Chapter Text
Stanford only becomes interested in the ringing of his phone by the fifth call.
Most people call twice and leave a message.
His Ma will call three times before leaving a message, demanding a callback.
Nobody he knows would call five times.
He abandons his workstation and the portal blueprints, going for the phone he’d installed on the third floor. He calls over his shoulder to Fiddleford and waits until the man turns off the noisy machine he was working with. With a hearty mixture of annoyance and curiosity, Stanford answers the phone.
“Stanford Pines speaking.”
“Oh, thank Moses,” his brother sighs through the receiver. He sounds worn down, his voice raspier than usual.
“Shermie?” Ford thinks back to the last time his brother called him so late-- it was nearly 11 at night. “You’re calling late.”
“I know,” his brother says. “I’m sorry for interrupting your work, Ford, but… I needed to talk to you.”
“Needed, or need to?” Ford asks, wondering what could possibly be so important.
Shermie’s lets out a breathless, exhausted chuckle. “Need to. I… Look, Ford, I need you to come visit me.”
Ford feels his eyebrows pull together. “Visit? Shermie, I--”
“As soon as possible,” his brother insists. The push makes Ford pause, take note of how tense he sounds.
Still… Ford looks back into his lab. Blueprints are scattered across every desk, plans and calculations for the portal he's going to build. He and Fiddleford are so close-- a few more days, a few more equations to double check, and they’ll be able to start construction.
“I would love to,” he lies, “but I’m in the middle of a very important project right now. Leaving now would only set back our schedule, and we’re--”
“Please, Ford,” Shermie interrupts. Ford doesn’t miss the shaky inhale. “I need your help with something.”
His help? Shermie lives a very boring, uneventful life in the suburbs. His job as a high school chemistry teacher is nothing dramatic, surely he wouldn’t be in danger. The thought of it, despite being illogical, still makes Ford’s heart stutter in his chest.
“Shermie?” is all he can ask.
“I…” His brother is silent for a minute or so. “There’s a-- a man, a John Doe, in one of the hospitals near Piedmont. They showed a sketch of him on the news. I… I want to go see if I can identify him.”
Ford listens to his brother carefully, waiting for him to continue. When the silence hangs, he asks, "And you need me for this?"
"I--" Shermie starts, and it sounds like his throat closes around the words. Ford listens to him try to speak until he finally becomes comprehensible. "I was worried it was you, Ford. The sketch looked like you."
But since it's not me... If the idea of Shermie in danger made Ford’s heart stutter, the implication of his words make his heart seize entirely. The silence returns, heavy in the air, and Ford can’t find any words.
“The hospital is one of the fancy ones. I’m thinking they have those tests that can test blood. If it’s…” Shermie can’t seem to say his name. “If it’s who I think it is, they might want to test your DNA.”
So many thoughts swirl in Ford’s head that it makes him dizzy. That, paired with the lack of sleep, has him agreeing to drive down the next morning. He asks for the address of the hospital. He doesn’t want to waste any time, so he tells Shermie he’ll meet him there. By the time he hangs up, Fiddleford is curious enough to have stopped work entirely. He’s watching Ford like a hawk as he sways on his feet.
It’s not him, calm down. Shermie said it was a sketch-- sketches can be wrong.
“Ford?”
“I need you to take me to Oakland, to-- to Highland Hospital.”
“Is everything okay?”
Ford’s hands feel cold. He forces himself to nod. “Y-yeah. Shermie’s fine, the family’s fine. He just, uh… He has something he wants to check. He said he might need me there.”
Ford tries to return to work, but his thoughts keep drifting back to hospitals and blood samples and heart monitors and police sketches. He excuses himself after a few hours and retires to bed. He does not sleep. In the morning, Ford is sure to call Shermie when he leaves, and his brother sounds worse than the night before. They don’t talk for long. He and Fiddleford pack into the latter’s pickup truck and head south.
Nine hours later, Fiddleford is pulling into the Highland Hospital parking lot. He drops Ford off at a side entrance where they see Shermie standing. His brother looks gaunt, heavy bags weighing under his eyes.
It’s not him, Ford reminds himself for the umpteenth time that day. The words bounce against his skull, hollow and dull.
“Ford,” his brother greets. Shermie tries to smile, but it’s flat and strained. His eyes are red. “The news said he was in the ICU.”
Ford nods stiffly, and wordlessly follows Shermie inside. It’s bright and sterile as they walk through the halls, not very busy this late in the day. Ford’s nose itches at the smell of antiseptic, and the air is too heavy to make small talk. The ICU is quiet and centralized around one station, with no winding hallways like on other floors. Nurses in pastel blue pantsuits hustle between the rooms. Quiet, quick footsteps intermingle with the beeping of dozens of machines. Ford pointedly ignores the police officer speaking in hushed tones with a nurse.
Shermie’s the one who approaches the nurse station. There’s an older woman there who greets them without a smile.
“Can I help you?” she asks plainly.
Shermie tries to answer, but has to clear his throat. “We’re here to… possibly identify your John Doe.”
This seems to get the nurse’s attention. A strange look passes across her face, a slight slackening that hints at surprise. Her eyes look between Shermie and Ford-- but do not linger on Ford. He takes that as a good sign, despite repeating that it is not him. Stanley and he might not be exact matches, but they are identical. If Stan were here, she’d have recognized Ford’s face.
“You’re here for John Doe?” she asks, perhaps a bit louder than needed. In his periphery, Ford sees the officer looking their way. “Let me see if I can arrange for you to see him.”
The officer dips his head to excuse himself and starts to walk their way. The movement makes the hair on Ford’s neck raise.
“What room is he in?” he blurts out.
“It’s not that simple,” the nurse answers. “Since we can’t verify that you’re family, we need to--”
“It’s alright, Beatrice,” the officer interrupts gently. He comes to stand next to the brothers. “I can take them to see him.”
The confirmation that this is police business sends an icy chill through Ford’s blood. A small part of him wants to reach out to Shermie, grab his hand like he did when he was young. He resists the urge for that small creature comfort.
“Alright,” the nurse relents. “I’ll call admin and have them take you down.”
Confusion settles over Ford like spikes. Shermie speaks up before he can formulate any questions.
“The news said he was in the ICU?” he asks. Ford watches as his brother’s shoulders tense, inching closer to his ears. “Is-- is he not?”
The nurse and officer exchange a look. It’s only a few seconds, but it feels like an eternity for Ford. He feels braced on the edge of a cliff, teetering over and threatening to plunge to his death. He’s a taut string ready to snap when she looks back at him, as if he already knows what words will come out of her mouth.
“He was moved to the morgue last night,” the nurse answers as gently as she can.
It’s not him it’s not him it’s not him
“I… I see,” he hears Shermie say. His brother’s voice is too high-pitched.
Ford doesn’t speak while they wait. He thinks he hears the officer asking Shermie a few questions, getting their personal information. He doesn’t bother listening, mind whirring with all the different ways that the body in the morgue is not his brother. The reasons range from statistical improbabilities to twin telepathy.
He’s shaken out of it when Shermie’s hand finds his arm. Ford blinks back into awareness, now acutely aware of how dry his mouth is.
“C’mon,” his brother says. There’s another man with them now, standing by the officer. Ready to lead them to John Doe.
The ride to the basement is cold and quiet. Nobody speaks-- the professionals remain politely, respectfully silent, and the brothers cannot force words to come out. Ford pretends he doesn’t see how shaky Shermie’s steps are when they exit the elevator.
Ford thinks he has just about convinced his nervous system that the body is not will not cannot be his brother . There’s a small bustling of energy around him, hospital staff blurring together, until he and Shermie are led into a cold room. It’s filled with medical equipment and smells distinctly of formaldehyde and death. There are two sleek, silver tables stretched out in the center of the room.
There is a body underneath a white sheet on one of them.
Ford tells himself he does not recognize the bulk of it, the length of it, or the shape of it.
“You can take as long as you need,” the officer tells them. “I’ll need to remain in the room.”
There’s another medical staff here, dressed in different attire. Ford focuses on analyzing their uniform, eyes catching on a few stains near the cuffs. He distantly acknowledges Shermie giving her the okay to lift away the sheet.
The sound Shermie makes sounds like a bomb in his ear.
It’s a short, cut-off sob. Something that had been brewing in Shermie’s chest since he’d seen the sketch, bursting out when he finally sees the John Doe on the table.
It’s not him it’s not him it’s NOT HIM
Ford forces his eyes away from the medical examiner and to the body on the table. He doesn’t land on the face. Instead, he finds the top of the corpse’s chest and studies the hair and bruises he sees. There’s a hint of a tattoo peeking above the sheet.
Stanley didn’t have tattoos, he tells himself. He holds onto that as an absolute truth.
Brown eyes travel up to shoulders (hairy, broad, strong), up a neck (bruised, fatty, shadowed with facial hair), up a jawline (strong, square, toofamiliartoofamiliartoofamiliar), and finally land on the face.
No.
His breath catches between his ribs.
It’s not Stanley. It can’t be.
Ford understands why only a sketch was released. The corpse’s face is swollen beyond postmortem means. One eye is swelled shut, a purple-black bruise spreading from the socket down his cheek. More bruises cover his opposite cheekbone and stretch up his temple to disappear into his hairline.
Itsnothimitsnothimitsnothim
His nose is broken. It’s twisted at the bridge of it, jutting at an unnatural angle. His jaw might be, too, and it makes his face look offset. His lips are cut up, but there is no blood crusted around the open skin. They would have cleaned that off.
Ford focuses on all the way this is definitely not Stanley, and not on all the familiar features he sees. Those eyebrows are not his twins, that hair is not similar to his own, and everything else about the corpse does notnotnotnotnot scream Stanley Pines.
Shermie leaves his side, and Ford follows him without thinking. There is no command for his hand to reach out, grasp the back of Shermie’s coat, but it does. Ford follows Shermie like a child to the other side of the table. Ford watches as Shermie reaches out, hand shaking in the air where it pauses.
“Can… Can I?” he asks the examiner.
Ford doesn’t see the response. He watches, miles away, as Shermie gently lifts the sheet away.
“Oh, fuck--” Shermie swears. Ford knows why.
He lifted the sheet enough to expose Stanley’s John Doe’s arm and side. The man’s wrist shows bruises wrapped around like a bracelet. There are deep, gaping wounds in his side. Ford immediately knows what they are; someone has stabbed this man at least seven times.
His eyes refuse to find the crook of his elbow when Shermie gingerly turns his arm. He resolutely ignores the wet sigh that leaves Shermie’s mouth.
“No,” he mutters. The truth is starting to press at his skull behind his eyes.
“Ford,” is all Shermie says.
The officer, who until now stood quietly in the corner, steps towards them. Ford knows what he’s going to ask before the words leave his mouth.
“Do you recognize this man?”
Shermie says, “Yes.”
Ford says, “No.”
“Ford--” Shermie pleads weakly. He’s still holding onto the corpse’s hand where he turned it over.
“It’s not him,” Ford cuts. His throat is too tight. He clears it and tries again. “It’s not. He doesn’t have tattoos. He’s afraid of needles.”
Shermie finally looks at him. There are tears in his eyes, and Ford fights back his own. Shermie takes after their mother, including in the way they cry. Ford pushes away the image of his mother crying over her youngest son (my free spirit).
“Look,” his brother says. Ford knows where he wants him to look. When he shakes his head, a tear falls down Shermie’s cheek. “Stanford. Please. Don’t do this."
The break in his voice is what makes Ford move. He’s grown distant from his older brother over the years, but seeing him so broken is brutal. He desperately does not want to look at the arm of the man on the table, but he more desperately wants to ease his brother’s pain.
He looks, and he knows.
It’s not him. It’s not him.
There, on the soft skin of the man Stanley’s inner arm, is a heart-shaped birthmark. It’s not the Valentine’s heart, but an anatomical heart-- or, at least, that’s what Ford declared after seeing a diagram in science class. Stan had laughed him off but always referred to the misshapen brown patch as “heart-shaped.”
It’s there now, discolored and waxy, on the dead body in front of them.
Ford can’t take his eyes away from it, even as he shakes his head vehemently. He can’t deny it. Even if he wanted to, his chest and throat are too tight for anything to pass.
Shermie speaks to the officer. “It’s my brother, Stanley Pines.”
Somehow, hearing the confirmation out loud pulls Ford in a whole new direction. One might expect him to cry, tears of grief running down his face in rivers. It’s tempting, but it’s not the strongest pull.
He’s dead. But he can’t be dead. He’s on the table in front of you, but it’s not his time. He was always supposed to come back.
He’ll come back.
I’ll bring him back.
Somewhere in the back of his mind, Ford starts to run formulas and theories. What he'll say to Fiddleford, how they'll travel back to Gravity Falls. How cold he'll need to set a room in his house. What equipment he'll need. He wants to start writing in a journal by habit. His jaw sets tight, remembering where he’s at. If this is going to work, he’ll need to get Stanley out of here.
Get through today, wait until tonight.
Ford looks at the officer. He’s busy jotting down notes from Shermie, taking whatever information he’s given. He hasn’t noticed the stubborn, delinquent shift in Ford’s demeanor. Ford tries his best to tamp it back down, ball up his machinations, and store them out of sight.
“I haven’t heard from him in a few years,” Shermie is saying. Ford lets his eyes unfocus as he listens carefully. “Even then, he… he never really told me what was going on for him. He really only asked about me.”
Plans tucked safely away in his mind, Ford catches up to Shermie’s words. Realization comes with betrayal, digging sharply into his ribs.
“He called you?” he finds himself asking. It is far too easy to slip back into the role of a grieving brother.
Shermie gives him a look that Ford doesn’t know how to decipher. It’s twisted and soft at the same time. “I… I told him to call you. He never did?”
The knife in his ribs twists. It sends a wave of heat pooling at the corner of Ford’s eyes.
“No,” he says. He doesn’t sound as bitter as he feels. “No, he didn’t.”
“I’m sorry,” Shermie whispers. His bottom lip is trembling, and Ford fights to not mirror it. He bites the inside of his cheek. “I’m sorry, Ford.”
Ford falls into stubborn silence. He turns his head, getting the cold body of his twin out of his periphery. His hands clench so hard his nails dig into his palm, and he tries to ground himself with it. Shermie continues talking to the officer, providing answers that Ford knows will lead their investigation nowhere.
“We’ll release his body after toxicology comes back,” the officer says. “Where would you like us to send it?”
Shermie turns to Ford, but Ford snaps at him before he can speak.
“He’s not going to Jersey,” he bites. An image flashes across his mind-- two gravestones, white and marble and too close. “He’s not being buried next to Pa.”
He’s not being buried at all. He’s coming home with me. Where he belongs.
He expects his brother to argue with him. To his surprise, Shermie just nods. He watches Shermie swallow and wipe his hand under his eye.
“Of course,” he tries to smile. “We can… We can bury him here, in California. A nice little plot, close to where Marta’s parents are buried.”
There’s an implication that, one day, Shermie will be buried nearby. Something with that twists Ford’s guts, but it’s not as pressing as the cold dread that comes with Stan being buried. A memory floats in the back of his mind.
“No, no-- he doesn’t want to be buried,” he explains. “H-he’s afraid of turning into a skeleton. He had nightmares for weeks after Bubbie’s funeral.”
Shermie nods along. “Okay. Okay, we can cremate him. Maybe-- maybe we can spread some of his ashes in the ocean, yeah? I think he’d like that.”
That is what finally breaks the dam of Ford’s grief, everything hitting him like a tidal wave. There is no longer a man on the table, grown and hairy and nearly thirty years old. In his place, there is a small boy, scrawny and sunburnt to hell. A boy who wanted nothing more than to explore the ocean. Ford’s face twists and crumples, and he can’t hold back a choked sob.
“He-- he was supposed to come back,” he whimpers. It’s so garbled in his throat, he doesn’t know if Shermie can understand.
Shermie doesn’t need to understand. He’s an older brother-- his hand finds the crook of Ford’s shoulder and neck, squeezing and combining their shared grief.
“I want to keep some,” Ford says. He doesn’t know how much is for show, to avoid suspicion when Stan’s body goes missing, and how much is true. He doesn’t want to know.
“Yeah, we’ll keep some of him,” Shermie agrees. “I promise.”
You can’t promise that, Ford thinks. He’ll be back, and we won’t need to cremate him.
After they are done, faces red and rubbed raw, they are led out of the morgue. Ford maps out a route, and sends a silent promise to Stan that he will be back.