-May, Carla, Shifty, and Tate were there. The table was filled with food, and a large banner was strung across the far wall.

NOT AS CRAZY AS YOU COULD HAVE BEEN

Stan burst into laughter next to him, then held the door-frame and started wheezing and holding his chest with the other hand.

Ford just glared at them.

“Really. I hardly think that’s fair.”

“You started the apocalypse,” Emma-May said, giving him a look, “and then had a mental break down and started a magic weapons manufactory. It’s very fair.”

“But at least Stan really was your brother,” Fiddleford added, walking to the table and sitting down.

Ford huffed, then helped his brother to the table as much as he could without touching him.

“We’ll have to show you the video Stan,” Carla added, making his blood freeze.

“No, we don’t” Ford added hastily. He was very proud of what he did in that video. Not so proud of his hysterical laughter and the mania radiating off of him.

“Then I’ll definitely have to see it,” Stan said, slumped in the chair and eyeing all the food in front of him, “After I eat real, solid food. I am. So tired of broth. Where’s the bacon.”

They settled in around the table, Stan’s ears twitching at the sounds around him. Ford wasn’t sure if Stan remembered they were there. There hadn’t been any mirrors in the museum basement, and he’d spent most of his time lying on the mattress. Ford had seen him idly pull his tail out of the way of things, but it didn’t look like a deliberate movement on Stan’s part.

He hadn’t said anything, and Ford wasn’t going to either.

He was sure it’d be fine.

Finally. A shower. Stan had been dreaming about this since the second day, and he realized he’d been wearing the same clothes for who knows long.

He had a ball of borrowed clothes from Ford, and went into the bathroom, fantasizing about all the hot water he was going to use.

Then he screamed as he saw himself in the mirror.

“WHAT THE HELL! WHAT IS THIS!” Stan watched the cat ears twitch on his head. Then he looked behind him at the tail sticking out of his back. He thought his spine felt longer, but he assumed it was the whole ‘soul smashing pain’ tricking his brain.

Ford slammed the door open, holding his gun.

“What! What is it, Stanley!” he shouted, jerking forward and slamming the shower curtains open, looking for a threat. The speed at which he responded made it fairly obvious he’d been waiting on the other side of the door.

“This!” Stan said, holding his tail up and pointing to his head, “How long has this been going on! Why is this going on!”

Ford looked at Stan, then let out a sigh of relief (not a good sign). Then he put his gun away and ruffled the top of Stan’s head.

It wasn’t as painful as before, but it did feel like a hundred static shocks, which still wasn’t pleasant. Stan glared, then bat Fords hand away.

“What are you doing. Stop that,” he held the tail up, waving it in Fords face, “explain this to me.”

“When Bill shattered your soul, your two forms blended together. You’ve looked like this since then. I wasn’t sure if you remembered, or how to bring it up.”

Like a flood, memories surged into Stan’s brain. Little moments and mannerisms of that week when his brain had melted. Rubbing his head into Ford’s side. Trying to catch the eyeballs. Hissing at Bill. Trying to purr the last few days, and not even questioning why he could.

“Oh my God,” Stan whispered, horrified, “I was acting like a lap cat. YOU!” Stan pointed his finger in Fords face, forcing him to take a step back, “Why did you encourage that! I’m a grown man!”

Ford, the jerk, didn’t even look sorry. He just smiled, then reached over and ruffled Stan’s head again, then started rubbing his ears. To his horror, Stan started purring.

“You were in a lot of pain, it seemed to help,” Ford said, smiling as Stan started closing his eyes.

No.

Stan slapped the hand away and hissed. Then slapped a hand over his mouth.

Oh God. People had seen him like that. Everyone in town. Carla had seen him.

He was never leaving this bathroom again.

Ford just ruffled his head again, then walked out of the bathroom, closing the door behind him.

Stan took a deep breath. He’d been ignoring it, because there wasn’t a shower at the museum, and his body hurt too much to move.

Slowly, he lifted his shirt, looking at his chest.

Then screamed at what he saw. His beautiful chest hair, gone forever.

He was going to summon that demon back from wherever it came from and strangle it with his own to hands. Claws. Whatever.

Stan screamed again when Ford burst back in, yelling and waving the gun around.

Then he kept screaming when Carla showed up, his shirt still lifted and with Ford rampaging through the bathroom.

Forget the bathroom. Stan was ditching the house and living under a rock forever.

He was never going to live any of this down.