Work Text:
The elevator that leads down into his sublevel lab has been clunking in a strange way.
It clicks, catches a bit like an old gear that's rusted, an old wheel that just won't turn. The doors are sticky, and it takes an extra second for them to open again, even on the right floor. There's something clogging up some of the machinery, or maybe something has shifted with the stress of the Portal's activation, but whatever the reason, the elevator is making a strange noise.
Stanford Pines frowns, jots a note about it down in his journal, and immediately forgets about it. The elevator still works after all, and there are plenty of other things down here that take more precedence than something that likely only needs maintenance.
Namely, the deactivated interdimensional portal he needs to disassemble and obliterate to prevent the end of the world.
Ford has been back in home dimension for eleven days.
Home. It's a funny way of describing this place now.
He takes off his coat and begins again, pulling up at the ends of the Portal's side pieces and unbolting some siding. Taking the whole thing apart is probably being overcautious, but Ford is taking no chances.
He's been upstairs eight times out of the week, er, week and a half that he's been home.
What was once his lab, his house, his cabin out in the middle of the Oregon wilderness, isolated and quiet, has instead been turned into a mockery of his name. His work, his interests, his life has been packaged up and sold to the audiences of his fellow townspeople, and whichever idiot tourist buys an overpriced ticket. The Shack churns out nothing but blatant lies and shoddy taxidermy skills, peddling cheap trinkets with his name plastered all over the front. Even thinking about it all sends rage across his shoulders, sinking into his gut.
His brother, his twin, seems to believe that causing his banishment from this dimension wasn't enough, oh no, Stanley had to steal his identity and parade around the town for thirty years, committing petty crimes and thoroughly dragging Ford's reputation through any mud Stan could possibly find.
And after all that, demand gratitude for it.
A piece of scrap metal Ford is stripping from one of the Portal's supports snaps backwards with a sharp sound and raps him across the knuckles.
Ford makes a noise he's glad no one else is around to hear, surprise and pain, and jerks his hand back.
“Ow,” he says, rubbing the scraped skin with his other thumb. “Son of a bitch.”
“Don't let the kids hear ya.”
The disintegration blaster Stanford won in a game not dissimilar to Go Fish in dimension 11⅔34’8 is in Ford's hands before he knows what is happening.
He's standing, locking his slightly bent knees and bracing for kickback before he knows he's turned at all, his finger half squeezing on the trigger before he realizes he recognized the grumbling voice.
His target is lined up in the sight of the blaster, a perfect, lethal headshot, before Ford even clocks who his target is.
Stanley, who's standing four feet away with a plate in one hand and glass in the other, dressed in his Mr Mystery suit and fez, goes utterly and completely still.
Every muscle in Ford's body locks like stone. His heart is the only thing pumping wildly away in his chest.
Stanley's eyes are wide. He's not even looking at Ford, he's staring straight down the barrel.
“Ford,” he says. His voice is a deadly sort of calm, no inflection, no emotion. “Put the gun away.”
Hearing his voice sends a jolt down Ford's spine, his brain finally catching up, fight or flight dissipating and shoving itself back into his chest.
The blaster is still trained on Stan's forehead, his face small and warped through the sight.
It's too long of a beat, the amount of time it takes Ford to realize, to blink and suck in a tiny noise and slam the gun down, away from Stanley entirely.
“I,” Ford says, filled with a sudden nausea and rocky embarrassment. He trains the gun to the floor, finger off the trigger. “I didn't, I wouldn’t-”
“Put the gun away.” Stan repeats. His eyes don't leave the blaster in Ford's hand, until it's back in the holster at Ford's hip.
The second it's away, out of Ford's grasp, Stan deflates, just the smallest bit.
Stanley looks…Stan actually looks a little afraid, and the sight of that emotion on his face makes a cloying type of sickness stick at the back of Ford's throat. He doesn’t like fear on his brother's face.
“I'm,” he starts to say, a reflexive apology just behind his lips. Before Ford takes in the air to say it, Stan clears his throat.
“Don't let the kids hear you swear,” he says gruffly. The rattled expression is gone, and he looks gruff and not at all like Ford pointed a gun at his head a second ago. “I've been doin good this summer. Don't want them going home with a couple of new words I'll get blamed for.”
Ford's brows furrow. “The twins are…” he's embarrassed to ask this, “how old are they?”
The way Stan looks at him after that is a perfect curdling mix of annoyance and pity. “Twelve. Thirteen at the end of the summer.”
“At that age we were as bad as any hardened sailor.”
Stan huffs a small, amused breath. It's barely more than an exhale, but it feels like a victory somehow, a step in the right direction. “That's cause we were in Jersey,” Stan points out. “With Pa. Didn't matter how much Ma cleaned our mouths with soap.”
Ford feels his mouth twitch up in the tiniest amount. He'd scorched his fingers one year lighting the menorah and swore loudly in the middle of the living room. His mother, all five foot six of her, dragged him to the kitchen sink and stuck a bar of soap in his mouth as a lesson. If memory serves, Stanley had bent at the waist, pointed and laughed hard enough you could hear it down the street.
The memory clears as Ford blinks, and has nothing else to say.
It's quiet down here in the lab. The portal is torn apart in pieces and silent, shrapnel scattered across the ground in messy piles. The awkward silence drones on, with an ocean so vast between them Ford can imagine the sound of the waves.
He allows it for as long as he can stand, which isn't very long, before he says tersely, “Why are you down here?”
It comes out harsh, much harsher than he intended, but Ford can't take it back now. A scowl slides smoothly over Stan's face, and he rolls his eyes.
He lifts the plate in one hand, a gesture, and without properly answering, steps over to one of the control panel desks and places it down. When he sets the glass in his other hand beside it, ice clinks on the inside.
“The kids are out doing whatever it is they do, and I made too many sandwiches.”
Stan's voice is perfectly casual, flat and disinterested, but Ford knows his brother, even if it's been thirty years. Even if he didn't, Ford would know what a lie sounds like.
“Figured, you gotta eat huh?”
It's the same tone Stanley has always used. It brings a wave of memories, that gruff and nonchalant tone the same one from Ford's childhood. Late nights studying and a twin who would bop him over the head with a rolled up newspaper and usher him to bed if it was too late. A brother who would linger in classroom doorways, waiting for Ford to gather his books so he'd never be the last one out. A twin who grumbled and complained but still offered to carry half of whatever mountain of books Ford borrowed from the library.
Even now, thirty-no, forty years into the future, Ford can still see that same brother, the way Stanley is and has always been. Tough and steadfast and caring.
It sparks fondness in his chest. It's suffocating.
“You needn't trouble yourself.” Ford replies. “I've survived without your mothering for most of my life. I won't starve if I don't eat for a few hours.”
It's snippy, and more than a little petty, and Ford is glad of the distance it supplies for all of one, singular moment.
Because when he looks back up to his brother's face, there is a flash of genuine hurt on Stan's face. Real and walled over in a mask so quickly Ford barely caught it at all.
The nutrition pill he had for breakfast curdles in his gut.
“Ya know,” Stan snaps back, just as ice-cold and cutting. “A simple ‘Thanks’ woulda been fine.”
Whatever emotion that blanketed itself over Ford's mouth at the sight of his brother's pained expression is gone now. Anger flares in Ford's temple.
“Thanks?” He repeats hotly. “Do you always demand a Thank You for doing things nobody asked you to do?”
This argument isn't about the damn sandwich anymore, and for a moment, when Ford recognizes the rage filling in Stan's features, he's glad to be back on familiar terrain.
“You can't let go of your goddamn pride for one second, can you?” Stan shoots back. “You've always been the same, you just can't let anyone help you.”
Ford bristles. “This isn't about pride, this is about the end of the world. Something you clearly don't even understand.”
He seethes out his next words, sharp and thin. “And you've always been the same, you just can't see when you're not wanted.”
It's too far.
It's too ugly, to pointed of a jab, even between them. Ford knows it, the moment it leaves his teeth, knows the way it slid off his tongue like thick, cold oil.
It's too far, and this time the hurt on Stan's face doesn't leave right away, it only morphs, changes and slides into stone, slow enough that even from a distance Ford can see Stan's eyes water.
“Fine.” Stan says quietly, before Ford can even think about taking any of it back. “Starve, down here. See if I care.”
Ford snaps his head away, angry and regretful and tensed. He hears Stan retreat, hears the elevator doors open.
He expects one last retort, one last cutting remark from Stan, always one for the last word, but it never comes.
The lab goes quiet again.
It's an hour later that Ford remembers the sandwich, perched on the very corner of the desk down here. He debates for a moment, considering putting it straight into the trash upstairs for Stan to find later, uneaten, but the thought is sour.
Besides, thirty years in the multiverse teaches one not to waste food.
It's a tuna melt sandwich, and while its cold now, it was grilled to perfection, the exact way Ford used to love them, back in Jersey.
He eats all of it.
Upstairs is quiet.
Ford steps into the kitchen, a little cautiously through the fault of his years in the multiverse, listening. The children aren't back yet, and Ford can't hear the sounds of any bustling tourists outside or the rapid clicks of dozens of cameras, which means its probably safe to venture further away from his lab.
He washes the plate and rinses out the glass, but when he opens the cabinet to put both away, the cabinet above the oven's vent is now full, the sugar container pushed to the far back, what looks like old liquor, and a single unopened box of girl scout cookies. All of the plates have been moved to the cabinet over the countertop.
Ford bites back an annoyed sigh. Everything in this house has been shifted, moved and pushed around with no order or care for how it was, not even in the plates are in the spot he remembers them being in. Its infuriating.
He stacks his washed plate a little more forcefully than he needs to, and stalks into the living room, intent on demanding what else his brother moved around while he was gone.
Stanley is not asleep or watching TV in the loveseat.
Nor is he drinking coffee at the breakfast table, and, after Ford purposely stomps on his way, not in the giftshop.
There is however, the red-headed Corduroy girl that Stan has hired to man the cashier. She doesn't look up when he walks in. She's reading a magazine Ford can't see the entire cover of. She looks extremely bored.
“Hey, Dr. Pines.” She says.
“Ah.” Ford says, feeling wildly out of place. He cannot for the life of him remember the teenager's name. Sally? Ellie? Something like that. “Greetings.”
She raises an eyebrow at him, and then seemingly remembers something. “Hey, have you seen Mr Pines?”
Ford furrows his brow. “He's not out giving tours?”
She shakes her head. “He said he was taking a quick lunch break, but that was like,” she darts a look at the clock on the wall. “Two hours ago man.”
“I see.” Ford says, and his annoyance at his brother is pushed aside by confusion. “I've been in my lab, I haven't seen him.”
The girl-Sally? Her name is probably Sally-looks a little concerned for a moment, the most emotion he's seen on her face.
For some reason, Ford jumps to reassure. “He's probably taking a nap somewhere, I'll go find him.”
He checks out the window quickly before he goes, and a shiver of worry drips down his back at the sight of Stan's car, the El Diablo, still parked in its spot.
Ford nods to the teenager on the way by, and walks back through his house.
The quiet now is a little more pressing, a little more worrisome.
“Stanley?” Ford calls, and he peeks into the bedroom Stan's been using. Tousled sheets and packed shelves, but no Stan.
He's probably just napping somewhere, like the old man he says he is.
But Stan's not on the back porch's couch, nor is he in the study, although Ford doesn't know why he'd be there in the first place.
The attic too, is clear of his brother, and by now Ford is uncomfortable by the concern growing in his gut.
He peeks through the doorway of the giftshop again, and then into the hall with stuffed hoaxes and terrible taxidermy. Nothing.
Ford stops in the living room, and by now the concern is spiking a little higher.
Stan wouldn't just leave really, it's at least a ten minute drive into town, over an hour to walk, and to not tell anyone where he was going? When Stan was down in the lab he made no inclination that he was going anywhere, even still in the suit he wears for tours. There's no sign of forced entry, no closed room that Ford hasn't checked, it's like Stan has just vanished, like the moment he was out of sight he was just gone. It's been over an hour since-
Ford sucks in a sharp breath.
The elevator.
Ford hurries back past the vending machine, down the corridor and stops in front of the elevator doors. He'd walked right past it on his way up the service staircase, straight past and didn't even think.
“Stanley?” he calls, and Ford presses his ear against the cold metal. The doors are thick, and Ford can't hear anything on the other side, which Stan probably can't hear him.
“Stan!”
It's been over an hour. As…unstable as their relationship may be, Ford wouldn't wish being trapped in an elevator for that long on his brother.
“It's alright!” Ford calls, and he tries to make his voice reassuring. “I'll get- I'm getting something to pry the door open!”
He turns and quickly goes to find the crowbar he knows is stashed in the umbrella holder by the door. Why Stan keeps one there, he has no idea, but when Ford had first come back to this dimension, he'd done a sweep of his house for any weapons or other surprises in his home.
The ten firearms stashed in various places was a little unexpected, but Ford couldn't blame his brother for his preparation.
Crowbar in hand, Ford marches back down to the elevator doors, and slots the pry bar in between the slot carefully. Elevators are hard enough to repair as it is, there's no need to scuff up the metal.
“Just a moment Stan!” Ford says, putting pressure on the bar. The doors groan slightly but they don't budge.
“Honestly,” Ford admonishes. “Of course this would happen.”
The doors still put up a fight, but Ford is more determined. He leans heavily, and there's a loud chchunk sound as the doors open by millimeters.
“Stanley!” Ford calls, loudly so Stan can hear him. “See, I said the doors would open, just a moment, I'm getting you out!”
Stan does not respond.
Ford frowns. “Stan?”
The elevator car is quiet.
It's silent enough that Ford blinks into the darkness for a moment, wondering if Stan is even in there. “Stanley?” He calls again, a little quieter.
Ford peers in, suddenly apprehensive. The door isn't open enough for much light, and the light in the elevator itself seems to have gone out when it stopped working. The elevator is tiny, if Stan's in there at all Ford would be able to see, able to reach out and-
There's Stan's foot.
Toes pointed towards the ceiling, heel resting on the ground. Ford squints, and he can just barely make out the shape of his brother, leaning up against the far elevator wall, legs straight out and head bowed.
He's asleep.
Ford rolls his eyes in pure frustration. Of course Stan's asleep. He probably decided to take a nap within five minutes of the elevator stopping,
“Stanley.” Ford says, irritated. No response. “Honestly, Stan, wake up!”
Ford prys the doors open a little further, widening the space to about a foot.
Stan still hasn't moved.
Stanley used to sleep like a log, as their mother described. Snoring occasionally, but mainly just solid in the ability to sleep straight through alarm clocks, miniature chemistry explosions, and once, a street race that happened outside of the pawnshop at two in the morning. It's no wonder that the metallic sounds of the elevator doors opening little by little doesn't wake him.
Still, Ford feels that spike of irritation. Mostly at himself, for allowing even the barest hint of concern bleed through earlier.
This process would be easier with someone assisting to push the doors open from the other side.
Ford unhooks the prybar from the door, and sticks it through the darkened opening of the elevator.
“C'mon you knucklehead,” he says. “Get up!”
He prods the end of it into the only spot he can reach, the sole of Stan's leather shoe.
The foot wiggles at the jostle, but doesn't move.
Ford taps again, a little harder.
He watches Stan's foot rock side to side, limp and pliant.
There is a little spot, in the back of Ford's mind, that whispers something is wrong.
Ford stiffens.
Thirty years in the multiverse have trained him to listen, very very carefully, to that tiny voice. It has never been wrong, not once, and it has saved him time and time again.
Ford pulls his arm back, and leans forward, peering into the darkness of the elevator car.
“Stanley?”
There's not much light, but Ford is staring anyway. His eyes travel up from the boot to Stan's leg, from the leg to Stan's hand, limp and flat on the ground at his side, up the shoulder to Stan's bowed head. His chin is mashed against his chest, uncomfortably so, but that isn't what makes the breath in Ford's lungs freeze and shatter.
Stanley's eyes are open.
From the light of the hallway, Ford can barely make out the shape of Stan's wide eyes. They stare forward, unseeing.
Stan's face is blank.
Its so different, so changed from how he just was, with eyes bright with life and anger and annoyance and even fear. His mouth is hanging open as he stares forward.
He's not asleep.
Ford's eyes dart up and down, back and forth. From the leather sole of Stans shoe to the hand lying limp on the elevator floor, back up to Stan's wide, wet eyes. Ford allows himself one singular moment of shock, horror, and fear.
He gets one second. That's more than he usually allows himself.
Then he lunges forward.
It could be anything. A heart attack, a seizure, some sort of aneurysm or shutdown. Anything could have happened to Stan in the one, two hours he's been locked in thus dark, tiny box.
He could even be dead.
That thought digs its claws into Ford's mind deep. An endless spiraling circle of he's dead he's dead he's dead and he's too far he's too far.
Twelve fingers scrabbling at the barely opened elevator doors, digging into the spall space between them. Ford manages to get the doors open a little less than a foot, but it isn't enough to crawl through, to reach through.
Ford tries anyway.
Clawing isn't the right word for how he's moving. He's straining at the thing blocking his way, pushing and trying to shove with his shoulder to get the doors open faster. The pry bar isn't much use anymore, so Ford drops it, opting instead to kick at the doors, or use himself to lever it.
The bar hits the ground with a reverberating clang, and its only then that Ford realizes that the world had gone soundless.
He hadn't even known he was speaking.
“-just another minute, it's moving, I've almost-” Ford's saying. His mouth opens and closes in a steady stream, completely out of his will. It's panic, that's what this is, the unfettered feeling of sheer and utter panic.
“I'm almost there, I've almost got it, I'm gonna get you out, Lee-”
He hasn't called his brother Lee in years.
It's not a nickname Ford would ever even choose to say, in any other situation. Lee is a childhood nickname, for summer sun and ship building, its not a nickname for a place like this. Its not a nickname for a damp, dark, broken elevator where his brother is slumped against the far wall, unmoving.
Ford glances a look. Stan hasn't even shifted.
It hits him then, that it's been hours since Stanley went into the elevator.
Ford pushes at the doors.
Its been hours since Stan came down into the basement. Hours he's been stuck here, hours, and he's just- he's just been laying there.
Ford crunches himself in half, bent and squeezed until he can jam his foot on one side of the elevator doors, and lever his spine into the other. He heaves, shoves and pushes with all his might.
The doors strain, but they hold.
Ford pushes harder.
It's been hours since Stan came down into his lab. It's been hours since he ventured down into the dark with nothing more than a sandwich and a drink to defend himself.
Ford is no woodworker, but as he shoves and claws at the elevator doors preventing him from reaching his brother, he wishes he was smart enough to recognize an olive branch when one was extended to him.
“Stanley-” he chokes out. The elevator door Ford is pushing against is slick, the metal smooth and cold and he can't get a good grip, can't properly push against it. “Stan, hold on, hold on Stan I'm almost there, this stupid door, I'll get it open, I'll get it-”
You just can't see when you're not wanted.
Ford sucks in a gasp. Was that really the last thing he said to his brother? Did those words truly leave his mouth, did he actually let Stan go, let him step into this damned fucking elevator without saying a word otherwise? Without apologizing?
Thirty years in the multiverse has made Ford a hardened man. It's changed him in ways he would never have expected. He counts in an alien language now, on reflex. He can eat all sorts of things that would make anyone else ill. He's had his knees reinforced with material from another world, another galaxy. He carries a weapon on him or within reach at all times.
He's lost some things too. What the multiverse brings it takes away, and Ford has lost far more than he's ever won.
He is not going to lose his brother to a heart attack, or a brain aneurysm, or whatever it is, in the elevator installed in his own house.
Ford's foot slides against the concrete floor just an inch more, and then the doors start to move.
Ford can't even acknowledge the victory. He keeps pushing.
Another inch, another two, pushing and kicking and shoving as hard as he can.
The doors open a foot, and then, slowly, too slowly, the opening widens.
The doors are open enough.
Ford throws himself forward.
He has to jerk around and reposition to get his shoulders through, the gap in the door still too thin for him to walk straight through, but Ford will not wait a single second more, not one more instant.
He reaches Stan's leg first and then, frantically and clumsy and terrified, Ford scrambles until he can grab the sides of his brother's face.
“Stanley,” he shakes out. “Stan, I'm here, I got it, I'm-Stan I-”
This close, Ford realizes that-thank every possible deity in this universe or in any other-Stan is breathing.
The relief punches through Ford so hard that his knees crash all the way to the floor, out of the quick crouch he was in.
The elevator rattles at the movement.
Stan flinches. Hard.
He is breathing, but with stirring horror Ford clocks that Stan is really gasping, fast and shallow puffs of air as his eyes stare blankly forward, like he's in pain, like he's dying.
Ford can't see. He can't treat what he can't see, he can't fix this.
“Hold on,” he's rambling. “Hold on Stan, I'm getting you out, you're not dying here, C'mon-”
Ford slides his arms under Stan's and lifts. Stan goes, but instead of being limp and halfway unconscious, he's stiff as a board, legs locked and uncooperative. Stan is still hyperventilating, the sound of his breaths rattling through his own ribcage like a marble in a cup.
The elevator is so tiny, it's only two steps to freedom, two steps to light.
Ford drags his brother, stepping backwards and trying to quickly maneuver his brother through the elevator doors, quickly and efficiently and terrified all the while.
He's dying he's dying hes dying he's having a heart attack and he's dying-
Stanley does not react when they make it out into the light.
Ford half carries, half drags his brother out, away from that small dark chamber. The wall across from the doors is close enough, and quickly, though Ford tries to be gentle, he lowers Stan onto the ground against the wall.
“Stanley. Stanley,” Ford urges. He puts his hands on Stan's shoulders, pressing down heavily as a grounding weight.
Stan continues to stare forward, his eyes wide and unseeing and unfocused, looking somewhere past Ford's chin.
He's still hyperventilating.
“Stanley, you have to slow your breathing.” Ford orders. The fear in his own chest is still there, still curled around his heart. But Stan is breathing, if not truly aware, and that's something.
“You're going to make yourself pass out, Stanley.”
Stan doesn't answer. It doesn't seem like he can, or that he even hears him, but Ford keeps talking anyway. His hands are fluttering, unsure and half panicked himself, going from holding Stan's shoulders to cupping his face to clutching at his hands, trying to shake his brother out of this.
Ford read medical textbooks, an age ago. He was never quite interested in medicine, in fixing things that weren't machines, or quantum physics problems. He wishes he paid more attention now, the only thing he can remember about hyperventilating is how to stop himself from doing it. Ford's mind is a whirlwind, trying to recall anything, anything at all that would help, would defeat that slack jawed blank look on Stan's face. A paper bag? Maybe? Ford remembers that as a tactic, but the idea of restricting Stan's breathing at all makes him nauseous.
“Stanley,” Ford urges, and he tries to keep his voice even. Fear is contagious, and he swallows down his own in an attempt to abate Stan's. “We're out, we're okay, everything is alright, you just need to breathe, breathe slowly, okay? Deep breaths, c'mon now.”
Ford can see the exact moment it happens.
Stan is looking forward, into the middle distance but still looking, and then he is not. He sucks in another tiny breath, shallow and panicked, and then his eyes roll up and all the way back into his skull.
Where he was tense, coiled like a spring a mere second ago, now Stan is completely loose, limp and slumping forward boneless.
Ford's heart makes a funny, horrifying rhythm in his chest.
His arms move and grasp without input, drag until Stan's unconscious-unconscious. He's breathing, he's just made himself pass out, he's alive-body is no longer leaning against the cold wall, but instead leaning forward into Ford's chest.
Seconds. Fainting usually only lasts a couple seconds. It's only for a second.
Stan fainted once, waiting in line for a roller coaster at the pier. He was scared of heights, but went anyway, because Ford wanted to go. He got all the way to the front, getting more and more scared until his knees gave out from sheer fright.
It only lasted a second. Only a second of unconsciousness, that's it.
It feels a lot longer than a second now.
There's something more terrifying seeing his brother so scared.
Stan was always the strong one, the brave one, who offered his hand whenever Ford started to shake. It feels wrong now, to be cradling his brother like this.
A couple seconds. It's only a couple seconds that Ford has to hold on, hold his brother as some horrible limp sideways body before Stan stiffens up again.
He takes in a great shuddering gasp, like waking up from a nightmare or bursting up out of a deep dive. Stan shudders and shakes but he breathes, and he's moving again, drawing up with folded legs like he's getting ready to run.
Ford isn't ready to let go of him yet.
He slides one hand over the back of Stan's head and cups there gently, with pressure, as Stan comes back to himself.
“It's okay,” Ford is rambling again, but hopefully it's soothing, hopefully it comes out less like the panic stream of nonsense that it feels like. “You're out, I got you-you're out of there, you're okay. It's okay.”
Stan drags in another breath, this one longer than anything he's pulled in since Ford found him again. Its stuttering, but it's improvement.
It finally feels like Ford can breathe again too. “Yes, good, that's good Stan,” he says, and he takes a deep breath to demonstrate. “Nice and slow, okay? Again, come on Stanley you have to breathe, breathe Stan.”
Ford feels a hand, one two three four five fingers curl weakly in the back of his coat, and it makes relief clog his throat.
Stanley breathes again, in first short, shallow breaths and then deeper, like the unconsciousness reset him, like he can finally get in air.
Ford wonders how many times he passed out in that elevator, in the dark and alone.
Stan's breathing there for another moment and then the hand that was curled in Ford's coat releases, turns and starts pushing, until Stan is tugging himself up and backwards.
“Getoff-” he slurs. It's barely a word, his mouth is barely moving, but he's pulling away, out of Ford's grip and back to the cold wall. “Mmfine. Let-leggo me.”
He hates it, but Ford lets his brother go.
There’s some unspoken feeling, watching Stan draw himself back up to sitting. He’s loose limbed and sluggish, weak as a kitten, and it screams such a sense of wrongness that Ford wants to scream. His brother, his twin should never be this weak, this pathetic looking. This old. Something’s gone wrong here, something has happened that Ford doesn’t know how to fix.
“We-“ Ford starts, and he bites his own tongue just as quickly because Stan flinches, it’s a tiny thing but Ford caught it anyway. “We should get you to a hospital. For, to check. You may have just had a heart attack, or a, or some kind of-“
“I’m not goin to the hospital,” Stan says, resolute and stubborn. Part of Ford wants to strangle him, the other half is only relieved. “I just need to catch my breath, that’s all.”
“Catch your breath,” Ford repeats incredulously. “Yes, of course, that’s all, when I found you unconscious in an elevator!”
“It was a damn, panic-uh. Panic something.” Stan grumbles. He's gaining his strength back as he pulls in more air at a normal pace. He can gesture with his hand again. “It's fine. I just don't like small spaces.”
Ford makes himself swallow instead of saying something he might regret. Like asking questions he doesn't want the answers to. Things like, You weren't afraid before, why now? And What happened to you?
“I still think you should get checked out. At our age, and your health-”
Stan cuts him off with an exasperated, angry noise. “My health,” he scoffs. “Since when do you give a damn about my health?”
A bolt of actual offense hits Ford straight in the chest. “What, you think I don’t care that my twin clearly suffered some sort of, of stress induced hypoxia that led to a syncope episode?!”
“You made half of those words up!”
“I did not!”
“Yes you did! You’re trying to make what happened all science-y and medical so you can make me leave the Shack even faster!”
Ford splutters, offense and worry and anger all bubbling up in a toxic mix in his throat. “This isn't about the Shack you defensive idiot!” He yells. “This is because I'm fucking concerned!”
“Oh so now you're concerned all of a sudden,” Stan spits. The words are glowing, radioactive. “I'm not going to some damn hospital so you can feel better about yourself!”
Ford opens his mouth to snap back, wrathful and hurt, but Stan continues lowly, “I just freaked out cause it was small and dark. That's it.”
It's the way he says it. Something about the delivery makes the anger in Ford's chest grind to a halt. Maybe it's the breathy words, only half as strong as they might have been, a side effect of the hyperventilating. Maybe it's the way Stan is hunched slightly, midway to rising off the floor. Maybe it's the fact that for the first time in-for the first time ever, Stan looks old.
Ford wonders if they even still look like twins.
Stan scrapes himself upright. He draws himself like he's rebuilding a wall, brick by brick as his shoulders square, head settling back as he raises his chin. It looks pathetic.
“You,” Ford starts. His voice is quiet too. “You were not claustrophobic as a child.”
That he is certain of. It's one of the few things he's certain of now.
“No,” Stan says tiredly. “I was not.”
Ford gives in, caves a little in his curiosity, his sick and festering unending questions. “That…changed?”
The look Stan sends him. The way he looks down to where Ford is still sitting on the ground, curled around the empty space that Stan collapsed in, the way Stan's eyes crinkle into sickening pity makes Ford's stomach roll.
“Lots of things have changed, Stanford.”
The chasm between them widens. Ford isn't sure exactly how far it is, he isn't sure whether or not it can be traversed, crossed at all. He swallows.
“I still think we should get you checked out. We-”
The mask drops back down into place over Stan's eyes. There's no more pity, no more anger, not even apathy. There's nothing at all.
“I told you I'm fine,” Stan says. He adjusts the bottom of his wrinkled waistcoat. “Go back to your lab. I won't bother you anymore.”
He turns, turns to leave and walk up the stairs that lead back to the shack, back to the Mr Mystery persona he's been fronting for thirty years, Stanley, his brother and his twin, looks back over his shoulder one last time.
“M’ sorry about your elevator.”