Archive of Our Own

A whine eked past its lips. Its body was aching. It licked the saliva from its teeth and tried to raise its head, but its muzzle only moved an inch.

It writhed against its stiff neck and looked up at the sky. Blue, with barely a cloud. The newly exposed soil was cold on its fur. There was no before this moment, nothing it had been doing. This was it. The chilled dirt under and around, the solid stone wall pressed against its flank. The sun was far away. From its point of view, the edges of the ditch were lined with the tops of pine trees.

There was no shouting, no talking. Just the shuff of dirt disturbed by a shovel.

This was it.

The face of a man with horn-rimmed glasses barely entered into view. He looked right at its body and through, as if it wasn’t even there. But it forced out another whine anyways, wide eyes trained on the shovel.

Some dirt was deposited into the hole. Clumps hit its pained body.

Was it not good enough? Did it not listen hard enough?

It knew it could have done better. But it never thought this would happen.

Another clump.

The soil was returning to the earth as a blanket atop it. It had no say, clearly, which was typical for its life. Snuffling after masters that didn’t give a shit. Always leaning into the hand if offered. It knew that even now it would come running back to the hands holding the shovel, if given the chance.

As the dirt built up, darkness surrounded it. No point in watching the shovel now - it was obvious what would come next.

Instead it turned its terrified red eyes on the sky. It might be scared, but at least the peaceful expanse could offer some comfort.

It was still looking up when roots and dirt covered its eyes.

Stan bolted up in the backseat of his car.

Goosebumps riddled his arms and he pulled a blanket tighter around him. It was a moderate summer’s night in Colorado. He had parked somewhere relatively safe, since the lot wasn’t frequented by any security and the cops didn’t seem to give a shit.

Still, he had a nightmare.

And not one he’d ever had before - not one where his family told him they never actually cared, not one where he was back in the trunk, not one where he was inexplicably in high school and missed an important test, not one where he was driving a car with the brakes cut. Nothing his stupid brain had cooked up before. And horribly vivid.

There was soil on his skin, in his mouth.

He shuddered, curled into the blanket, and heaved a sigh, turning around to get comfortable on his other side. Colorado didn’t like what he had to offer, but tomorrow was a new day. Maybe the products stuffed into his trunk would entice someone then. Or maybe Jimmy would get his head out of his ass and come back, tell him that they should actually stay business partners. Take back whatever he'd yelled at Stan.

Or maybe Stan would need to start making some hard choices.

But that was tomorrow. When he finally fell asleep, his mind’s eye was taken by a perfect blue sky.

When it became clear that an extension to the basement was necessary, Stanford sighed at the prospect. He hemmed and hawed about the true necessity of such intensive - and expensive! - work. He gnawed at the problem, trying to avoid the price and the time away from his more involved studies while construction was underway. But in the end, he pulled the trigger.

His grant carried him quite far up to now, but some of this would have to come out of his savings. Thankfully while he had a large home, that was the extent of his vices, if one could call it that, so he had a safe sum from which to draw. It was still discomforting to write out the number of zeroes on the check. It pained every bit of his father in him, but there was nothing for it.

For the interdimensional portal’s schematics to come to life, a yawning maw of a basement was needed. And once it was finally complete, Fiddleford could make the journey here and help turn science fiction into science fact.

So the Corduroys got to work, hefting soil from the earth, constructing support pillars.

On the first day, Boyish Dan stumbled out of the initial excavations to the north of the property, shaking his head and shuddering. The father - a broad and imposing figure with a grey-streaked beard that reached down to his chest - climbed out behind his son, clutching a sizable tarp-wrapped shape in his arms. He gave his son some low words and let him walk off. Ford had stayed when dirt broke in case the contractors had any concerns before the meat of the work began, and so Ford was there when Corduroy Sr. approached his seat under a tree with a solemn air.

“Pines?”

“Yes, what is it?” Curious, he stood, slipping his journal and pen away.

The man hefted his cargo in his arms. “We found something. Something that weren’t there the first time we dug.”

“Oh? That shouldn’t be…” The soil around the original basement had obviously been undisturbed ever since the structure was completed. Anything that found its way there would have to be there before, or end up interred when the earth was put back. “Are you sure it wasn’t…?” He reached a hand out to the tarp.

Corduroy Sr. reached out to the tarp’s edge himself and shook his head. “Was wedged against the foundation.” His dirt-streaked fingers grasped the edge and peeled back carefully.

A thick black mass stared back.

Ford blinked.

It was canine. Semi-recent in its passing, with black tangles of thick fur still present, matted with soil litter. Even still, the skin and fur around the neck had rubbed away so severely that bone was exposed. A few ribs poked through the skin. Teeth were bared in a perpetual snarl, massive paws stiffly crossed over each other. There was no blood. But the worst was the eyes.

Red and lifeless, looking up to the sky in horror.

Ford swallowed. Of course, he had seen dead animals before. Six years in Gravity Falls would desensitize one somewhat to roadkill and the natural ways of the forest, even without considering supernatural beasts and entities. But he hadn’t put that dog there, and the Corduroys - a trustworthy bunch - say it hadn’t been there before. For what purpose would he even dig down to his foundation to press the poor thing into the brick and dirt?

And its red eyes, its sharp, long teeth, its hulking size…

“Believe me, I don’t know how this got there,” Ford said, peering down at the patchy fur and agonized face. “I-I didn’t bury anything, or let anyone do so on my property…”

“I believe you, Pines.” Corduroy Sr. looked down at the bundle in his arms with a face like stone. “Strange things’ve always happened in these woods.”

Ford nodded. He had known for some time that the Corduroys were more aware than most locals of Gravity Falls’ true nature. “I don’t suppose you have any knowledge about this particular oddity?” He held out his arms.

Glad to be rid of it, the man promptly deposited the carcass to Ford. It weighed nothing. “No. But if I were you…” He gave the beast an appraising, cold eye. “It’s a bad omen. I’d be careful.”

Careful? That seemed hasty.

Still, he accepted the advice. “Thank you. I will see if I can find anything out about this.”

He preserved the body until the basement work was done, since he didn’t have access to his more sensitive equipment while the contractors were digging and hacking and building. By the time the extension was complete and the dirt all packed away, Ford remembered the beast in a cryo chamber, and went to extract it for study.

Once the chamber defrosted, the innards showed nothing at all.

The dog was gone.

“Gah! Get your hands off a’ me! I won fair and square!”

Two broad security guards wrangled Stan out onto the street, the inky black Colorado sky stretching out above, stars peeking out between clouds. A firm palm shoved him between the shoulder blades and he landed on the asphalt.

“Come on!” Stan practically whined. “Who’d you rather believe, the dealer or some honest guy ribbing with the locals?” He threw up his hands for emphasis. A few cards flew out of the sleeve of his red jacket.

The men turned around and disappeared back into the casino, warm orange light and patron chatter welcoming them back in. Steel doors slammed shut, leaving Stan in the silent blue night.

Grumbling, Stan brushed gravel off his knees and packed away the cards that had escaped. Better get back to the car before they find out about the other games he cheated at. Winnings from those had been more modest, but he clutched them tight nevertheless. Always happy with scraps, that was Stan.

The road sloped down a lazy hill, the responding upcurve cutting out a black shape in the distance. He slipped past sad brick facades and took a right by a rundown apartment building. There was his baby, tucked away in an alley. It wasn’t too cold, or else he would’ve skipped out on Colorado by now (his falling out with a guy in a motorcycle gang made enough trouble as-is). His car would do for the night. He needed the money for other things.

There was another reason he hadn't left Colorado (and Jimmy) in the dust yet. He was testing the waters, trying to figure something out. Wait and see.

As if he’d be able to do anything about it. 

Deciding a smoke would be a nice cap on this shitfest before he hit the hay, Stan teased a cigarette from his crushed pack of Marlboros and gave it a light. On a strong inhale and a deep exhale, he watched the smoke float up.

Something scraped against the curb.

He cast suspicious eyes over, but only a dog looked back. They’d been coming up to him often around here. Maybe this shithole had a stray problem. Its fur was a deep black, eyes so orange they were almost red. Same as the others. Maybe they were one big dog family, a whole pack, which almost made him smile.

“Sorry. Got no food.” He held out his hand anyways.

The dog got closer, sniffing his fingers with a bone-dry nose. Its tail swayed curiously.

“See? I’m no threat.” He reached up to scratch behind the ears, and the dog let him, leaning into the touch. Poor thing was cold. Was it sick? After a bit of petting, it backed away from his hand and dipped its head. Then it turned and vanished back around the corner.

Stan rubbed his eyes. Almost looked like the thing had disappeared.

Better get to bed. Especially since… well, last time it had happened, he was driving on the highway, and wasn’t that a fright to come back to yourself doing 90 approaching a curve? No, he needed to be careful. Get in the car, lock the doors, sleep.

And hopefully no weird dreams tonight.

The first time Ford saw the anomaly was from the passenger seat of Fiddleford’s car as they made their way to pick up groceries.

His old roommate had just arrived a few days ago to provide his invaluable expertise to the project. In the excited whirlwind of theories and calculations, both of them had forgotten about, well, anything else. Of course, the work had only just begun, but put the two of them in a room and a reaction was immediate!

This morning had found them passed out on the floor of Ford’s living room, sticky notes stuck to faces and pen marks across their fingers.

Fiddleford drove like a grandma, but Ford didn’t mind, since his own car was tree-giant food. They wound back and forth on Gopher Road as sunlight filtered down from the trees.

At first, they heard rattling.

“Is that your car, Fiddleford?”

“Better not be! I just tuned ‘er up myself,” Fiddleford sighed, brow furrowed. The car rumbled to a stop by the side of the road for a moment, but with the engine off and the car still, a metallic clinking could still be heard somewhere off in the woods. It was vaguely rhythmic, perhaps corresponding with motion. Cautiously, Fiddleford turned the car in the ignition again, and they turned back onto the road.

“Uh, y’know any reason for that?”

Ford hummed. “No, not really... Perhaps the lumberjacks?” Although, there was also the possibility that it could be a new anomaly. “How about we -”

Suddenly, Fiddleford yelped, car shuddering on the road with his unsure foot on the brakes. They kept driving forward, but slower now.

“What?! What is it?”

“Look over there! Between those pines!”

Ford followed his friend’s pointer finger to a stand of trees bordering the curve ahead.

A looming black mass lurked between two tall pines. Its paws were massive, teeth sharp, claws outsized. Red eyes burned like cigarette embers out of its shadow of a face. A thick golden band squeezed its neck, hefty chain links trailing behind from a loop welded to the collar.

“Is that…” Ford squinted. The fur, the silhouette…

“A spirit? A demon?!”

“No, not that,” Ford waved his hand dismissively, keeping his eyes on the creature as they took the curve. “I’ve seen that creature before.”

Fiddleford’s hands tightened on the steering wheel. “When?!”

“Oh, I would say about -”

A plaidypus darted out in front of the wheels.

Both men shouted expletives. The car’s brakes screeched, the steering wheel jerked, but there was nothing to be done. They winced at the thud, the crunch.

Roadkill ahead, Ford looked behind them to the curve, to the two pines. The dog was gone.

“Aw, dagnabbit.” Fiddleford smacked the steering wheel. “What in tarnation did I hit?”

“A plaidypus! They’re endemic to the area. Simply platypi with flannel coats. Locals use them for their pelt.”

“What?” He peered through the windshield at the limp body in front of them and raised his eyebrows, shoulders slowly lowering from his ears. “I-I suppose that’s nothing too odd, compared to the beast we just seen.”

“Perfectly average, I assure you - just patterned. In fact, if we take this back to my neighbor -”

“No, uh, I’d rather not touch some odd critter.” Instead, he carefully maneuvered the wheels to avoid the animal’s body and let his foot off the brake.

They only discussed the more thrilling aspect of their encounter once they were back at Ford's home, putting away the food.

“That thing…” Fiddleford shook his head, wide-eyed at the memory. “Never seen nothin' like it.”

“Like I said, I may have,” Ford mused, sliding cans into a cabinet. “Although this town is home to all sorts of odd creatures and strange phenomena.” He did warn Fiddleford when he extended the invitation. He wasn’t a monster!

“R-right, uh, when did you last see it, again?” Fiddleford turned to look at Ford, gripping the fridge door tight by the handle.

Before today’s encounter, the event had almost slipped Ford’s mind, really - coordinating construction and then preparing the house for his guest had taken precedence. He finished with the cans and gathered up the plastic bags. “Ah, well... When contractors broke ground on the basement extension to make room for the portal, they unburied something that hadn’t been there when they built the original basement.”

“Oh?”

“It was truly odd!” Leaving a nest of bags on the counter, Ford took out his third journal and flipped to one of the very first pages detailing his investigations. A sketch of the dog carcass took up most of the right-hand page, accompanied by an account of the events on the left, including a hasty update about the body’s disappearance. He passed it to Fiddleford, who shut the fridge and took the book in hand. “A - ahem - body of a black dog with red eyes, much like we saw earlier. I had saved the specimen for further study at a later date, but it mysteriously vanished.”

In all honesty, the mystery was exciting. It seemed to be one he could truly sink his teeth into, and between portal work he was already planning on mapping its unknowns into knowns and pinning it down, making sense out of nonsense. He may be building an interdimensional portal, but that was just to make sense too, after all. It was his favorite thing to do.

“What, and you’re still living in this house?!” Fiddleford shuddered.

Fiddleford liked to make sense of things as well, and together they were unstoppable in that regard, but Ford figured this particularly supernatural puzzle would take some getting used to. Dimensional theory, mechanical engineering, physics, these were all fields with some history, some recourse. But the true marriage of science and mysticism? 

New discoveries were always bewildering. They threatened the already-known. But Fiddleford would adjust, eventually.

“Don’t be superstitious. Every mystery is just waiting for science to unravel it, and nothing suggests that this odd series of events harmed me whatsoever!”

“Ford…” Fiddleford pressed the pages tightly between his fingers, and then released deliberately when the spine creaked. He placed the open book on the counter. “You ever heard of a black dog?”

Ford blinked. “A what?”

“It don't line up the exact same, but my mama told me stories.” He caged himself with his arms, looking away. “About Blue Ridge travellers ran off by ghostly black dogs with big red eyes. In some stories, the dog's a protector. But in others, it's an omen.”

Like Corduroy had said. Now that Fiddleford reminded him, Ford wasn’t a complete stranger to such stories, dusty memories of a book about folklore rising from the depths. A tale he had dismissed as a child, convinced that the varied and vague reports indicated this particular oddity was only fictional. Perhaps his child self had been hasty. He tilted his head. “An omen of?”

Fiddleford uncurled himself and looked Ford in the eye. “Death.”

Outside, oblivious birds chirped. Sunlight streamed into the kitchen and painted the floorboards gold. Ford and Fiddleford looked at each other dumbly.

Then Ford said, thoughtfully, “Well, there was a death, right after it appeared.”

His friend squinted, a hand to his mouth. “I… huh. I suppose there was, wasn't there?” The frown remained.

Ford pulled his journal closer and whipped out a pen to note these new developments. “Then that might be what the dog heralded! Although, I can't account for its body appearing and disappearing around my home… Clearly the subject requires more study.”

“Heh, long as you keep me out of it!” Foddleford said nervously, but Ford wasn't listening.

He had some studying to do.

On a sunny morning in a small town just over the Utah border, fleeing Jimmy's Sons of Silence buddies (successfully, mind you!), Stanley Pines’ vision flickered behind the wheel.

Not again!

At least he wasn't gunning it down a highway or negotiating some business. The first time Stan had experienced the Thing That Keeps Happening, he had been trying to put distance between himself and Jimmy right after their falling out, and almost wrapped his car around one of those massive highway sign poles. There hadn't been much warning - just everything going dark, the sound of leaves rustling, clinking metal, car tires, a thud, a crunch, and then he opened his eyes and jerked the wheel to avoid meeting his maker.

That first time, he was worried he had some kind of stroke. He had pulled over dripping with nervous sweat, patting himself down, catching his breath. The smell of smoke curled in his nostrils and he tugged his shirt collar away from his chafing neck. When nothing got worse (at least for his standards), he had resolved to lay low for a bit and see if it happened again. Not like he could go to a clinic if it did, but what else was he gonna do? Get behind the wheel and die?

After too long in Colorado the odds leaned towards dying regardless, so he opted to drive again, even though he still had blackouts. And strange dreams those nights.

Visions of Ford, in an unfamiliar place, doing unfamiliar things, with unfamiliar people. Older, having grown into himself, traipsing about with things he didn't understand. The thought made his hackles rise - it wasn't safe.

No, that was just the dreams talking. Maybe his dying brain was cooking up some new material in one last fantastic display of his… whatever the opposite of genius was.

But if he was dying, he'd rather do it without the helping hand of Jimmy or his friends, so there he was, frantically pulling into an empty gas station lot in Utah and promptly blacking out for thirty long minutes. He came to with the smell of pines, a spike of fear, and an officer rapping on his window with increasing desperation.

In sleep that night, tall trees passed him by, Ford followed him, and he whimpered into the jacket beneath his head.

Buzzing with the excitement of visiting Crash Site Omega, Ford and Fiddleford chattered amicably. Even the fright of the massive pterosaur skeleton on the way back didn’t dampen Fiddleford’s sheer enthusiasm, which made Ford smile. Gravity Falls was a strange and wonderful place, but some of its denizens scared his friend more than he had anticipated. The broad grin on his partner’s face was more than welcome.

“And with somethin’ like this to study -” Fiddleford hefted his pack and the hyperdrive within - “just imagine the robots I can make once I reverse-engineer this thing!”

“Any success it brings you would be well-deserved,” Ford said. There was a spring in his step, a breeze in the fresh Oregon air. “I look forward to seeing the fruits of its inspiration.”

Their energized hike home was then interrupted.

A bulky black figure growled at them from the fork in the road, red stare piercing through them.

“N-not again,” Fiddleford stammered.

“F, wait.” Ford held up a hand. “I’m not sure it’s malicious.”

“Well, not sure is a little too ambiguous for my tastes!”

“Just hear me out!” Ford stepped a bit closer, ignoring the frightened squeak from Fiddleford. “I’ve been researching the legends of black dogs across Europe and the Americas. I believe this one is not the type to harm humans.” Looking closer, the mutt had stood as to place its body length across the whole of the right-hand path, an almost juvenile defiance in its eyes. Daring them to try the path it blocked. “Like you said - some of them are protectors. If its appearance before us were to cause our own deaths or misfortunes as many stories claim, it would have happened already. Too much time has passed for that to be the case.” It had indeed appeared a few more times since that day in the car, always heralding a misfortune. A deer mauled by a killbilly, or another roadkill accident (common enough in Roadkill County).

He scrutinized the beast. It glared back.

Fiddleford stayed back. “So you’re sayin’...?”

“It must be warning us of something instead.” What was down that path, he wondered? The left fork was unknown to Ford, but clearly the black dog thought the right fork was worth barricading.

“Let me see…” Ford simply walked up to, and around, the dog.

“Ford, you bastard, don’t you test it!” Fiddleford stammered.

At the same time, the dog exploded into a fury of snarls and barks, golden chainlinks clattering, snapping jaws sending hot saliva flying. Droplets hit Ford’s pant leg and sizzled burn holes through the fabric. He yelped and jumped away, hasty steps taking him back to Fiddleford.

The moment Ford had yelped, the dog closed its mouth and began to whimper. Its tail lowered and it cowered. Was the anomaly capable of guilt? An apology, almost?

Ford raised his hands, fascinated despite himself. Perhaps a few leg hairs were singed, but that was the extent of it. “No, you didn’t hurt me, I promise. See?” He lifted his pant leg to show unmarred skin. At that the dog’s ears perked up, and its tail took a few sweeping wags. Did it understand speech?

Fascinating.

“We’ll go the other way, I s-swear,” Fiddleford said, raising his hands as well.

Both men inched over to the left-hand path and started down it, eyes locked with the dog’s burning red coals. Once it was clear they would listen, the dog didn’t disappear; instead, it abandoned its post and shouldered its way past them to march on ahead. Where it brushed Ford’s slacks, it left a bone-deep chill behind that faded into a numb tingling.

Wordlessly, they shouldered their packs and followed their involuntary guide.

Weirdness avoided the black dog. Squirrels fled. Gnomes abandoned their burrows. Giant footsteps further in the woods indicated even Steve sought some distance. But it didn’t harm the two of them; just kept a sure line through the forest.

“You think it’s leading us home?”

“I believe so,” Ford said, consulting his compass. “I’ve never taken this path before, but the direction is consistent.” He chanced a glance to the right, through the layers of pines, down the hill to the diverging trail they had been denied. A muscled, hulking form was stationary along the way - a gremloblin, if Ford had any guess. Sleeping like the dead no doubt. If he had the chance to sketch it…!

Up ahead, the black dog gave them both a stony glare over its shoulder and kept padding forward. Its chain length dragged through the dirt, clinking against small rocks and dragging through upshoots.

Ford sighed and kept following. Perhaps the dog had actually saved them from an investigation gone awry. It seemed to know how to get them home, at the very least. There were reports of such sightings, of black dogs guiding lost travellers, or saving them from certain doom. They were lesser in number than the ones that brought death, but present still. Hopefully this specter was the former.

It took longer than the other path, but eventually they did make it home, a flood of relief washing over them at the sight of the cabin after a two-day excursion and an unexpected visit from a portent.

The dog padded into the yard and sat, watching its wards expectantly.

“See?” Ford smiled. “This dog isn't so bad after all.”

“There's smoke comin’ out its nose.”

Huh. Indeed there was. Small wisps lifted up into the air. Ford shrugged and approached the beast. “So?” Fiddleford bit back a warning as Ford lowered his hand to pet the thing. The fur was thick, and cleaner than that of the dog carcass. It was cold to the touch. Ford rubbed a thumb across the skull and scratched behind an ear. The dog leaned into the touch. Note to self: add a line about the smoke to the burgeoning journal page dedicated to their shadowy friend.

“Thank you for your help, friend.”

The dog's tale wagged at the praise.

“We'll have to come up with a name for you!”

Fiddleford rolled his eyes fondly as they made it up the porch steps to the back door. The dog followed at their heels, seeming aimless. Ford went to shut the door behind them and looked down at the massive anomaly waiting dutifully at the doorframe.

“Sorry! We don't know enough about you just yet to let you parade around indoors,” Ford apologized. “Why not go find someone else to help?” With a smile, he shut the door.

The dog swallowed a whine. It laid down on the porch, rested its huge head on its hefty paws, and vanished.

Back inside, Ford got to work. Portal manufacturing and calculations were soldiering on, but in the meantime he'd been picking up more reading about black dogs. They were an old, elusive story with very many offshoots, providing plenty of rabbit holes for him to discover. Who was to say that any of them were true? Or false? Perhaps they all were, in a way.

The kitchen chair creaked as he settled in, cracking open another borrowed tome he had requested as an interlibrary loan. Buried in the pages of regurgitated folklore was the tale of the Church Grim, a black canine ghost with red eyes that protected and haunted churches. The book meandered wildly in its “scholarship”, as mysticism revivalist texts were wont to do, and so the tale laid down was a bastardized blend of its English, Scottish, and Scandinavian roots. Still, it gave him the bare bones and even recommended a few more credible texts he noted down.

Most interesting - and most worrying - was the purported source of the Church Grim. The story had seemed only tangentially related to their visitor up to that point, but now Ford gripped the paper between index and thumb with a furrowed brow. He had no church, and no churchyard, but nevertheless…

In some stories, the Church Grim appeared after a black dog was sacrificed and buried in the church's foundation, or the north of the churchyard. For protection against spirits.

That matted dog, frightened and dead, squeezed against his home under the earth.

Some sources claimed the dog was alive for the ritual.

Ford certainly hadn't made any animal sacrifices that he remembered. But then, the body may not have been a real dog carcass anyway, not with the way it appeared under his home and disappeared in the cryo chamber. Was it instead an enchantment, or symbol? Had he instead triggered some sort of protection spell? A latent switch set and forgotten by a witch long before he bought the land, perhaps? It could have been related to the lumberjack bodies that created a ghost infestation in his home… but Corduroy seemed wholly unfamiliar with this particular anomaly, so that was out.

There was also another question: if the sacrificial body wasn't a real dog, then what sacrifice did the body represent?

He catalogued his musings in his journal and passed the pen back and forth between his fingers, deep in thought. Perhaps more of those texts were needed - or some direct study. Surely at least one of his documented spells would prove useful. Maybe even his notes on ghosts would help.

He resolved to ask Bill next time they spoke.

The pencil's nib broke against the ruler-lined paper, sending a streak of graphite across his blocky script. Of course, he didn't have a sharpener - he nicked the pencil from a desk at the Moab public library. Stan spiked the thing into the footwell of his passenger seat with a shout, and then deflated, head in hands.

The scenery outside his windshield was stupid gorgeous, red rock mesas rising up in the distance and nothing but flat sunsetting sky above, but Stan couldn’t give less of a shit.

He was pretty sure he was gonna die.

Not right now. Maybe not even soon. But he had no control over this… thing. These blackouts. He could be eating dinner, running from the cops, or lifting something from a store when his eyes fluttered and he fell where he may, like a puppet with its strings cut. It was only a matter of time before it got him killed.

The longest had been in that gas station lot, but it's happened a few more times since, in shorter bursts.

Some for a few minutes - those gave him dreams of dead animals by natural or unnatural causes, as if he had to bear witness to them; there was also one grisly vision of a lumberjack whose own quarry fell on him, and Ford in the distance with shocked eyes on the body. Some were a bit longer though. The dreams on his next sleep were more elaborate then. Forested trails, impossible monsters, Ford's voice mingling with that of an unknown man.

He didn't like going to sleep much anymore. But he couldn't make himself stay awake as easily anymore, either. Sooner or later sleep would wrestle him down and show him the latest slideshow of nonsense.

He didn't want to make sense of it. There was something there and if there was anything Stan knew, it was that some dots were best left unconnected.

He sighed and read over what he'd already written.

To Shermie and Ma, I leave you each half the amount in the attached envelope. 

Shermie had little tykes to take care of, and Ma's personal income was up and down, so Stan knew whatever money he could provide would be appreciated. From what he heard, Ford was keeping steady and would be alright without it, relatively. The less said about Pa, the better.

To Ford, I leave the Stanleymobile…

To Ford, I'm sorry…

To Ford…

Writing a will was hard. What the hell were people supposed to say in them? Stan knew it was for laying out who got what, but he didn't have much to give, and he kind of wanted to roll his last words into it. Since no one would be around to hear ‘em. No one favorable, at least.

God, he was scared.

The Sons of Silence left him alone once he crossed the border, which was a blessing. But he could still hear the anger in Jimmy's voice before Stan split, the way the words were almost dragged out of him. The way his eyes flashed. What was it he had yelled? Oh, yeah.

Your soul in two will be twain, a loyal grim on golden chain, hellish beast will steal your time, to protect life and health of mine!

The rhyme wasn't really there at the end, nevermind whatever the fuck that all meant. Something about doing shit for Jimmy? No thanks. After Stan’s totally reasonable and unavoidable double-crossing, the guy ended up a bit… off the wall. So Stan booked it. Hadn't thought of it much since.

Hellish beasts, though…

He looked out his driver-side window at the sunset-painted sidewalk. A black dog with fiery eyes looked back imploringly.

Whatever the fuck was going on - if something was going on! If his brain wasn't just collapsing in on itself like a rotten apple! If something weird was happening, Ford would love it.

Heaving another sigh, Stan tucked his half-finished will and the envelope of cash into the glove compartment, grabbed his Marlboros and some change, and kicked the car door shut on his way out.

The dog followed happily as Stan made his way down the sidewalk to the sentinel of a phone booth on the corner, striped by fence shadows. He stepped inside, squinting the lowering sun from his eyes, and the dog squirmed in after him. “Yeah, sure, you can come too, I guess.” He patted the thing's cold head and it panted peacefully.

He looked at the measly quarters in his hand. What would he even say?

Ford, I'm having some weird dreams about you.

Ford, d’you see an unusual amount of death, by any chance?

Ford, something’s wrong, something strange. These dogs keep following me. I keep blacking out. I might be dying.

Ford, I don’t know why, but I’m worried about you.

Ford, how long are we gonna keep this up? It's been a decade.

Ford, I'm waiting outside the door.

Ford, I'm scared.

Swallowing, he slipped in the quarters and punched in the number he knew by heart. After a few rings, his brother answered. “Hello, Stanford Pines speaking?”

Stan slammed the phone into the receiver and bit back the urge to rip apart the machine for those wasted quarters. His breath was tight and his neck chafed. He pulled the collar of his shirt away.

He had a smoke, stole a pencil sharpener from a dollar store, and went back to writing.

Fiddleford was a diligent and prolific worker; Ford knew this. His schematics and manufacturing were quick, cohesive, clean. If Ford allowed himself to celebrate before the work was done, he would say that this portal was going to be the sleekest and most streamlined this side of the theoried multiverse!

Despite this, Ford found them dropping behind schedule.

It wasn't Fiddleford's fault. Yes, the man succumbed to fatigue like all mortals do, but Ford himself was simply and painfully fallible - and prone to distraction. Studies, experiments, sleep and food interrupted his calculations. In fact, he had just returned from one of those interruptions, shooting crossbow bolts hopelessly at attacking eyebats when he had just been trying to observe their odd migration patterns (not an ideal weapon against the things unless you had stellar aim, but it had been the only means at hand!).

He wouldn't be too worried about it if he was only answering to the grant board, who was more than happy with the pace and breadth of his current body of work, nevermind the portal he'd been chipping away at (something he wouldn't reveal until it was in a ready and tested state).

But the grant board wasn't his master in this particular endeavor.

The metal of an ornate key warm in his hand, he inserted it into the central lock on the redwood door to his private study. Upon opening, the faint smell of parchment and candle smoke greeted him. He turned on the lights and they winked off of golden pyramids and one-eyed mementos littered across every available surface, backdropped by reverent tapestries. In the center, a small cushion and a smattering of candles waited for him.

Hopefully Bill would have some solutions for him. Maybe he could even ask about Grim, having decided that was as good a nickname as any for the black dog specter that had taken up residence in Ford's life as of late. The beast had materialized the other day just to warn Ford not to get on a rickety ladder. Its barks and snarls did not stop him, but he only got some embarrassing bruises and a deadeyed stare from Grim for the resulting fall. If he didn't know better, he would say it looked disappointed.

Sighing, he settled down on the cushion and struck a match. The orange flame glowed as he lowered it to the first wick.

Then it sputtered out.

Ford blinked, and grabbed another. That one doused itself as well.

A low growl filled the small quarters.

His head shot up. “Grim?!”

In front of the door was the black dog itself, muscled body half the height of the doorframe, wide paws planted firmly on the ground, head bowed. Black lips curled to reveal oversized yellow fangs.

“I-I didn't know you could get in here!” Ford stammered in surprise. “Although, I suppose the wards on the house are only for ghosts and more annoying variants of pixies.” His brows knit together. “So you're… not a ghost.” That struck out his theory about the dog carcass being a phantasmic afterimage of a real animal sacrifice that occurred on the property long ago. As well as his theory of Grim being a human ghost in the form of a dog, which was another possibility from his research.

Grim only stared at the matchbox in his hand, red eyes blazing. Its growl rumbled steadily.

It wasn't like Ford needed candles to contact Bill. He didn't need to be in the study at all, for that matter. Many of their meetings occurred unexpectedly in his sleep. But when he wanted to deliberately reach out, he found his meditation techniques and an intentionally-staged space assisted in preparing his mind for a visit from his Muse.

He looked around the room for a misfortune that could be portended or avoided by Grim's presence, but came up short. “...Would I have caught something on fire?”

As expected, Grim didn't respond.

“Alright. Well, if you insist, I will forgo the candles this time.” He smiled at Grim. It really was, as anomalies go, one of the more benevolent he'd met. Who knew why it attached itself to him specifically? Or if he was even its only charge? No one's been so protective of him since…

See? Distractible!

The dog's hackles didn't lower. It kept growling.

Frowning, Ford shifted on the cushion, assumed his meditative position, and closed his eyes.

Harsh, loud barks rang out like gunshots.

The space was too small for such volume, and his hands formed clenched fists on his knees. His eyes snapped open. “Grim! What is with you?!”

When he locked eyes with those red burning pits, he froze.

A bone-deep chill seeped into his extremities, hands and feet going numb. The sensation crawled up his limbs and left a faint tingling behind.

A foreign and abject terror welled up within him.

It wasn't his own. He hadn't been scared, or even all that unsettled. Instead the nervous response was thrust upon him, a hijacking of his hindbrain. His amygdala blared contextless warnings that his mind couldn't match to any stimulus. There was no threat. And yet his heart pounded, his hands perspired, his mouth went dry.

The barks lowered into growls once more.

“What - what is -”

Ford kicked backwards instinctively and sent the cushion sliding, the fear overwhelming, his numb limbs trembling. The control and rationale he cherished were blocked off by horror. All he saw were the fangs, the sharp claws digging into the floorboards, the hulking beast, the twin hellfires trained on him.

The world fell away. His vision narrowed to that dangerous maw.

He reached behind him and fumbled for his crossbow, still slung across his back like an afterthought. Shoved his hiking boot into the cocking stirrup with more force than necessary, spanned, slotted a bolt with only a few false starts.

Weapon shaking, he raised it.

The growls petered off into whines. Suddenly the frightening hound was cowering its impressive frame against the door. The supernatural cloud of fear began to withdraw from Ford's mind, but not fast enough.

He fired. It struck between the eyes with a sick crunch.

A yelp was quickly aborted. Hot red blood splattered onto the hardwood, burning divots into the planks. The dog collapsed, gold chain rattling, and faded away. The crossbow bolt stayed behind. It clattered to the ground.

Harsh breaths filled the silence. Ford's heartbeat was in his throat. The last of the terror recalled itself quickly with Grim, and he dropped the empty crossbow. Slowly, he was again able to feel his socks on his feet, his boots on the floor, his hands grasping at the rough material of his pants.

Smaller droplets of blood made burns like cigarette marks. Larger splatters dug gouges into the floor.

Did… did Ford just…?

No! No, Grim would be fine. It disappeared all the time, and nothing ever implied its need for food or sleep. Who was to say that it, a personification of a spectral or demonic legend, had organs to damage? Even needed that blood to stay in its body?

Ford knew so little that an argument could be made either way.

Flipping open his journal, he hastily scribbled a note on Grim’s page. Suspected ability to strike terror into the heart of victims, as told in legend. There was nothing to be said for why, though. What inspired the beast to do such a thing now, at Ford’s home, where he was arguably at his safest?

Did Grim wait for him to trust it before it struck? Or was it trying to warn him after all?

He went into his meeting with Bill on uneven footing, and opened with the scheduling concerns, the question of Grim swirling in the back of his mind.

“ABOUT TIME YOU NOTICED, SIXER!” Bill said warmly.

Of course Bill would already have noticed their lack of efficiency. Ford rubbed the back of his neck. “I apologize, my Muse. But I am fully committed to pushing us to do better!”

“OF COURSE YOU ARE! IT’S WHY I LIKE WORKING WITH YOU SO MUCH. YOU HAVE A REAL KNACK FOR INITIATIVE.” He moved a knight on the chessboard and gestured to Ford. “TELL YOU WHAT. I WAS SAVING THIS SOLUTION FOR MORE DESPERATE TIMES, BUT I THINK I CAN TRUST YOU WITH IT.”

“Oh? What do you have in mind?” Ford examined the board with a furrowed brow.

“I CAN DO SOME OF THE WORK FOR YOU!”

“I’m sorry?” Knowing it was a poor solution to possible counterattacks, Ford moved his bishop out of the line of fire anyways, thinking it would cover more bases than his other options. “You have already done so much for the project -”

“YEAH, FROM HERE. BUT I DON’T HAVE A BODY OF MY OWN TO REALLY GET MY HANDS DIRTY.” Bill smoothly took the bishop, and Ford bit down a curse at the new vulnerability in his ranks. He was getting penned in already. “AND I GET IT! YOUR HUMAN BODIES ARE FRAIL! SOME JOKESTER THOUGHT IT’D BE FUNNY TO DESIGN ENERGY-INEFFICIENT MEAT TUBES THAT NEED TO SHUT DOWN OR FUEL UP EVERY FEW HOURS.”

Yes, yes, his Muse had never been one to appreciate human biology. How could he, when his form was much superior? Ford fiddled with a wayward pawn before returning to the rest of the board to seek other avenues.

“HOW ABOUT THIS? I CAN TAKE OVER YOUR BODY FOR YOU TO FINISH YOUR CALCULATIONS WHILE YOU SLEEP!”

“You can?!” In his surprise, Ford let go of the knight in his hand. It hovered in the void.

Ordinarily this would have been a dream come true. A generous offer to spend more time on Ford, a measly human, just to help with the project that would cement Ford in the history books forever. The implications were immense - six hours of calculations penned by Ford’s hand while he was resting peacefully! Their schedule woes wouldn’t just dissipate, they would fully reverse.

But the fear that had thoroughly flooded his system immediately prior to this conversation colored his considerations, whether he liked it or not. Grim’s portents and guidance had never been wrong before. It had made its presence known in order to signal death, injury, bad luck - even bad choices. Just now, it saw fit to push Ford’s mind into base terror for the first time. It didn’t clamp jaws around his neck or swipe at him with rugged claws. It just growled, and made him scared, and he shot it.

For a split moment, that fear touched him again. The once-comforting void became cold.

“IQ? YOU’RE NOT GETTING COLD FEET ON ME, ARE YA?”

“No, my Muse!” Ford hurried. Confused, he grabbed the knight and placed it, knowing this match was a lost cause. “I’ve - I’ve never known such gratitude. That is a very selfless offer.”

“I DON’T OFFER IT LIGHTLY. SO?” Bill extended his hand and icy blue flames burst to life around it. “IT’S YOURS, IF YOU WANT TO TAKE IT!”

“I…” Ford looked down at the board, but the spread of black and white pieces made his head swim. That blue fire itched against the burning red points etched into his brain. Something was warning him. That nervous response.

And the only stimuli in front of him was his Muse, and the cold flames.

He bit the inside of his cheek. “Thank you, my Muse. But - and it may be simple human folly for me to say this - I would like to see if my assistant and I can meet this demand ourselves. N-not that I don’t appreciate your generous offer!” Ford raised his hands when Bill’s eye narrowed. “Simply that I believe we should test ourselves to rise to the challenge!”

For a moment, something unfamiliar built behind Bill’s eye, tension pulling taut in the air between them both. It was almost disappointment, or even anger. But then Bill waved his hand dismissively and the flames promptly doused, breathing air back into the void. “NO PROBLEM, FORDSY! BUT IF YOU FIND YOURSELF STUMBLING, YOU KNOW HOW TO REACH ME!”

That look in Bill’s eye unsteadied Ford so thoroughly that he forgot to ask about Grim at all.

The Wayne County jail was cold, and the cot was hard.

Just real great stuff here, Stan mulled. Great work everybody.

He squeezed his eyes shut against the drab concrete ceiling and the fresh wave of pain rolling from his head down to his toes. It pierced between his eyes and diminished outwards. His Ma used to complain about migraines, and he thought himself lucky to have never gotten one. Well, if this was the shit she seethed through before getting on with her day, he was suddenly rethinking a lot of things about his Ma.

He had blackouts before - was getting used to them, even. Keeping his keys clipped to his belt so he didn’t lose them if he dropped. Being more careful about the legality of his business so he had less likelihood of checking out in the middle of a hairy situation. But nothing could have prepared him for this fresh new hell.

It had been a typical blackout at first. His eyes fluttered shut, then he collapsed onto the sticky floor of another nameless gas station in bumfuck nowhere, Utah. When the attendant realized there was a bunch of shit stuffed into his coat that he definitely didn’t buy with his cigarettes and coffee, he called the cops instead of EMS.

EMS wouldn’t have been ideal anyways. If he went to a hospital, they would poke around to see why he’d collapsed. Maybe they’d even find something, and that was a hard no from him. He was fine! Just… tired, was all.

But EMS weren’t the ones that got him. It was in the back of a cop car, in the middle of a blackout, that Stan felt the sharpest, cruelest pain in the world. It was worse than the dental pain from the trunk, worse than the kidney theft. A hot iron spike hammered into his skull and lodged itself there. He could swear he heard a sickening crunch. Then he was awake, babbling nonsense, screaming, begging. Why had Ford done that? What did Stanley do to him to warrant this? He was trying to help!

Why did you do that? He remembered screaming over the cops’ radio, spit gathering under his tongue. Over and over again, doused matches and primal fear flooding his nostrils. Why?

Once he was finally himself again, he was aching and groaning in a county cell, wondering why the fuck he thought Ford was the one who stabbed his brain with an icepick in the first place. Obviously it was some sort of aneurysm or cancer or brain disease or something somehow worse. Some progression of… all this.

See? That was why it was a bad idea to go to the hospital - get his shortened lifespan confirmed and go into debt for the pleasure.

Nope, this was much better. Just him, the chill of the concrete, sweat rolling off his skin as he rode the waves of debilitating pain, and the mysterious heavy weight settling on his stomach.

He looked down. A black dog was in his cell, putting its head on his belly and locking ruby eyes with his.

Yup. Alright. He’d officially lost it. He didn’t even care if the officer on duty heard his cackles bouncing off the cell walls.

It was going to be a long night.

Sleep couldn’t subsume him due to the pain, but the dog whimpered and climbed into the cot with him, its large body curling around Stan’s. The thing was cold, but he knew to expect that by now. Its tail thumped steadily against his leg and in his sorry state, he wrapped his arms around the mutt like a lifeline and breathed through the pulsing waves radiating from between his eyes.

When he was let out in the morning with a court date he was going to skip out on, he found his car - thankfully where he left it, the gas attendant must not have been a complete prick. Before anything else stupid could happen to him, he drove it to the lot of an abandoned building, snacked on a surprise bag of chips that had been hiding in the passenger footwell, and conked out for maybe ten hours with a gun hidden in his jacket pocket.

Stan and Ford had night terrors as kids.

Ford’s were always worse, but Stan had them too. One of them would sit up screaming, flailing, on the brink of falling out of bed and breaking his nose on the floor. Ma always said it scared her, the way she could see their eyes moving behind their eyelids, the way nearly nothing could tear them from the fear. Stan had almost forgotten what that was like.

This dream reminded him.

The brief flicker of a match, the smell of old books.

Compared to his other dreams, the worry he felt for Ford at the start was twisted and sickening. It wasn't a matter of signalling death or letting him know of a routine danger. It was trying with all his might to impart sheer terror on its brother, who seemed incapable of producing it himself. He needed to be scared, but he was just walking in with a smile.

Eventually Stan succeeded. Fear finally dawned on Ford's face.

But it didn't stop there.

Over and over again, his mind replayed the images that came next; Ford's shaking hands on the crossbow, the bolt barrelling at him, the miasma of fear and disbelief shrouding Stan, the splitting agony.

He jolted awake in his car with a hoarse throat and wet tracks on his cheeks, clutching his aching head, gun tossed in the passenger seat and his jacket half-off, crescent-moon marks up and down his arms from who-knows-when. A light breeze rustled the weeds poking through the asphalt in front of his car as he wrapped shaking arms around his legs and curled into a ball, heaving between his knees.

The dream might have been over, but the images were still playing. Thunk. Splatter. Darkness. Thunk. Splatter. Darkness. Thunk. Splatter. Darkness.

Abruptly, he shoved his car door open and vomited onto the cracked pavement.

“I'm tellin’ ya, somethin's off. Just quintuple-check the calculations, would ya, Stanford?”

“And I'm telling you, there's no way! What could we possibly have missed?” Ford shook his head as they left Fiddleford's car, supplies in hand. He shut the door with more force than strictly necessary. “You should believe in your work more, F.”

“It's not just my work I'm -”

They both stopped feet from the porch. Grim laid its shadowy figure across the doorway, head on its paws.

At a single step from Ford, the dog let out a wary whine and shuffled backwards against the door, bulky chainlinks clinking, but it did not leave.

“What -” Ford gaped. Yes, he had hoped that Grim's anomalous nature afforded it the ability to survive his… unwise handling of a weapon, but it was hard to believe anything shot between the eyes could come back from that. Not with the injury Ford saw, the way the bolt point buried deep, the blood burns still gouged into the floor of his study…

It was clearly nervous around Ford, pressing its body away from him and avoiding eye contact. And who could blame it?

And yet, it was back at his literal doorstep.

“I-I shot you,” Ford sputtered, keeping his hands within Grim's line of sight. “How did you -”

“Ya did what?”

Right. Fiddleford. “It was - it was not my intention,” Ford said lamely.

“How?!”

“No, really! I -” No, he couldn't get into all that, not with what that situation would reveal to his friend. He shook his head. “I can tell you later.” Instead, he tried to step forward again. Grim went rigid and growled.

“Why's it blocking the door like that? Is there somethin’ dangerous in there?” Fiddleford eyed the door with apprehension.

“I'm not sure…” Ford frowned. “There are some stories of black dogs laying across the doorway of a home. Although…” He swallowed. “It typically indicates the forthcoming death of an occupant.”

“An’ you couldn't lead with that?!” Something in Fiddleford collapsed. He backed up and tore his eyes off the beast. “God, I knew coming here was a bigger mistake ‘n a Wednesday rodeo! Knew I shoulda left damn well alone!” He dropped his groceries and dragged his hands down his face.

“Fiddleford -”

“No!” He shouted. “I… somethin’ don’t feel right, Ford. It’s like we’re on the precipice of an abyss we were never meant to see. And now this…” He gestured to the specter haunting the threshold of the house. “I…” Resolve solidifying in his eyes, he dropped his bags of groceries at Ford’s feet with a steely frown. “I’m gonna stay at the motel in town for a few days. Clear my head. Both of us better be alive in a week or I swear to the heavens, my ghost’ll haunt your whole family, Stanford Pines.”

“Please, Fiddleford, this is ridiculous!”

But he was already stalking off to his car. Ford watched the hatchback peel out of the lot and lumber down Gopher street until the trees closed around it.

Fantastic. Now tonight’s test was delayed, Fiddleford was mad at him, and Ford had to return to the wasteland that was Gravity Falls’ public transportation. How was he supposed to know that Grim would choose this very moment to warn them of dire misfortune? Did Fiddleford think it better to never get a hint of the future in the first place?

Besides, the stories weren’t one-to-one. Maybe this was Grim’s way of warning him about forgotten expired food in the fridge.

Well… Fine! If it was Ford’s fate to be abandoned, again, he could just do tonight’s test himself. He could read Fiddleford’s instruments and rig up the dummy easily.

Mind made up, he bitterly grabbed F’s grocery bags and stepped up to the porch.

Right. Grim.

“Now is not the time, Grim,” Ford sighed. He walked around the side of the house to the other entrance.

Grim was there too, staring up at him stoically. 

Every entrance he tried - windows, doors, the soft spot under the porch that might open up into the basement with enough determined prodding - was guarded ferociously by a Grim that shied away from his every move but refused to give up the duty.

Ford’s eye twitched.

And on top of everything, now the milk he bought would go bad!

“Troublesome shadow,” Ford bit out at the length of Grim stretching out beneath the windowsill of a first floor bathroom. He didn't want to be forced into fear again if he tried to circumvent it. Perhaps beating it back with magical science would be the next best thing.

Groceries forgotten, Ford whipped out his journal and flipped to a clean page. It was a good thing he always kept charcoal, chalk, various and sundry tumbled crystals, and a mortar and pestle on his person. Not to mention his encyclopedic memory of runes and summoning circles.

If Grim's duty didn’t allow entry into the house, Ford would just have to drag it from its duty by force.

This time, the blackout ended differently.

Stan had stumbled into a brick alleyway and slid to the ground moments before the darkness overtook his vision, sparing one last thought to hoping he didn't look too robbable. It felt long, though time was hard to gauge during these things since he wasn't all there. He just got flashes of his own terror, pine, the scratch of chalk. A low murmur.

And then the air around him shifted.

The smell of the dumpster disappeared. The hard brick at his back faded away. White light flared, prodding him back to consciousness with bright washes behind his eyelids.

Something popped and fizzled, the smell of sulfur and smoke overwhelming.

Then he opened his eyes to a perfect blue sky ringed by pine trees.

“What the fuck?” His thick tongue managed. His stomach rolled unpleasantly and he held back vomit. Weeds folded under his weight. He was laying on packed soil.

And he was naked. Awesome. Great things just kept happening to him!

“Stanley?!”

He jerked his head to the source of that voice even as his stomach plummeted.

Ford stood in front of - shit, in front of an enviable cabin, massive, two stories at least, but probably with an attic too. It looked just like the ones in his dreams. Ford was slack-jawed and incredulous. His fingers were stained with charcoal and white chalk. Yellow pages of thick parchment littered the ground at his feet, covered in esoteric symbols.

“How did -” Ford clutched his face in disbelief, smearing charcoal on his chin and chalk on his glasses. “I - was it my blood? Is that why? But then where did Grim end up?!”

He continued rambling, but Stan wasn't listening.

His brother's face, the way his glasses caught the light, the raising of his hands, it struck terror in Stan's core. It no longer mattered that he was butt-naked in the middle of a forest, in the middle of some medical crisis, in the middle of his estranged brother's yard. He scrambled backwards and stumbled upright with a panicked yelp that barely sounded human. Crystals and crushed herbs scattered at his feet, crossing the lines of a rune circle etched into the soil. Hastily, he scrambled behind a tree at the edge of the yard and peered out at his brother. Pressure tightened on the back of his neck, but it couldn't stop him from putting distance between them.

Ford's eyes were narrowed in confusion. He stepped forward.

Stan cowered.

“Y-you shot me,” he stammered, eyes wide and glassy. “You shot me.” Something was cresting within him, settling, crashing down walls between two halves. His fingertips ached against the bark of the tree, his neck chafed, his eyes burned.

“I… Stanley, what do you mean?” Ford said carefully, raising his hands with open palms.

“I don't know! I don't know!” Something slammed into Stan with abrupt clarity amidst the whirlwind, a tornado's eye. “Don't go into that house, Stanford!”

“Why not?” His voice became pointed, probing. He was staring at Stan like a particularly unruly puzzle.

“It's not safe.”

“And how do you know that?”

“I don't - I -” A growl tore from Stan's throat. “God, this chain is killing me!” He scrabbled at his naked neck. His fingers only met flesh.

“Stanley, there's nothing there.”

“What?” There was a glint of gold in the corner of his eye, but he looked down to see no collar, no metal lead.

Right. Naked.

Everything hit him at once. He sat down on the leaf litter, curled his knees to his chest, arms around his legs, and stared at the broken rune circle, the upturned ritual items. The papers all around Ford. Ford, standing there listlessly, a little closer now. The chain still tugged at him, and he bent his head towards it with a hiss to introduce some slack.

“The chain,” Ford breathed. He turned to the spooky magic circle and broke a line of it with his foot.

“Motherfucker,” Stan bit out, rubbing his neck where it felt like a stock had just released pressure.

Then he remembered something crucial: Ford lived in Oregon. Was that where he was right now? It certainly looked the part.

His head dropped onto his knees. “My fucking car!”

“Your car?” Ford repeated. “That's what you're worried about?”

They looked cluelessly at each other.

“Look,” Ford stammered, backing away a few steps. “I - I'm very sorry for dragging you from - wherever you were. I had no idea this ritual would result in -”

“Utah.”

“You were in Utah?! Why?” He paused. “Are you Mormon?”

“What - no, jackass!”

“Well, I don't know anything about you! We haven't spoken in a decade!”

Stan barked an ugly laugh. “Yeah, I wonder why,” he muttered.

“Oh, don't pin this on me,” Ford sneered. “I'm not taking responsibility for any more of your stupid mistakes!”

“What does that even mean!” Rage had Stan seeing red. His fingers dug hard into his legs. “What the hell did I do to you? Uh, recently!”

“Oh, I don't know! If the results of this ritual are to be believed, you're the anomaly who drove away my assistant right before we were about to change the world, for one!”

“When the hell did I do that?! How?! I wasn't even here!”

“Use your synapseless brain, you knucklehead!” Ford dashed a crumbling stick of charcoal into the dirt. “You did something harebrained, no doubt, and became a dog!”

The words rang out in the silence of the yard.

The nonsense of Stan's recent predicament turned fatefully, achingly, towards a modicum of sense. It must have been Jimmy. That fucker. In retrospect, what else could it have been?

Stupid shit! All the time!

But a dog? When the hell was he a dog?

“...So I'm not dying?”

Ford sighed out a world of anger and frustration. “I think you need to come inside. …And get some clothes on you.”

He shook his head hard. “No. You can't make me.” There was a deep, visceral wrongness in his bones at the sight of the place he was buried, at what lurked beneath the soil, under the foundation.

“This is nonnegotiable. You need clothes, and we both need answers.”

Stan stood and Ford averted his eyes. “Fine,” he growled, ignoring the itch running up and down his limbs as he stalked towards the house. “But if I get too weird of a feeling I'm booking it.”

Despite the fear swelling in Stan, when the porch door was finally held open for him, that window of orange light beckoning, he breathed a sigh of relief.

The spell's intention had been to teleport Grim to a summoning circle. Typically not used to move something a scant few yards, but Ford got a lot of mileage over the years from unconventional applications of all sorts.

He had spilled a miniscule amount of blood from his palm into the grooves of the summoning circle to increase its success, since it seemed Grim was bound to him in some way. He had sketched out some sigils of binding on empty journal pages in alternating black and white, imbuing the circle with containing properties, intending to keep Grim in one place once it was summoned. Not forever, just for a little bit; just enough to let Ford access his home and, hopefully, his basement for testing. Once the test was done he would break the binding, of course!

But all that flew out the window when a flesh-and-blood man appeared in the center of the circle. Ford only had a moment to wonder at how royally he fucked up the spell before he realized that he knew this man.

Of course Stanley was involved. Of course he was ruining things for Ford still!

Did Grim ever really want to protect him at all? Or was Stanley just trying to sabotage him?

Lamenting his entire life's series of events, Ford unearthed a sweatshirt and old pajama bottoms from a drawer in his bedroom and tossed them at his brother, turning away to go put on a pot of coffee in the kitchen.

“‘S not like I want to be here, Ford, so stop stomping around like I pissed in your cereal.”

Ford rolled his eyes and set up the coffee machine. “I liked you better when you were a dog.”

“Fuck you. Also, what? Can we talk about that? I don't actually… some stuff is making sense now, but I'm missing some pretty big pieces.”

Ford turned back to his now-clothed brother, who was massaging his temples with a wince. When Stan saw him, he recoiled and backed away, avoiding eye contact and tugging at the collar of his borrowed sweatshirt.

“Yes, let's hash this out. I have some questions of my own as well.”

That was how they ended up awkwardly sharing the kitchen table, two hot mugs of coffee between them. Stanley didn't meet his eyes. Ford twitched the pen in his hand, feeling the textured parchment of his journal beneath the side of his palm. The red eyes of the dog carcass gazed up at him in splotches of ink. A smaller sketch in the corner, added later, depicted Grim with wide chainlinks leading from his collar, a scribbled estimate of height and dimensions.

Stan had taken in the journal pages silently, reading Ford's musings on origin, the running list of encounters, the note about induced fear. He had peered at the drawings with an unreadable look on his face. Then, he had pushed the book back to Ford, and there they sat.

“That's what the strays looked like,” Stan finally said.

“The strays?”

He nodded. “At first I thought they were just some local pack. But they kept showing up when I left Colorado.”

“Fascinating. Under what circumstances would they appear?”

“Any, I dunno.” Stan shrugged and sipped his coffee. “Even in closed rooms. They would just show up, I’d pet them a bit, and then they'd leave.”

“And you had no idea why they were there?”

“Nope.” He scratched a stubbled cheek. “I mean, I kinda just thought my brain was finally leakin’ out my ears.”

“Ah.” After six years of study, Ford forgot the low threshold most had for the strange and unusual - something aptly demonstrated with Fiddleford, the thought of whom made his mouth sour. Surely his friend would come back once it became clear that neither of them have befallen some cruel fate? He pushed the thought away.

“I assume the phantom dogs weren't the only symptom of your… condition?” How, exactly, could Stanley be in two places at once, if Stanley was Grim?

“Well, I was also, uh…” He trailed off and stared into the coffee cup intently. “Blacking out, I guess.”

“What?!” That explained the lack of memory, if Stan was being truthful when he said he wasn't even here.

“Yeah. Almost crashed my car the first time. Then it kept happening.”

Clipped, short sentences. The bare information. Ford frowned mid-note, then finished the looping letters of his sentence. When he looked back at Stan, he was ready for the high shoulders, the tension in his face, but not the fear swimming in his eyes. The breaths forced steady, the grounding grasp of his calloused fingers around the mug.

Stanley may not have many tells, but Ford still knew them well, even after all this time.

“You had no context for this at all.” It wasn't a question. He might have doubted it before, but from one look it was clear that this whole ordeal was a confusing mess for Stan.

Stan shook his head, then paused. “Well, kinda. I had dreams next time I slept. Of the stuff I had been… doing. As that,” he pointed at the journal illustrations. “I guess.”

Ford blinked. “So you saw me fall off that ladder?”

A surprised laugh broke out of him. “I forgot about that!” He slapped the table and cackled into his hands. “I was so worried and you just went up there and did it anyways!”

“I had no reason to believe it was unsafe!” Ford blushed. “You-you were worried?”

“Duh, Sixer! Because you're worrying!” He breathed deeply against his fingers and drew his head up. “I thought I was reckless, but you live a weird fucking life, buddy.”

“Well, you're the one who got turned into a dog,” he said primly.

“An’ I'm glad I did, if it got someone's eyes on you! God…” He scrubbed his face. “Those dreams were real.”

“They likely all were.”

“The room with the candles.” Stan went stiff. Haunted.

Ford winced. Started, then stopped. “Did you… feel pain?”

Stan stared at the kitchen table like it wronged him. The bags under his eyes were heavy, Ford realized. Purplish and deep. “We're not talking about that.”

“T-That's fine,” Ford said tightly, even though it was very much not fine, and Stan's response had implications he knew would hang about in the back of his mind later like pesky ghosts. “What were you even trying to warn me about?”

“I have no idea. I just knew you were about to do something real bad. Don't tell me it was another summoning circle,” he warned.

“No! I wasn't contacting anything unsavory.” He could tell that Stan was about to question the qualifier on that statement - what were you contacting - so he pushed forward. “Do you have any clue how this happened to you in the first place? A bargain, or a curse, perhaps?”

“Uh, I think so. This guy and I had a falling out, and he said some real weird shit to me. That's when this all started. But I just thought he was a nut.”

When Stan told him what this man had said, Ford gave him a withering look. “Stanley, that is very obviously an evil curse.” He copied it into his notes in code, drawing out curves, dots, and boxes to represent each letter. Could never be too careful recording such words.

“So?!” He shrugged indignantly. “How was I supposed to know that shit was real?”

True. Ford nodded, conceding this point. He angled his head at the coded curse. “No wonder the summoning circle brought you here. It works on the assumption that the target is one complete entity, not two halves, so it grabbed every part of you and put them back together. Sounds like this ‘Jimmy’ figure cleaved off and transformed a part of your soul for his own purposes. The real mystery now is why your apportioned fragment attached to me instead.” It also muddied the waters on black dogs even more - were they all humans made hellhounds? Or were Stanley's strays always black dogs? But those questions could wait for now. Ford was still far too shaken in the moment to entertain aimless daydreams.

“Well, I don't know much, but I do know I’m not about to do anything for Jimmy.” Stan crossed his arms and leaned back in his chair. “Fuck that guy.”

Could it really be that simple?

Ford entertained the question for half a second and realized with resignation that if anyone could misdirect a curse from sheer force of will, it would be his brother. Slowly, he laid out, “You were cursed to take the form of a hellhound to warn this man of death and misfortune, but you just didn't want to, so instead, the curse redirected itself to someone in your personal life?”

Stan shrugged. “I'll be honest, Ford, you got a better idea than me at this point. I was getting a will notarized before you dragged me here.”

“But the sheer amount of willpower that would take is enormous… I'm sorry, a will?”

“Yeah. I had no idea what was happening to me. Thought it'd be a good idea in case… in case.”

Ice shot through Ford's veins. Stan's first thought when in danger wasn't to reach out to family or get help - it was to get his affairs in order. If Stan had died during his split soul's excursions out of the body, had crashed his car or fallen from a height or worse, Ford wouldn't have known. He would have just assumed that the anomaly named Grim moved on.

Hell, even if Stan actually was afflicted by an unnamed illness, Ford would have had no idea.

“That's… frightening. You - you could have called -” No, Ford shouldn't say that. If Stanley called him, could he really say he would have been receptive? “You could have called Mom. I'm sure a doctor's visit found nothing?”

Stan huffed sardonically with a flimsy grin. “A doctor? I ain't putting my cash and trust into those quacks.”

“...So you just blacked out at random, started having what you assumed were hallucinations, and what, moved on with your life?”

“Christ, Ford, you act like I make the choices I do for fun.” His tone sharpened. “Like I can't have reasons.”

“Wh - that's not what I said!”

“Sure.”

“I, I just mean, why not get help? Or call someone? If not family, a friend?”

Something in Stan's eyes dulled. He looked away, studying the old coffee rings stained into the table. “Ford. Drop it.”

“No!”

“I said, drop it!” Stan bared his teeth, a ragged edge bleeding into his voice, eyes glinting red in the yellowish kitchen light.

A foreign twinge of fear sparked in Ford's gut, before it was just as quickly yanked away, leaving a numb hollow behind.

Stan stood quickly. The chair clattered backwards. He didn't even seem to be breathing, skin pale, eyes bulging as they followed Ford's hands. Something between apology and the fear of prey played out on his face.

“I can't,” he choked out.

“Stanley, please -”

Stan turned fully away from him, clutching his arms and squeezing his eyes shut with a shudder. “Ford,” he said, voice shaky but determined, “If I had my way, I'd be long gone right now. I'd never have been dragged here in the first place. But I can't leave you here tonight, or you'll do something you'll regret. I just know it.” A strangled sound. “I can't leave.”

And with that, Ford realized the length at which the chain was bound.

Harsh breaths from Stan filled the air, like he couldn't get enough of it.

Ford closed his journal as quietly as possible. He watched the pained arch of his brother's back. “You know it like you knew those animals would die.”

Stan's tangled hair shifted with his nod. “Ford… d’you have a basement?” He sounded far away.

“Yes,” he said, feeling at once outside of himself.

Stan turned to lock burning red eyes on him. “Don't go in. Or…” The crimson dimmed to a deep, dark brown. “Or I'll have to stop you.” It was clear he didn't want to have to try and stop Ford again, not when they both knew what happened last time the portent was so severe.

Selfishly, Ford didn't want Stan to have to either.

He knew he should test the portal. They were so very close to unlocking the secrets of his Grand Unified Theory, of multidimensional travel itself! Months of sleepless labor, pushing the both of them past their limits in lieu of Bill's somnambular assistance, brought them here only a tick past schedule. It would all be a catastrophic waste of time and work not to follow the lines of thought to completion.

And Bill would be… 

Disappointed seemed too light of a word.

But a black dog, bringer of death, herald of misfortune, guardian of crossroads, was telling him to stop.

Stanley was telling him to stop.

Fiddleford had been telling him to stop, to slow down, before he took Grim as the portent he was and ran off.

And if Ford defied Stan's supernatural intuition, and he had to resort again to injecting fear like antibodies into a body that could not produce them itself… if it went wrong…

A crossbow bolt between his brother's eyes, or a frenzied beating with the bat he kept by the front door, or frantic scratches with his fingers - he didn't want to risk the sickening possibilities. He couldn't. The mental images were so strong they made his breath stutter.

“I won't,” Ford managed. He would not step around the dog this time.

“Good.” Tension bled out of Stan's shoulders and only left exhaustion behind. He leaned against the doorframe and closed his eyes. “That's… that's real good, Sixer.”

“Yes, well… I would rather not accidentally -” he coughed. “Anyways. You… can't leave?”

He shook his head against the wood of the doorframe. All the fight left him. “I don't know how I know. But you're still in danger. So even if you want me out. I can't…” Fingers pressed tiredly against his neck.

“...Alright.” Ford sighed. “I can put you up until the danger passes.” Although he didn't know what that danger would be, he had a sinking suspicion.

“And what if you get in trouble again?” Stan grumbled.

“I…” Ford swallowed. He didn't know. Would Stan appear in Ford's location? Or would he stay put? Would the distance between them rend his soul back in two?

“Nevermind. I'm finding your couch and taking a nap.”

“I don't have a couch.”

“The floor, then.”

He followed Stan wordlessly. The man wandered about before curling up in front of the basement door. No doubt he followed some base instinct; there was no way he knew where the door led.

“I can - you can take my bed for a nap, if you -”

There was no response. His brother was out cold.

Ford sighed and fetched a blanket.

Stan slept for twelve hours.

He had one dream, right before waking, of guarding Ford and his friend from entering the place that would bring about both their downfalls. The stick-thin nerd took the hint and bolted. Ford didn't, because he was a moron. Instead, filled with grim determination, he carved a circle into the dirt with a stick, drew symbols and runes on parchment, littered magical components across the dirt.

Then Stan woke up with a snort. Weak early-morning sunlight filtered into his eyes from the window. A flannel blanket was tangled up between his legs. Fatigue beaten back, he had the capacity now to take in the room. It was a mess of experiments, parts, and machinery. Opportunity for a stubbed toe in every overstuffed nook and cranny.

And laying atop another flannel blanket in front of him, head in his arms and glasses pressing into his face, was a snoozing Ford.

Beside Ford, that red-bound journal was spread open to a new page full of genius ramblings. Stan caught the swirling S of his own name and leaned in to take a closer look. It was a stream-of-consciousness account of Stan's situation, his split-then-combined soul, and theories about where to go now. Questions about how to best get Stan back to his ‘life’ in Utah - that made a breathy laugh leave him - or if he was bound to Ford permanently, and if so, how to undo it.

Of course Ford wouldn't want to keep him around. Figures. There was no reason for that to hurt like it did.

There was nothing in Utah for him. In fact, there was nothing for him anywhere. This whole situation had dried up his work prospects when he realized that blacking out during a drug deal could go wrong in a million different ways. If he had been scraping by before, he was clawing at bedrock now just to get nowhere. He could go to Utah and get his car if it miraculously hadn't been impounded or stolen by now - and fuck, most of his money was in there. The rest of it was - oh shit. His clothes didn't come with him, so cluttering up an alley states away were his jacket, his keys clipped to his pants, his wallet, his IDs. If that all hadn't been stolen or tossed by now too. He hadn't had the time to think about it earlier, but now...

This was somehow worse than he thought.

He pressed a trembling hand to his mouth and backed up into the basement door with a thud. Tears welled up in his eyes and he shut them, trying to quietly take in enough air. For a decade, through thick and thin, he'd had his car. His getaway vehicle. His home. And now… No, it'd be fine, he could work it out, right? Could - could hitchhike, and then find his car, and maybe the keys? Somehow?

Who was he kidding? There was no working this out.

“Stanley?” Ford slurred. There was the sound of shifting fabric as Ford righted himself.

No, come on. Not right now!

Sounding more awake, Ford stammered, “Wh-what's wrong?”

Six fingers dug into Stan's shoulder, and he jolted, shoving Ford away. He threaded his hands through his mullet and tugged, trying to heave air into his lungs.

“Is something hurting you? I-Is it the curse?”

Stan made an ugly noise. “I fucking wish!” He strangled his breaths down, only partly successful. “Fuck!” Tears fell stubbornly down his cheeks and he wiped them away harshly, but they came back.

“Stanley, please, tell me what's happening!” Ford sounded scared now, truly and organically.

“Nothing's - nothing's happening!” He hiccupped, face reddening and shame coating his insides like black tar. “I just - I don't have anything.” He pressed his head into his knees. “No car, no wallet, no nothin’.” Gratefully, the angle of his head buried Ford's face out of sight.

“I…” The sound of shuffling, a book falling shut. “It's - it'll be alright,” he placated. “We can get you back home quickly. I believe I have some teleportation spells around here somewhere.”

“Yeah, but then what?” Stan sniffed, curling tighter.

“What do you mean?”

“Sure, I get back to Utah. But my clothes had my keys and wallet and now they're in some alley somewhere. My car was illegally parked so who knows where it's at now.” He released a shuddering breath into his borrowed sweatpants. “And all my fucking savings were in there.”

“In your car?! That seems…” He sounded like he was trying to find a kind word. “Unwise. Why not a bank? Or at least your home?”

“Think real hard for two seconds, braniac.” His heart was stuttering slower now. He just stared into the shadows between his knees. He wasn't gonna say it. If he opened his mouth to name it, would all the shame tumble out with it? The decade of utter failure? Would it all spill forward and flood the halls of the home Ford had made for himself?

“You -” A pen tapped against the floor for a moment, then fell silent. Several pieces fell together. “Oh, no. Stanley.” Pity hung heavy over the syllables. “You're homeless?”

Stanley closed his eyes and tightened his arms against his head. The well of tears petered out and dried sticky on his cheeks.

The floorboards creaked. Ford was standing, pacing, muttering something to himself. Eventually, he said, “Why wouldn't Mom have told me?”

“She doesn't know,” Stan croaked.

“She doesn't -” He cut himself off and kept pacing.

Eventually, the pacing stopped.

“I have a plan,” Ford said, the way he stated scientific fact. The Earth revolved around the Sun, organisms evolved over millenia, and Ford had a plan.

“Unless you wanna magic my car out of the ether…” Stan mumbled. With the sleep and the crying, he could really go for some water right now. He was hungry too, but he already had been.

“It's not about your car.”

Stanley finally lifted his head. Ford was looking down at him, hair mussed from sleep, glasses-marks on his face, mouth set in determination.

“There are a few tasks in order. Firstly, food and water, for us both. I will admit I have been neglecting that lately,” he said, sheepish. “Then, I need to clear out a room for you. I know we have cots in storage somewhere -”

Stan's heart stopped. “Wait, Ford -”

“ - and once that's done, we can get started on phone calls to impound lots -”

“Ford! You don't have to clear a room.”

“And why not!” There was a glint in his eye like a tangled thread had finally been straightened. Something had changed while Stan slept. “Even unknowingly, you directed a part of your soul to me and kept me from danger. Given your experiences and the accounts I've studied of black dogs, I'm forming a hypothesis that these creatures have an innate sense of the fates. There is no lying with this power; there is only truth. And if that is the case…” Anger hardened his mouth. “Then your more dire warnings are telling me I have been very foolish indeed.”

“What -”

“For your soul to protect me, while you were suffering for months from an unexplained supernatural ailment…” His hands buried themselves in his hair, his sentences crumbling. “The fact that you - and I wouldn't have known! If you had crashed your car -"

“Hey, uh, it's okay, I didn't!”

“But what if you did!” Ford cried, turning to him, clenching his fists in his hair.

A stab of fear sent Stan cowering against the door.

Ford raised his hands and backed away. “I'm sorry,” he said emphatically. “I apologize for bringing you here, and for the fact that you are evidently chained to me. We can fix both those things. But if you would like to stick around… get back on your feet…”

Reflexively, Stan curled his lips to bare his teeth. “I don't need a pity room, Ford.”

With great effort, Ford schooled consternation from his expression. It was there underneath, no doubt, but he extended his hand tentatively, palm up. He did not make any sudden movements. “How about a brother, then?”

Stan stared at the six-fingered hand in front of him, then at Ford. “I'm gonna get on your nerves,” he challenged.

“I don't doubt it.”

“I've got no money or job or nothin’.”

“We've established this.”

“You hate me.”

“Don't brothers always?”

“...I might get a bad feeling again and try to make you scared.”

“I appreciate your protection. We can make contingency plans to avoid...” Ford frowned, and stressed, “We will make contingency plans.”

When Ford was set on a track, it was full-steam ahead. Even in their decade apart Stan could recognize that aspect of his brother. He sighed and wiped his face with his sleeve, then reached out. Ford's hand was warm and dry in his.

“Okay. Guess we can try.”

Five fingers in six, Stan stumbled to his feet.

His neck didn't chafe.