Chapter Text
The tiny bubble of hope that rested somewhere in Stanley’s stomach had already gone through a frankly impressive set of gymnastics in the last 24 hours, but nothing could have desensitized him enough for the flip-flopping calisthenics it started performing when a shadowy figure began to emerge in the portal’s near-destructed frame.
It was exactly what he’d hoped for.
It was what he’d worked towards for the last three decades.
And it was so scarily wrong .
He’d considered the possibility, of course. Considered it almost every single day he’d worked on the damn thing, wracked with worry over where Ford had been sent and what might have lay in wait for him there. Even when the thought didn’t make itself known during the day, there were always the nightmares—the ones where his brother was hurt, or weak, or sick, or worst of all, Stan was through some combination of those things, too late to save him.
The ones that left him feeling even guiltier over the whole mess than usual.
The cloaked figure from the portal’s depth was moving under his own power, so he could at least breathe a sigh of relief he hadn’t failed—yet. But staggering motions and slow progress—a visible limp, and an awkward bearing that practically screamed “other significant injuries”—alluded only to things that worried him. Before Stan could even cry out a concern to him, the man cloaked in black collapsed to the ground, a neat little pile of travel-worn fabric that was suddenly tying his nerves into knots.
“Stanford!” he shouted, rushing forward almost immediately. If he was too late… if this was all that his frantic work had accomplished...
Behind him he could already hear the confused murmurs of his niece and nephew: “Who is—?” “Wait, but Grunkle Stan, isn’t your name…?”
He turned to look at them with pained eyes, heart already torn between family members he needed to split attention between. The kids and Soos deserved an explanation, but his brother was clearly suffering from some complication he hadn’t yet pinpointed. To take care of both...
Stan took a deep breath. He wasn’t going to let anyone down. Not this time.
“Kids, remember how I said I wanted to explain things to you?”
Dipper eyed him somewhat suspiciously, and he honestly couldn’t blame the kid. But Mabel just nodded, still looking slightly tearful from earlier.
“I’m going to, I promise,” Stan said, almost choking on the words because he could feel how unbelievable they sounded in his own mouth. If those two had even a fragment of trust for him left in the first place, he was treading a delicate path should he wish to preserve it.
He took a deep breath. “But I also said I was doing this for... for our family. And that means I gotta care of all of you.”
“What does that—?”
“Grunkle Stan—!”
However those protests were pushed forward was drowned out by worry as Stanley crouched closer to and directed his attention toward the crumpled form of his brother.
His right leg, the one that had obviously buckled under him, lay at an awkward angle. But for the most part, Ford had curled himself into a defensive ball as he’d fallen, apparently having hung onto enough consciousness to try to keep himself defended when he passed out. He probably didn’t even know he was home.
Stan felt a lump developing in his throat over the painful familiarity of the concept. You didn’t start pulling things like that until you had a few bad experiences. Until you were used to people hurting you, and couldn’t think of a better solution. Back when things were still, well, their worst for him, he’d had to practice the same thing in more than a few alleyways. Why did Ford slip so easily into the position now? Was that the kind of life he’d been stuck living? For thirty years?
Not a pleasant or conscience-easing thought.
And then, of course, there was the other concern entirely. It took everything in him for Stan to keep his hands from shaking too wildly to take off the other man’s heavy goggles, eyes instead fixated on what was definitely still a rising and falling motion to his chest. It was still there. There was still something, weak as it might seem, there.
He was actually here.
He was solid, flesh and blood.
…He was flesh and bleeding.
It was impossible to tell how far the damage extended under whatever heavy get-up Ford was wrapped in, but the minute Stan place a hand on his midsection in an attempt to probe for the injury he’d expected might be there, it came away red.
He blanched at the sight.
“Soos,” he finally managed to say, after staring at the liquid for longer than he probably could allow himself under the circumstances. He was painfully aware of how fragile his voice sounded. “Is the couch in your break room still clear? For someone to lie down on?”
The handyman hesitated, clearly still trying to process how much had happened in the last few minutes, but Stan could tell he’d also noticed Ford—a perfect stranger to Soos, and who hadn’t been in this world since before the young man was born—was injured. It seemed that despite the confusion, his soft heart won out rather quickly.
“S-Sure thing, Mr. Pines,” he said, in a voice trying so hard to be cheerful. “Do you need some help with the… um… the weird sci-fi guy or…?”
“I’ll carry him up,” Stan said softly.
“Should I call an ambulance or something?”
Yes. Probably. Stan’s head screamed, and he could have kicked himself for having to verbally answer “No. Uh… trust me.”
Because sure, he hadn’t got a decent look at the injury yet and didn’t think he’d be able to in the dim light of the basement, but what if Ford was so badly hurt he needed it? What if it was the only way to save him? He’d have cost his brother everything if that ended up being the case, all because the complicated explanations it would call for could get them all in trouble.
A fact he was even more painfully reminded of when Dipper spoke up just as he slipped his arms carefully under Ford’s body (God, it felt like he’d lost weight....)
“Um… Grunkle Stan? Th-The agents are still upstairs,” he said nervously.
Fuck.
The distress must have been evident on his face, because Mabel chirped up in a voice somehow equal parts shaky and reassuring.
“Don’t worry, we can think of something I bet! Maybe… maybe if we wait it out they’ll go away?”
“They’re not gonna go away, Mabel,” Dipper sighed. “I don’t know how much time that guy,” he said, thumbing backwards at Ford, “would have to wait, and the only way they’ll leave is if we convince them that what they’re looking for isn’t—” Dipper then looked frustrated for a moment, before a thought almost visibly raced across his face. “Convince them what they’re looking for isn’t here! Grunkle Stan, if we can convince them that you got away, they’ll start looking for you someplace else!”
“What about you kids though?” Stan asked nervously, shifting Ford’s weight in his arms. “They’re lookin’ for you too, you know.”
Dipper frowned, clearly deep in thought. Slowly, more parts of a plan formed as he spoke. “Yeah… but last time we were with them, they knew we really wanted to rejoin you. If we make them think you escaped and we went with you…”
“...Then I’ll have a kidnapping charge.”
“Okay, maybe. But we also might be able to help… that guy,” Dipper said, gesturing towards him and Ford both.
Stan could tell the kid still has a suspicious edge to the way he was approaching him, and hadn’t missed the sentiment lurking within the statement “last time”, but the kid made more than a few good points. They were working under time constraints now, for the double reasons of the agents on the prowl and Ford literally bleeding out in his arms. He didn’t love the plan, but the sooner he could take both better care of his brother and try to apologize to the kids, the better.
“Alright,” he reluctantly agreed, “but that means you two can’t be the ones to tell them that. And I can’t either so I guess that means…”
Everyone turned to look at Soos.
“Oh boy,” he said nervously. “You mean you want me… to tell them…”
“Soos, I know you can do this,” Stan said. Half-pleaded, at this point.
The expressions that flickered across the handyman’s face were so vivid and rapid Stan struggled to know what to make of them, but next thing he knew Soos was saluting at him.
“I won’t let you down, Mr. Pines!” he said solemnly.
From that declaration on and once Soos was up the stairs, Stan, Dipper, and Mabel could only watch the security camera screens in the lab in nervous anticipation. That made this second time in his life, the other being night with the zombies, that Stan decided they were the most important feature in the house.
He didn’t dwell on the fact that both times, family members’ lives were probably at stake.
It felt like a miniature eternity, but they managed to catch a window in which no one was around the vending machine exit—giving Soos ample time to sneak up, and outside of the Shack itself. After that the cameras only caught glimpses of what occurred.
A frantic conversation Stan couldn’t even try to lip-read, more of the agent guys getting called over and his heart skipping—it was only as he got a sinking feeling in his stomach, from the wild gesturing that Soos had to resort to, that he felt Mabel hugging his arm so tightly it was probably cutting off circulation. Not that he had much left in it from carrying Ford.
...He probably shouldn’t have picked him up so early, but once he’d made contact like that, it was impossible to bear the thought of letting go. Like his brother might slip away if he so much as shifted his hold wrong.
Dipper simply proved to be a bundle of nerves throughout the whole ordeal, absentmindedly biting the tip of a pen he must have retrieved from his backpack. The family waited in terrified silence, just a quiet clicking, arm squeezing, and nervously running fingers through the thick fabric of Ford’s coat the only things interrupting the silence for them each respectively.
Mabel didn’t relinquish her grip even as one of them handed Soos something that looked like a business card and the government vehicles started to load up and pull away.
“I can’t believe that actually worked,” Dipper breathed, finally exhaling the one they’d all been holding. Stan quirked an eyebrow at him.
“It was your plan, kid.”
His great-nephew shrugged. Stan couldn’t help but think of himself, and the number of his own quick escapes that applied to.
They waited about an agonizing minute more, the idea that it was safe to emerge still a little bit surreal until Soos’ shaky but cheerful “All clear, dudes,” came calling down the basement steps. Mabel’s fingers finally dug themselves out of Stan’s arm, and he and the twins both started a slow shuffle towards leaving the basement.
Encouraging as managing a single part of their plan was, Stan still had a sick feeling every time he felt the uneven movement of ascending the stairs jostle his injured brother in his arms.
His nerves weren’t calmed by the sudden blinking that accompanied emerging back up in the gift shop, the harsh sunlight streaming in the windows a strong contrast from the gloomy basement laboratory. In the new light, he became painfully aware of just how pale Ford looked. Was he sick? Was it blood loss? Now that they were upstairs, and he had access to things like proper bandages and water, he was determined to figure it out. Finally retrieving his brother just to watch him succumb some dumb injury or weird sci-fi sickness would be too much to bear.
“Can one of you two get me the first aid-kit?” he asked the kids gruffly, and was surprised to notice they both nodded without any hesitation. He supposed any lingering distrust might currently be dampened by the fact that there was a clearly more pressing issue. Stan was a lot more emotional than usual right now, but he still felt like he could have teared up at that fact regardless—they didn’t even know who Ford was to them, and they were already trying to help him out.
They were good kids. All of them.
Carrying his brother’s limp form into the room discussed earlier, he noticed Soos trailing nervously behind him. As he set Ford down carefully on the sofa, trying his hardest to make him comfortable, the young man finally spoke.
“You uh…. you sure you don’t wanna call a hospital, Mr. Pines? He looks like he needs one...”
Stan pinched his nose in frustration, trying to think how he could even phrase his concern. Finally, words, even if they probably weren’t such good ones, tumbled out of his mouth.
“Listen, Soos, I don’t want to give the details until the kids can hear too, ‘cause there’s a lot to say but… uh… given what you just pulled off, and the guys out there lookin’ for me, all I know is things might not turn out so great for him if we tried.”
Soos looked down at Ford, seeming confused for a moment, but then seemed to accept Stan’s words as enough with a nervous laugh.
“He does kinda look like you, huh?” he said.
“Yeah…” Stan replied. “Yeah he does.”
In actuality, that fact had hit him with as much shock as it had any of his family when he took off Ford’s goggles, only just realizing in that moment that he shouldn’t be surprised to see a face that looked more like his weathered own, and not the terrified young man he’d watched fall backwards, pleading for help, 30 years earlier.
That had been the image of Ford plastered in his mind for so long. One replacing it was raw and surreal.
“Here, Grunkle Stan.”
Mabel’s voice interrupted his thoughts as she lofted their first-aid kit in his directed. She had a very cautious smile, still clearly hoping that everything about this was or was going to be okay. He wished he could steal a little of her optimism.
“Thanks, kiddo,” he said, grabbing the case from her. “Let me have a minute to check Fo—this guy—over and I’ll try to start giving you those answers I promised.”
Again he received quiet nods from his niece and nephew, and found himself thanking whatever was possibly out there profusely for the kids’ incredible patience. Nodding gently at them in response, a silent agreement and promise that they were not forgotten in the slightest, he turned and knelt next to where his brother lay and started his examination.
His cursory check had revealed bleeding, but it wasn’t until he unfolded, and in a few cases actually had to cut through, the strange number of layers Ford was wearing that he actually caught a glimpse of the source—large, claw-mark gashes that began near his left shoulder and extended diagonally to almost his right hip. Further examination revealed similar, even deeper lacerations scoring the leg below. It seemed evident enough that he’d gotten on the wrong side of some creature, and recently, before ending up the worse for it.
The whole time he worked, Stan kept hesitating between shooing everyone else out of the room, not wanting the kids in particular to see the ugly wounds, and occasionally asking the others to get him something to help.
"Wet this washcloth, get some pillows so I can prop him up…" At one point, he asked Dipper to grab the strongest pain medication they had, under the assumption that hell knew if he could get his brother to take them while unconscious, but that he’d definitely want them when he woke up. But all it turned out they had was a nearly-empty old bottle of aspirin.
It wasn’t the only place they were woefully under-stocked. He had enough to perform basic first-aid, but a complete mauling by what seemed to be a decent-sized animal was not on that list. Not that he completely doubted his ability to—Stan was well, if largely self-, taught in treating wounds of decent severity. But his hands were tied without more and larger dressings for the injuries, not to mention better anti-bacterial treatments.
“We’re gonna need someone to go into town,” he finally said grimly.
“Most of us can’t leave the house, ” Dipper said, exasperated.
“I can go, dudes,” Soos offered. “Although I think when gravity went all flip-flopped part of the Shack might have landed on my car…”
Mabel snapped her fingers. “Wendy! One of us should call Wendy.”
“How do you think Wendy’s gonna respond to us calling her and asking her to bring us medical supplies ?” Dipper said.
“Probably more level-headedly than most people we know,” Stan muttered, chiming back into the conversation as he carefully fastened another of the bandages he actually had across his brother’s chest. “Just give her some of the facts and—”
“Grunkle Stan, we don’t even know the facts!” Dipper protested.
Stan took a quick look at Ford, who had by no means come close to stopping him worrying, but whom he also wasn’t sure how much more he could do for unless they called his other employee as suggested. He then glanced at his distressed nephew.
Dipper’s eyes were wide and frustrated, a deep confusion burning in them and a look that spoke volumes of “I don’t want to be mad, but this is getting really hard!”
He slumped slightly from his position on the floor. The kids didn’t deserve to wait any longer, especially if he ever wanted there to be a chance they’d trust him again. As much as he feared he couldn’t tell the story right, it was time.
“I… don’t exactly know where to start,” he said, rising and fumbling over the words like he felt he hadn’t in years. Not since hiding behind the facade of someone who never did. “I guess the big stuff’s worth dropping right away since it’s not gonna get any easier to swallow. I mean, everything goes all weird, a guy appears in the basement, I ask you to help me with him even though he’s a complete mystery to you all... I guess the least I can tell you, if you want to know who he is, this is… well... he’s my brother.”
Ford’s lungs burned as he moved, something he found almost bitterly ironic given the speed he was barely managing. It would be generous to call his current limp any kind of run. The beast pursuing him had pounced as he set up warily camp for the night—not warily enough, it seemed, as he was now already at a horrible disadvantage in trying to escape.
Of course, the current blurriness of his thoughts was probably the reason it had slipped under his radar, so he supposed his dash for safety would have been hindered regardless. For a dimension that had seemed deceptively friendly at first, he was definitely crossing this on off his “I could survive landing back here again” list. Driven out into the barren purple wastelands when the city he’d caught a night’s refuge in abruptly descended into a warzone, Ford had living by his wits here long enough that the unforgiving landscape was finally taking his toll.
He’d been starting to run dangerously low on supplies to begin with, but the group of bandits that had ambushed him three nights ago and made off with what little surplus he’d ever found to squirrel away had guaranteed it. The swift kick to the head one of them had given him when he tried to retrieve it hadn’t done wonders for his cognition either. Really, being fair to himself, it was a perfect storm of hindrances that were the reason he found himself a possible item on this angry Ravabeast’s next menu. The series of events he'd dealt with this week hadn't done wonders for his alertness.
Ford supposed he could at least pat himself on the back for avoiding this sort of situation about 3 times out of 5 now, but 60% didn’t mean much when it had failed you, and the current one could be your last.
He scanned the horizon, looking at all side for a possible escape. Unfortunately, though the terrain of his surroundings was rocky (rocky enough he hadn’t found anything edible growing here since he lost his supplies…), it was fairly solid and as a result lacked good hiding places. Perhaps he should have chanced it the city after all. Too late now.
Out of nowhere—or possibly what was a very perfectly reasonable place that his half-starved and probably-concussed brain just hadn’t registered (its current capacity was also something likely hovering near 60%)—a rock in his path proved the final instrument of his downfall. Hitting the ground, hard, he took a few too many moments to even muster the energy to get up.
Before his wind was back, the beast in pursuit of him had pounced, the same claws he’d felt deeply in his leg just minutes earlier now raking across his upper body and shoulders. He gritted his teeth, trying not to give it the satisfaction of making him cry out in agony, but the sensation was somewhat dulled by the fact that everything had gone a bit more foggy.
It’s toying with me… he managed, in a blur of pain-clouded synapses. Usually one of these creatures would have already bitten in… this one might not even be hungry.
Well, as much as he should probably dislike the thing for considering eating him, he envied it that.
It also meant that going limp and silent in its grip—as he’d planned—and playing dead wouldn’t spare him any time. He'd studied the hunting habits of these creatures well enough to know they liked their prey fresh—so fresh, that is, that they’d lose interest when it stopped wriggling. If it wasn’t even batting him around to eat though… he guessed maybe he didn’t have to beat up himself up for letting loose a small sort of whimper.
Sharp claws once more dug into his shoulder, and Ford had the disappointing thought that it was just his luck, of all the ways he’d ever risked going, this was undoubtedly one of the more painful options.
But before he could wander down any other morbid trails of contemplation, there was an odd crackling sound. The beast attacking him perked up its pointed ears like an alert wolf, if wolves’ ears could rotate in multiple directions searching for a source and also there were four of them.
Alright, so maybe the first thing to go as the life ebbed out of him was his ability to form metaphors. He idly hoped Mrs. Lange from 10th grade English would forgive him, those had usually earned him high marks from her on his papers.
Of course, she’d also told him he was too good a writer to waste it by becoming a scientist—maybe he wouldn't be bleeding out on the barren ground of an alien planet if he'd listened.
The strange crackle continued, and Ford became vaguely aware of the far that the pressure accompanying the claws on his chest was releasing, Whatever was causing the sound seemed to have the Ravabeast running scared. Should he be scared too? He wasn’t so sure he cared.
With a soft whine, the predator that had almost had him for dinner scampered off, giving Ford a clear view of…
Oh, thank anomalies with their basis in Einstein’s theory of relativity.
It was a shimmering, glistening tear in space-time, and as highly inadvisable as it was to literally flirt with the laws of physics, Ford felt vaguely like kissing it.
He staggered upright, slowly, head already threatening rebellion at the action. But he knew if he could just get through this gateway, he might end up in a place where he could actually nurse these wounds and survive.
There was, of course, every chance it could be worse, but he hadn’t made it decades in the multiverse by grumpily assuming his next destination would spell his doom. His chances here were, as about three factors had proven, quite slim. It was a bet he’d take.
Funny thing was, something seemed vaguely familiar about this particular instability. Sure, he’d slipped through more than a few during his travels, but this one in particular felt like it was tugging on some specific, long-buried memory. Maybe if his head was a little less battered he could summon the proper one, but thinking at all was surprisingly difficult, and all he could manage at the moment was gratitude it had appeared at all.
Maybe he’d be able to figure it out later.
Maybe he could make it.
Injured leg protesting with every step, Ford stumbled forward, bracing himself for the unsettling static shock of dimensional travel. He could weather it. This would work. He just had to try to get a decent look at his next set of surroundings before he lost his grip on consciousness completely.
The other dimension he slowly limped into was cool and dark, though perhaps a little bit musty. Maybe this gateway had opened indoors? That happened sometimes. It was always a little inconvenient for everyone involved. But Ford actually liked the odds if it was true even more. He knew from awkwardly specific personal experience that people could be surprisingly compassionate when a bleeding man came out of nowhere and collapsed on their floor.
He took in a few figures—maybe four? two of them were awfully small, that boded well too; killing him on the spot was always a less popular option, even for enemies, when there were children around—and what seemed to be broken machinery scattered about before the toll of his ordeal grabbed hold in a way that wouldn’t let go.
As much as information he’d tried to gather, whether this new location was any safer than the last was a complete mystery. Feeling his general weakness take over, and injured leg buckle under him, Ford found himself clinging sadly to the hope that his fading vision was of a place that wouldn’t be the last he ever saw.