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It’s been four days.
Ford hasn’t been asleep for many minutes during that time, but the portal is fueled and ready again, and he didn’t do it, so he must have been unconscious at some point. He doesn’t think he’s unconscious now, but it’s hard to tell the difference anymore.
He’s walking in circles in his cluttered living room, and there are yellow triangles everywhere, on the walls, in the trash on the floor, floating in the air, and he knows they’re hallucinations because they’re neither laughing or gloating, just looking at him knowingly. Being aware of that doesn’t help; Bill is watching.
Sometimes he thinks he sees people, too, in the corner of his eyes, standing around inside his house waiting for some kind of sign, waiting for him to step out of line. Every time he accidentally brushes against something there are hands on him again, touching him. Feeling him. His ass has almost stopped aching, but he still gets the nauseating feeling that something is penetrating him whenever he moves the wrong way. Or stands still for too long.
His hands are cramping around the half-empty coffee cup he’s carrying.
He could give up. The idea of curling up in a corner and slipping into blissful sleep, allowing Bill to end the world, is so tempting. This world never cared much for him anyway—his mind, his intelligence, it’s all worth less than nothing here. He’s nothing but freaky fingers and—and a hole or two to fuck.
But he can’t. Letting Bill win means admitting that Bill was right about him. Besides. There are innocents. Children. He’s not a monster, he can’t be responsible for genocide just because—because—
He knows what he has to do. It struck his addled mind at some point during the last few days, and it’s the only solution that makes any sense. He used to have too much pride to see it, once, but no longer. The only problem is that it requires him to do some work—mix some chemicals, put together some powerful enough explosives and placing them right—and he needs to do it quickly and steadily, but his hands are shaking and he can’t fail but he can’t even trust himself to end things right.
His vision is drifting in and out of focus, not helped by the scratched spare glasses he’s wearing. He can’t fumble, and he can’t rest once he starts, because Bill would see it for the defiance it is. If he falters, he knows there will be punishment and no second chances.
But he has to do it. It needs to end.
He’s going to fail and make things even worse.
There’s a knock on the door.
Ford flinches, and no, there’s no one here with him, no one touching him, and he’s not sure he actually heard the sound either. But he can’t dismiss it. No one can come here. No one can be here. He drains the rest of the coffee and grabs the crossbow from a pile of unsorted equipment. Even if his hands shake, he can still hit an intruder at point blank range.
A glance through the peephole in the door reveals a single man—red jacket, black beanie, lots of snow. He can handle one man, unless the man has a gang hidden somewhere out of sight; unless he goes and collects his friends.
Ford throws the door open, crossbow ready, aiming it for the stranger’s face. “What do you want?” he growls, voice still hoarse – from abuse or lack of use he’s not sure.
The man freezes, staring at Ford with wide open eyes. There’s something familiar about him. Something that should be obvious, but—
In sinks in. “Stanley.” Ford barely voices the name, and he can’t lower the crossbow. He did ask Stanley to come here, yes, but how can he be sure it’s actually him, or that he’s still the same person he was when they were teenagers, or that Bill hasn’t already talked to him? He can’t be sure. Bill is right about that. He doesn’t know anything about his brother.
“Yeah,” Stanley says slowly. His voice is achingly familiar, making Ford’s stomach turn with nostalgia. “Thanks for the warm welcome.”
The weapon is shaking in Ford’s hands. He feels queasy. As if he might throw up if he’d eaten anything. The yellow eyes winking at him in the snow don’t help. He shouldn’t have summoned Stan at all, but he did that before Bill showed him how much he’s really worth, and now he’s here, and Ford is suppressing an urge to grab him by the shoulders and beg him to do—something.
But it’s not safe. Stan is not safe, and Ford is not safe, and nothing is safe. This is Ford’s mess, Ford’s problem, and he’s going to solve it. “I’m sorry,” he says, and means it, for more than one reason. “It was a mistake. I shouldn’t have asked you to come.”
Stan’s face tightens, but he doesn’t move. “Stanford,” he says carefully, eyes flicking to the trembling bolt inches from his face. “Are you seriously going to kill me?”
“What?” Ford is taken aback. “Of course not.” He’d never been that angry with Stan, not even a decade ago. But he doesn’t—he doesn’t know. There could still be more people. He glances around, but the area around the porch, as far as he can make anything out, is just white snow and black trees, and even the eyes have flickered out of existence.
He lowers the crossbow, slowly pointing it at the ground instead. Still at the ready if he’s threatened, but Stan visibly relaxes.
“I shouldn’t have asked you to come,” Ford repeats. “There’s nothing you can do. You have to leave.”
It would be good if it was that simple, but of course it isn’t. Stanley crosses his arms and glares at Ford, and it’s such a familiar gesture that it hurts. “Bullshit,” he says. “I just drove here from goddamn New Mexico, my car is stuck in a snowdrift two miles up the road, and I’m freezing. And you’re telling me to turn around?”
“Yes.” That is what he’s saying. Ford draws a deep, shaky breath, trying to steady himself, but he’s swaying, and things are starting to blur again. Is there someone standing behind Stanley after all? “It was a mistake to call you. You can’t be here.” His presence would be a distraction and it’s so hard to focus anyway, and Ford needs to work but he can’t make mistakes and he doesn’t know that Stanley won’t be Bill’s tool, and the last thought breaks what’s left of his heart.
Trust no one. Trust no one. Trust no one.
“Why?” Stan asks, still glaring. “You asked me to come, you can’t just expect me to drop everything for you and then change your fucking mind—why can’t I be here?”
“It’s not—it’s not safe!” Ford gestures emphatically with his free hand. “You should leave.”
“Yeah, okay.” For a moment Ford thinks that Stan will actually turn and leave, and there’s a part of him that wants to shout for him to stay, to not leave him alone, but he wants to be left alone. “Someone’s threatening you, aren’t they?”
The question is soft, unexpected, and goes like an additional snowy chill down Ford’s spine. He hesitates for several seconds, relief warring with dread inside him. There’s no way he could explain it all. But the fact that someone asks, that it’s Stan—and Stan used to care about him, a long time ago. Finally he nods, stiffly, once.
Stan licks his lips and casts a glance at the nearest boarded-up window. “Are they—Does it have anything to do with me?”
Ford shakes his head. There might be implications behind that question—why would Stan even imagine that Ford’s messes would be related to him when they haven’t even met in over a decade—but Ford can’t think of them. “You’ll be fine when you leave.” Hopefully. Unless Ford fails to prevent the apocalypse, and the thought that Stan would die by demons if Ford surrenders unexpectedly injects him with more determination.
Stan doesn’t leave. “Are they in there with you right now?” he mumbles, barely audible over the wind.
Ford hesitates. “That’s—” That depends on one’s point of view, but no, no, he’s keeping Bill out. “No,” he says. “I’m alone in here. It’s fine.”
“Thanks for small favors.” Stan takes a deep breath. “Look,” he says. “I’m here now. We may not be on the best terms, but if you’re in trouble, I want to help.”
“You can’t,” Ford says quietly. There’s a part of him screaming to accept the offer, but Bill’s taunts are ringing in his ears, and he doesn’t know anything.
“C’mon, I may not know what’s going on, but I’ve been around the world. I know a bit about how to get out of dodge.” Stan smiles bitterly. “Let me help. That’s what you wanted me for in the first place, right?”
Ford doesn’t reply. There are shadows moving like people under the trees, and his hand is twitching to raise the crossbow again, but there’s probably no one there.
“Please,” Stan adds. “I’m turning into an icicle here. At least let me in so we can talk about it.”
Ford draws a shaky breath, making a decision. He did call Stanley here, and it’s snowing, wind howling stronger by the minute. The least he can do is not to let him freeze to death. “Alright,” he says, and despite a vague dread, it feels like a relief. “You can come in.”
He takes a few steps backwards to let Stan through the door, then closes it quickly behind them, locking and latching every one of the seven mechanisms he’s installed. His hand is unsteady, and he doesn’t dare to fully turn his back on Stan or to let go of the crossbow, but he manages.
Stan rubs his arms, looking around with some stunned curiosity at Ford’s scientific and domestic mess, and it makes Ford remember that it’s cold in here, too. He barely feels it anymore. It has to be warmer than outside, though. Less wind, no snow.
When Ford doesn’t move, Stan shuffles some items to the side and sits down on a low table. “So,” he says. “Talk to me, Sixer.”
Ford flinches.
What do you say, Sixer?
Sixer, you’re a good freak.
This is a bonus round, Sixer.
He can’t breathe, and there are hands on his back, between his legs, and ‘Sixer’ is just a name that Stanley used to call him, but it’s Bill’s now, and Bill gave it to others. It doesn’t mean Stanley thinks he’s a freak. Or a toy. It doesn’t.
“Ford!”
“Yes,” Ford says, but his voice is so weak. He realizes he’s stumbled back against a large crate. The crossbow bolt has fired; it’s now stuck in the floorboards. “It’s nothing.”
“You’re acting worse than mom after her tenth cup of coffee,” Stanley says flatly.
“Yes, well. I’ve had a lot more than ten cups.”
“Yeah.” He grimaces. “Who did this to you?”
Ford glances at the floor, then back up. Taking his eyes from a person in his presence doesn’t feel safe. “It doesn’t matter. It’s not a school bully you can just go punch for me.” Ford might have entertained that thought, very briefly, but that doesn’t make it realistic.
“I know. We’re not kids anymore. But I can’t help if you don’t tell me what’s going on.”
Ford shakes his head. “You can’t help anyway. You can—” What would he need? “You can borrow the shower. I don’t think I have much food, but there’s coffee, and some tea. You can stay until it stops snowing, but then you must leave.”
Stan looks pained. “If I’m so useless, then why did you call for me in the first place?”
“It’s not that you’re useless! I’m—I’m not—It’s complicated and the thing I wanted you to help me with originally has become irrelevant.” The journal will be destroyed along with everything else.
“But you’re still in trouble! You said so yourself!”
“Yes, but—”
Stan makes a frustrated sound. “I just don’t get it! You’re supposed to be the good twin, Ford! The one with the intellect and the fancy education and a big house in the woods and money enough to swim in, and now it turns out you’re a bigger mess than I am?” He throws up his arms. “What happened to you?”
“I made mistakes,” Ford says. That’s the long and short of it.
“So did I! I’ve been pretty much living on the streets since I was seventeen! I’ve been to prison in three different countries! I once had to chew myself out of the trunk of a car! I know all about making mistakes, Ford. Getting into debt, trusting the wrong people, gambling on something that doesn’t work out—but I’m still alive, and you look like you’re about to curl up in a corner and die.”
Ford winces. Stan’s assessment of him isn’t far off. But he’s not responsible for Stan’s mistakes, and Stan has no idea of the scale of Ford’s.
“How long has it been since you slept?”
Ford blinks at the non-sequitur. “That depends,” he says truthfully. Since he slept continuously for several hours? That would be four days ago, before he woke up tied to a table. Since he slept restfully, without Bill? Months. He can’t remember. “I’m not sure.”
“Okay then,” Stanley says, rubbing the bridge of his nose. “You don’t have to tell me anything now. Get some sleep first.”
“But I can’t! It’s not safe.”
“Can’t you at least trust me to keep watch while you sleep? I’ll wake you if there’s anyone coming this way, or if anything happens. But just try to get some sleep. We can talk after you rest enough to be coherent. Is that fair?”
Ford starts to shake his head, because he can’t sleep. He wants to trust Stan, but he can’t be sure, he can’t trust anyone. If he sleeps, Bill will be there.
Maybe if—no. No, he can’t. The very thought of letting Stan tie him up, even if it’s to stop Bill, makes him feel sick to his soul, and maybe he deserves it, but he can’t.
But. He swallows, feeling a sliver of something like hope. “It’s fair,” he says weakly. “There’s something you can do, and maybe I’ll be able to sleep.” It’s too good to be true, and part of him is still screaming that it’s not safe, but he’ll do it. Some rest. Make his eyes less blurry and his hands shake less. Make it easier to go through with his plan.
He turns to the pile of wooden boards in the corner—leftovers since he sealed up the windows—and picks up the hammer, looking for a board of suitable size.
There’s a hand touching his back.
Not a ghost touch, not a lingering repulsive memory, but something physical is touching his back, and Ford recoils. He’s on his feet, whirling around to get his back against the wall, heart beating its way out of his chest, and the only one in the room with him is Stanley.
“Don’t touch me!” he snarls, staring at his brother. He wouldn’t. Of course he wouldn’t.
Stan looks confused, and more than a little wary. He raises his hands in the air. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I was just—I didn’t mean to spook you.”
Ford is breathing too fast, too shallow. His hands are clenching into fists at his sides. He shouldn’t have turned his back on Stan. He should have been more careful. But Stan is keeping his distance now—if Ford wanted to run, he might be able to, and—no, he doesn’t actually think Stan meant to do anything to him. He hopes he didn’t.
“Do you want me to—?” Stan leaves the question hanging.
“No. It’s fine. I was startled, that’s all.” He manages a deep breath. “Could you pick up that board for me?” He points. “No, that one. And the hammer, and that little box of nails.”
Stan obliges. Ford doesn’t take his eyes from him. “What is it for?”
“Security.” He motions for Stan to go first into the next room, then walks next to him, half a step behind. “Take the crowbar, too. It’s on the shelf under that tank.”
Stan takes it without comment, but he seems to be frowning. That’s fine. He can frown all he wants.
Ford’s bed is cluttered with books and documents and various junk. He hasn’t used it in a long time, and he’s not going to use it now. He picks up the alarm clock from the bedside table, though, feeling it ticking in his hands.
“You really haven’t slept in a while.” Stan’s expression is unreadable.
“No.” Ford holds the clock tight and tries to think of what to say. How to explain this. In the end he just blurts, “I’m going to sleep in the closet.”
He’s installed bolts on the inside of every single door in the house at the same time as he boarded up the windows. It’ll make it harder for an intruder to reach him if he bolts every door behind him. He even installed one on the inside of the walk-in closet in his bedroom, as a final defense and a hiding place, and it is a good place to hide.
“I want you to use that board to seal me inside,” he continues. “You can use the crowbar to let me out again afterwards. After this alarm clock rings, not before.”
Stan is staring silently at him. Finally he makes a helpless gesture. “I don’t even know where to start. You want to sleep sealed inside a closet?”
Ford nods.
“How does—Okay, I know I said you don’t have to tell me anything before you get some rest, but what the fuck, Ford?”
“It’s the only way for both of us to be safe!” Ford presses the alarm clock against his chest. “It will help. Please.” Stan said he wanted to help, and this is the only way. Keeping a barrier between them, locked from both sides, making sure Bill doesn’t hurt Stan and Stan doesn’t—he wouldn’t, but Ford isn’t certain of anything.
Stan deflates slightly. “Okay,” he says. “Okay.” He goes to have a look in the closet—Ford already knows it’s large enough to sit with outstretched legs, or to curl up on his side on the floor under the hanging shirts. “Would you at least get a blanket and a pillow?” Stan glances at the cluttered bed.
“Yes, that’s—that’s probably not a bad idea,” Ford concedes. He glances at the bed too, then pulls a pillow out, pushing a few books down on the floor. Hugging the pillow to his chest together with the alarm clock, he watches Stan shrug and excavate the comforter from somewhere under the clutter, then tossing it into the closet.
Ford goes to the closet door and faces Stan before hiding himself away. “I’m going to give this eight hours,” he says, turning the wheel on the back of the clock. “And I’ll put it right here outside the door so we can both hear it.” Not inside, where Bill can turn it off. His hands tremble slightly less when he has his arms around the pillow. “Promise me not to open up before.” Stan opens his mouth as if to question, but Ford continues. “And if I start talking when I’m supposed to be asleep—don’t listen. Leave the room. Stick your fingers in your ears. Don’t listen, even if I ask you to let me out. Do you understand?”
Stan mumbles something under his breath, then looks up at Ford. “Alright, but you promise you’ll talk to me about this in the morning?” Technically it will only be half past midnight in eight hours, but Ford doesn’t correct him.
He nods. He’ll try.
Hiding in the closet, Ford listens to Stan hammer up the board, then checks to make sure that the door is truly blocked from the outside before locking the bolt and finally daring to lie down and close his eyes. He’s imprisoned, but it also means no human can reach him, and that’s the most safety he’s going to get. More than he could have hoped for.
It occurs to him that if Stan chooses never to let him out, he may be alright with that.
Ford’s bed creaks when Stan sits down on it, rubbing his temples and trying to settle the uneasiness in his guts. This wasn’t how his reunion with Ford was supposed to go.
Sure, he hadn’t known what to expect, but this wasn’t it.
His estranged twin brother is in the middle of an honest-to-god psychosis of some kind, on top of whatever shit happened to push him to that point, and Stan is so badly equipped to deal with this that it isn’t even funny. Ford was supposed to be the good one, the one their father could tolerate, the one who brings in the money and has a normal, functioning life while Stan can barely survive as a petty criminal.
Maybe Stan should be irked that Ford only thought of him when he was hip-deep in serious trouble. But the fact remains that he called for him at all—and from the way it looks, he’s got no one else to turn to. His brother was never very good at making friends on his own. But somehow he still trusts Stan to help—or did, when he sent that postcard, and then something went from bad to worse, if Stan is reading things right.
The sheer terror written on Ford’s face—like a cornered animal—flashes on the inside of his eyelids. His brother should never have to look like that. Stan knows very well he’s not the best person for anyone to have around, and they hardly parted on good terms a decade ago. Ford definitely hasn’t been there for him when he needed help, not that he ever asked for it. But Stan wants to help. If there’s anything he can do, anything at all—and yeah, that includes shutting his brother into a boarded-up closet, apparently—he’ll try. Because it’s Ford.
He almost hopes that it’s drugs. Meth, maybe, or some fancy stronger stuff. That might explain part of it, and it’d be something Stan has at least some experience dealing with. On the other hand, drug problems don’t usually show up out of nowhere, and he can’t believe this is completely in Ford’s head.
He’s guessing there really is a person threatening Ford—a protection racket, maybe? Some kind of blackmail?—and maybe Ford tried to resist until it grew out of hand. And—
—and this is the shittiest thing, but Ford’s reaction when Stan tried to put a reassuring hand on his back chills him to the bones. ‘Don’t touch me!’
He’s seen a similar reaction once before. A woman at a homeless shelter, sitting alone and picking at her food, and Stan had stupidly tried to cheer her up. He later found out that she’d been recently dragged into a garage and raped by four men.
He doesn’t even like to finish the thought, because this is Ford, and the idea that someone would have done that to his brother—it makes him feel ill. But he can’t ignore the possibility.
Rubbing his eyes and sighing, he rises from the bed again and glances at the boarded-up closet. He hopes Ford can tell him something that makes sense when he wakes. Until then, Stan figures he should have a look around. Have a quick shower, make a cup of coffee—Ford did invite him to those things—and try to see if there are any traces of whatever has Ford so terrified.
A few hours later, Stan is slightly cleaner—though he has nothing to wear but what he came here in—but not much wiser.
The fact that Ford’s house is full of weird dead things, sciency gadgets, textbooks and scrabbled pages of notes is perhaps the only thing that does meet his expectations about his twin brother’s adult life. It reminds him of the Ford he remembers, and there’s a strange nostalgia in seeing the little doodles Ford still has a habit of drawing in the margins of his apparently serious research. Many of the doodles are triangles, sometimes a little triangle man with an eye and a top hat. He finds a few pages written in some kind of code, too—just like Ford to encode his own notes like they contain state secrets.
The fact that the house is a mess isn’t much of a surprise either. If Ford hasn’t taken care of himself, he hasn’t been taking care of his house, either. Waste of a perfectly good house, really. The mold growing in the kitchen sink seem ready to spout legs and walk away, and the fridge is the same except for the shelves that are completely empty. Not a good sign.
Snow continues to fall outside, and Stan hears nothing but his own breaths and his own footsteps.
That is, until Ford screams.
It’s a wordless, anguished cry, reverberating through the house. Stan tenses and is running back towards the bedroom almost before he’s registered what he’s hearing.
Ford is banging on the inside of the closet door when he arrives. “Stanley! Stanley! Stan!”
“I’m here!” Stan puts a hand on the boarded-up door, hesitating. “What happened?”
“Help me, you have to let me out, I can’t breathe, you have to help me I can’t—” He goes on, not making a lot of sense, but it sounds like some kind of panic attack. Stan did promise not to let him out if he talked in his sleep, but not like this. He does the only thing he can do, using the crowbar and prying the board away.
The closet door falls open and Ford stumbles out, panting.
He’s also naked.
Without clothes, it’s obvious how ridiculously skinny Ford is. Stan might have a hard time feeding himself sometimes, but he’s still got some chub, because the food he does have is the greasy cheap trash that is most easily available. Ford, though, he looks like he’s not eating at all, and haven’t for a while. Not that that should be a surprise after seeing the state of his kitchen.
Worse than that, he’s peppered with small, blueish bruises, all over his body. There are clusters of them on his hips.
There are obvious rope burns around his wrists, too.
“Shit,” Stan breathes involuntarily. He searches for something better to say, but everything seems trite. He’d already suspected some kind of sexual violence, but seeing the evidence like this— “Are you okay?” is all he manages, like a chump.
Ford doesn’t reply, and something about his stance seems wrong. Something beyond the signs of abuse on his inexplicably naked body. Ford seems calm now, not meeting Stan’s eyes, but looking at the floor by his feet.
“I’ve figured it out,” Ford says. “I’ve figured out how you can help me.” There’s a strange undertone in his voice.
“Stanford,” Stan says carefully, instinctively taking a step back. “You should put on some pants.”
Ford shakes his head. “No.” He looks up, smiling faintly, but it’s not quite a friendly smile. There’s something wrong with his eyes. Stan can’t put his finger on it, but it creeps him out, and he should be trying to help Ford here, not being creeped out by him.
“There’s only one way, Stanley. You’re going to have to fuck me.” He steps forward, and Stan finds his own back colliding with the wall. Okay, very much creeped out now.
“You’re not serious.”
“I’m serious, alright.” He touches Stan’s chest, running his hand down his shirt underneath his unzipped jacket. “That’s the only way I could be safe. If you claim me—”
“I’m not listening to this.” Stan’s heart is racing, and it’s not that he’s afraid of Ford, but there’s something disgustingly wrong going on here and Ford can’t be saying what he seems to be saying. He puts his hands over his ears in childish protest.
“Come on, Stanley.” Ford starts to unbutton Stan’s fly, and it’s more a reflex than anything else that makes Stan swat him away. There’s so little strength in his brother that Stan’s slap sends him sprawling on the floor. He can see clusters of small bruises on his ass, too.
“Huh,” Ford says, raising his head and looking up at Stan.
“Don’t ‘huh’ me! What the hell’s gotten into you?” Stan is shouting now, dread curling in his stomach. He has no idea what’s going on, but this isn’t right.
Ford stays down, but raises his voice to match. “I thought you wanted to help me? I’m telling you this is how you do it! You gotta fuck me like my life depended on it, because it does!”
“That doesn’t make a speck of sense!” He sounds like Ford and looks like Ford, but this is fucked up beyond the lock-me-in-the-closet stage. This has to be why he wanted to be locked in the closet. Stan feels sick. “You’re my brother!”
“Yes,” Ford agrees, sitting up. “So what? You want it, right? I’m telling you I want it. Why would you deny yourself?” He leans forward, deftly unzipping Stan’s fly the rest of the way, briefly touching his limp cock through his boxers.
Stan is starting to be—not afraid for his own safety, because Ford could hardly overpower him by force, but scared that Ford is gone. Scared that anything he’ll do will make it worse. Scared of hurting Ford by defending himself. He pushes him off towards the bed this time, holding him down against the mattress by the shoulders, trying to think of what to say, how to get through to him without—
Ford’s eyes change. It’s like his pupils shrink and his whites go paler, and with that his whole face shifts into a mask of terror. “No,” he whispers.
Ford returns to consciousness while being held down on his back. He’s naked. There are hands pressing his shoulders down, and they’re Stanley’s hands, and Stanley’s face is right above him and his fly is open and he’s holding Ford down and Ford is naked.
Bill said he could convince Stan to do this and he has, and it feels like a nightmare, but it’s real. He knows what will happen. Even his brother has agreed it’s all he’s good for. He’s frozen. He can’t move, can’t breathe. Of course he wouldn’t be safe, of course he couldn’t trust anyone, of course—
Unexpectedly, Stan sputters and stumbles back, letting go of Ford’s shoulders as if he’d been burned.
Ford scrambles unthinkingly for something to cover himself with, but there’s nothing but the bedsheet and a pile of books still on the bed, and it won’t matter at all if Stan is about to—
Something large and soft falls on his back, and he recognizes his comforter. Stanley must have gotten it from the closet. He’s right there, next to the bed, face averted and not even looking at Ford.
Almost as if he doesn’t actually mean to go through with it.
Ford exhales, deflating slightly. The comforter is thick and soft, and he bundles up in it, wrapping it around himself until he no longer feels exposed, until he almost stops trembling. His heart won’t stop beating useless adrenalin through him, but Stanley isn’t doing anything.
He needs to ask what happened, but he already knows that Bill happened. Somehow Bill made Stan open the closet after all, and then—
He’s fine. He is fine.
He keeps a sideways eye on Stanley, but his brother doesn’t move. The mutual silence is awkward, but there’s something about it that is almost reassuring. Stanley doesn’t know what to do either, otherwise he’d be doing it.
“You—” Stanley says eventually, then clears his throat. His voice isn’t completely steady. “You seem to have some kinda multiple personalities problem.”
Ford lets out a small breath of air, smiling without joy. “That’s what it would look like, I suppose.” He tries to work up some moisture in his mouth. “What did he do?”
Stan is leaning his back against the wall next to the headboard of the bed, arms crossed almost as if he’s hugging himself, staring emptily away from Ford. “You don’t wanna know.”
Ford bites his lip. “He said—earlier, he told me he was going to convince you to—” It’s difficult to voice. “—to fuck me.”
Stan flinches, but Ford continues, quietly. “Would you?”
“Hell no,” Stan says with a shudder, still not looking at Ford. “I’d rather cut my own balls off.”
Ford closes his eyes for a moment, feeling some of the tension inside him dissipate. Stan sounds as repulsed by the idea as Ford is, and that would mean Bill didn’t actually. Didn’t actually convince him. He should probably be mortified that Stan even saw him like that, but he’s too relieved to care. Bill can fail, and Stan is still his brother, nothing else. He realizes with a twinge how much he wants to trust Stan, how much the paranoia is warring against something old and nostalgic inside him. Perhaps it’s alright. He doesn’t exactly feel safe, but maybe he is, for the moment.
“Thanks,” he whispers, and means it.
He’s slept for a few hours, and Stan did let him out too early, but perhaps this is enough. His hands seem to be steadier. He could do it, now. As soon as Stan leaves.
There’s a part of him that doesn’t want Stan to leave.
“Ford,” Stan says suddenly, still not looking at him. “Will you still be here if I go get us something to drink?”
“Yes. Of course.” Where else would he be? He can’t set up the explosives yet, not while Stan is in the house.
“And you won’t change into—someone else?”
“No. Not as long as I stay awake.”
Stan exhales softly. “Good,” he says, pushing himself away from the wall and starts to leave. “Get dressed. I’ll be right back.”
Ford doesn’t want to leave the comforter, but he does want to get dressed while Stanley’s gone, so he shuffles over to the closet with the thing over his shoulders, picking up his clothes. Boxers, pants. Bill seems to have torn some of the shirt’s buttons off when he undressed, so Ford picks another shirt from the rack. And then the coat. It’s his spare one, the one that is too worn at the elbows to be presentable, but he lost the good one together with his good glasses and his most comfortable shoes back at—that place. Never mind, he won’t need anything at all for much longer.
The alarm clock tells him it’s a little past eight. He’s slept for three, three and a half hours. That’s definitely better than nothing, and all Bill managed to do was to scare him. He should consider that a victory, but it’s difficult to consider anything a victory when Bill had him naked and saying who-knows-what to his estranged brother, and next time—
No. There doesn’t need to be a next time. He’s slept, he can do this.
It does feel better to be dressed, but he keeps the comforter around him anyway. Leaving his shoes on the floor, he folds his legs under him to sit on the bed with his back against the headboard, wrapped in layers upon layers of cloth, and that’s where he is when Stan returns with two large mugs of hot, black tea.
Stan hands one of them wordlessly to Ford, then sits down on the edge of the bed as far from Ford as possible. “I’d really want something stronger,” he mumbles, sipping the tea. “But I didn’t find any, and it probably wouldn’t be good for you anyway.”
“You’re right, it wouldn’t.” Alcohol tends to make Ford drowsy. It’s the last thing he needs.
Another moment of silence. Stan breaks it. “Most people would just tell you to see a shrink.”
Ford shakes his head. “They couldn’t help me.” They couldn’t and they wouldn’t. He doesn’t know who Bill has already talked to, who would take one look at his fingers and tie him up again and use him for a freak and a toy and the thought of going out to see anyone makes his stomach turn.
“Yeah, I never believed in shrinks, either.”
The tea is just some cheap brand left from Fiddleford’s stash, brewed a little too long, but it’s hot, and it fills Ford’s empty stomach. He’d like to stay like this for longer, but he knows what he has to do. “You need to leave,” he tells Stan, and saying it hurts, because he’s starting to feel warmer, better, and he doesn’t think Stan is going to turn against him. But he can’t let him stay, there’s only one way to end this and Stan can’t be here then.
Stan shakes his head, gaze downcast into his tea. “I can’t leave you like this.”
Ford glances at his boarded-up window and remembers the snow. Stan most likely isn’t referring to that, but nevertheless he’s right. It would be difficult for him to leave now, especially at night. He’s stuck here at least until tomorrow morning. Ford’s hands tense around the teacup, trying to accommodate for this fact. He allows himself a bit of relief at not having to be alone with Bill for a while longer. It doesn’t change anything. “You can stay until tomorrow,” he says. “But no longer.”
Stan doesn’t take that well. “Why? Because you have an evil alter ego in your head that just tried to molest both of us?” He sounds bitter, turning his tea in his hands.
The image of Stan having him pinned against the bed floats up again unbidden, and Ford takes another sip to keep from shuddering. He doesn’t want to know what prompted that, only that Stan didn’t go through with it. And didn’t want to. “I told you there’s nothing you can do for me,” he says.
“You told me you’d explain what’s going on.”
He did say that, but he doesn’t know how he could. “You wouldn’t believe me.”
“Try me.”
Ford is hugging the cup to his chest, trying to think. He wants to brush Stanley off, because he knows it’s all going to sound like mad ravings, and there’s a part of him that wants to make Stan leave immediately, push him back into the snowy night if he has to, just so he can finish what needs to be done while he has the energy and determination to do it right.
At the same time, he yearns to tell him. To share the burden, if only for a short while. To have someone know what he did, understand why he needs to end it. Maybe even remember him when he’s gone. Perhaps that’s too much to ask for, but he can try.
“Si—Stanford?”
“Yes, I’m just—I just don’t know where to begin.”
Stan looks in Ford’s direction now, but he doesn’t meet his eyes. “That other person in your head. How did that start?”
Ford takes a deep breath. “His name is Bill Cipher.” His voice is barely more than a whisper, but saying it out loud is a small weight off his chest. He takes a sip of tea to ground himself. “He’s not an alter ego or alternate personality sprung from my own mind. You might think I’m insane, but I’m not, at least not in that way. Bill was—” He stops, trying to think of a way to put this. “I came to Gravity Falls to study the anomalous and supernatural. A couple of years ago I used an old incantation to summon an incorporeal being that presented himself as a muse.”
Stanley doesn’t comment, but he’s obviously listening.
“I wanted to believe him when he said I was special. Brilliant. One in a billion, too good for this world. Destined for something great. I—” Damn it, he’s trembling again. He tries to relax, but he can’t believe he used to think that he was something, that he used to think Bill was sincere and not laughing behind his back. “I learned too late that he’s not a muse at all. By then I’d already agreed to let him—let him possess me. Whenever I’m asleep.”
Stan nods, slowly.
“He’s a demon.” It feels good to say that out loud, too. “And I do mean that literally, or as literally as it comes. He hails from a world he calls the Nightmare Realm, not much different from the mythological Hell. He wants to open the gates between our worlds so that he can cross here physically and remake our world in his image. He’s been using me to make that happen. I helped him prepare the end of the world. If I can’t stop him, everyone on Earth will suffer.”
“Ford...”
Ford grips the teacup tightly in both hands. Stan is frowning. Skeptical. “You don’t believe me, do you?” Why would he? Just because it’s real doesn’t mean it sounds believable to someone who hasn’t lived it, and Stan said he didn’t believe in shrinks, but he could still—he could decide that Ford has lost it and bring other people here and Ford doesn’t know who are just waiting for a sign to force themselves on him again and—
“Ford!” Stan’s voice cuts through the clogging panic. “Snap out of it!”
The teacup has fallen over, spilling the remains of the tea on the mattress. He’s useless, he can’t even hold a cup of tea, and if that happens with the explosives he won’t be able to save anything. Stanley is looking at him like he’s dying and no, yes, he’s not breathing. He steels himself and takes a shuddering breath, but it breaks into a sob. He tries again.
“Just breathe,” Stanley says, but he’s trying to breathe. “Come on, bro. It’s okay. No one’s gonna hurt you.”
Ford clutches the comforter around himself and tries not to think about what would happen, what could happen, will happen. There’s no one here now. Just Stanley, and when Ford finally manages to breathe steadily enough to look up, he finds Stan leaning towards him and staring at him with some kind of panicked worry. But not touching him.
When Ford meets his eyes, Stan exhales, averting his face. “You okay?” he asks, softly.
Ford spends a few more moments trying to get himself under control, wiping the tears welling in his eyes away. It’s ridiculous that he can’t make his body function properly even when no one is touching him. Stan would be right to despise him. “Do you believe me?” he asks, not answering his brother’s question.
Stan leans forward, away from Ford, and rubs his eyes with the heels of his palms. “I don’t—it’s a little wild,” he admits, and Ford tenses again, but he goes on. “But there was definitely something weird about your eyes that changed when you turned back to yourself, and—well, I want to believe that wasn’t you. Or your subconscious or whatever.” He grimaces, then pulls his face into a smile. “Besides, it sounds like your kind of trouble. Dealing with demons, causing the end of the world, that kind of stuff. Not getting on the wrong side of the mobs or syndicates like regular mortals.” He laughs weakly.
“It’s freakish,” Ford says coldly. Just like his hands, just like his whole existence. “I know.”
“I didn’t mean—”
“No, of course not.” Ford leans back against the headboard. “But I am a regular mortal. No, I’m—” He licks his lips, voice almost breaking. “—I’m less than that.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Ford doesn’t reply. He shouldn’t have said that, shouldn’t have admitted as much. At the same time, it’s the truth. He pushes himself off the bed, reluctantly dropping the comforter and pressing his feet into his shoes to stand where Stan stood before, by the wall, hands clenched behind his back to stop them from trembling. He’s going to make Stanley understand. “Come,” he says, motioning for Stan to get up. “I’ll show you something.”
Stan’s eyes are already widening as Ford ushers him through the security door and down the short flight of stairs to the elevator. “You do have money, at least,” he mutters.
“I had a research grant,” Ford corrects. “I wasted it.” He hasn’t written anything for the board since before he started working on the portal, and that’s such a mundane problem that it seems to belong to a different world. Entering the code for the elevator to take them to the lowest level, he adds, “I never made any millions, either. Pa was wrong about both of us.”
Emerging into the basement, Ford feels the chill even sharper than the last time he was here. The rows of blinking computers—only half of which Ford understands properly—seem to be taunting him, as if the demons are already here. At least the shadows only look like shadows. Hopefully, the hours of sleep have made his eyes more trustworthy. He still feels Bill’s eye on him for every step.
Stanley looks—wary. As if he’s picking up on the ominousness in the air, and Ford hopes he does. This place is wrong, in a visceral sense, and all the work he’s put into it is nothing but so much groveling before a demon.
The portal itself dominates the far chamber, an immense inverted triangle, dwarfing anything and anyone that approaches. The hole in the middle is dark, but Ford knows how easily that could change, how easily the machine could break reality apart.
“You built this?” Stanley asks.
Ford nods, keeping his back straight. “Yes. I built it, but I didn’t design it. It’s based on ‘inspiration’ from Bill.” He can feel the bitterness in his own voice.
“Yeah, I can believe that,” Stan says. “The fancy elevator back there—that was your style. This—not so much.”
Ford hadn’t stopped to think of it that way before, but Stan is right, of course. Bill had been too eager to get it done to accept any alterations of the shape, and certainly none of Ford’s personal touches. Perhaps that is just as well. He did pour his soul into it, but at least the machine that would end the world doesn’t cater to his personal sense of aesthetics. It seems like a bad joke, but it’s something.
“Your demon likes triangles?”
“What—” The question seems strange, as if Stan knows more than he should, but the portal is triangular. “He does, yes.”
“So what does it do?”
“It’s a portal,” Ford explains. “A punched hole through the very fabric of the universe. I was misled to believe it would connect to anywhere, an infinity of new dimensions to explore.”
“Mmh.” Stan looks down. “Sounds fun.”
“It was supposed to be another giant leap for mankind, or so I was told. But in fact, Bill made sure the hole it creates leads directly to the Nightmare Realm.”
“To create that hell on Earth you were talking about.”
“Exactly.”
Stan goes to sit down on one of the stabilizers, and Ford is again hit by the possibility that he isn’t listening, that he doesn’t believe a word of what Ford says, but he looks thoughtful. “Alright,” he says. “You win. You’re better than me at fucking up, too.” He’s half-smiling, but the joke isn’t funny.
“Is that supposed to be reassuring?”
“No.” He grimaces. “I’m just trying not to freak out at the giant hell portal.” He looks back up at the machine. “Is it finished?”
“Yes. I could turn it on now. Bill said something about waiting for the right moment, but it could be any time.”
“Can he open it from the other side?”
“I don’t know.” He hopes not, but he can’t say it would be beyond Bill to install such a capacity, and even if he didn’t, all he has to do is to use Ford in a moment of weakness. Or manipulate someone else to break in, though that’s why Ford keeps all those locks.
“So it’s like a doomsday weapon about to fire. And the problem is to destroy it before the demon uses it. Am I right?”
“Yes!” Ford gestures emphatically with his hands. “That is exactly the problem! I need to destroy it, fast enough that Bill can’t stop me. Do you understand now why you can’t be here?”
Stan blinks. “No?” He looks confused, and Ford glares at him. “I’m pretty sure that’s something I could help you with.”
“You can’t!” He still doesn’t get it, he doesn’t get what he’s looking at, how long it would take to break it apart piece by piece, what Bill can do. Ford paces a few steps to the left, then back again. “This isn’t some high school project that can just be pulled apart when you feel like it!”
“Don’t,” Stan says, almost dangerously low, and for a moment Ford doesn’t know what he’s talking about, but then it comes back to him why Stanley was originally thrown out, and he freezes.
“High school was a long time ago,” he says.
“Yeah.” Stan draws a deep breath. “Is that why you don’t want to accept my help?”
“That has nothing to do with it!” That’s ridiculous, Ford might have been furious with Stan for that incident, but it’s completely irrelevant to present circumstances. Ford paces again, not looking directly at Stan, but not looking away either. “You can’t help because the portal can’t be picked apart by your bare hands! I’ve tried. Removing the fuel, disabling important circuits. Bill fixed it as soon as I closed my eyes. And I can’t—” He doesn’t even dare to do that much anymore, not since Bill demonstrated to him what would be the consequences.
“So use a blowtorch! Or a power drill, or—I don’t know, there has to be something.”
“There is,” Ford says. “I plan to use explosives.” There’s something that tightens inside him when he says it, but admitting it also feels like a relief, and Stan needs to understand. He paces back and forth again. “It needs to be destroyed in one fell swoop, before Bill can act against it. I’m going to need a couple of hours to jury-rig a set of explosives. The idea is to blow the whole basement up, destroying the portal along with the house and everything else. You can’t be here then.”
“That’s a waste of a house,” Stan says flatly, but he looks tense.
“That’s fine. I won’t need it anymore.”
Stan twitches, hands clenching in his lap. “You plan to be down here,” he says slowly, “when you set it off.” It’s almost a question, but not quite.
“Yes.” Even if he was able to set it off in some other way, he wouldn’t.
Stanley stands abruptly. “If you think I’m going to go away and let you kill yourself—” He’s close to Ford, hands shaking but not quite reaching out for him, and Ford reflexively takes a step back.
“Why shouldn’t I?” Why should that matter to Stan? They haven’t even met in a decade. They’re not a part of each other’s lives, and Stan obviously has his own troubles, so the only thing that should matter here is that Ford is fixing his own mistakes. His life means nothing, objectively. Bill made sure he knows that. And if he survives, Bill will have no reason to hold back, and he can still feel the hands on him and in him and he can’t. He just can’t. The explosion will end it cleanly, if only he can make sure it takes out the portal and himself both.
Stan makes a frustrated sound. “Because you’re my brother! I don’t care if you’ve made a deal with the devil! If I can fucking stay alive, then so can you!”
“You don’t understand! Bill isn’t going to let me take the portal apart piece by piece, and I can’t stay awake indefinitely!”
“So let me help you!”
“I don’t have—There’s nothing—Bill has—” He’s sputtering, trying to find the words to explain without explaining, and he realizes his breaths are hitching as if he’s starting to sob, and no, he’s already made enough of a spectacle of himself in front of Stan. He refuses to break down again.
Stan’s hands turn to fists at his sides. “There are humans threatening you, too,” he says. “Aren’t there?”
“In a way,” Ford admits. He tightens his fingers around his shoulder, feeling bruises under his clothes. “Bill is incorporeal so far, but he has a way with people, and some are willing to—do things.” He takes a deep breath, only slightly shuddering. He doesn’t deserve help, and he doesn’t want Stan to get involved, to risk Bill’s ire, too.
But he’s not going to leave unless he understands why. “Bill showed me very clearly what will happen if I defy him,” Ford explains. “I can’t let him destroy the world, but—”
Stan sinks back down on the stabilizer. “Ford,” he says. “Come here, sit down.”
“Why?”
“Because I want to punch someone, but I don’t want to punch you, and it’s easier if we’re both sitting,” he says tightly.
Ford sits down a foot from Stan. It still hurts a bit to sit on his ass, so he pulls a leg up to cushion himself.
They’re both looking forward, not straight at each other. It’s easier that way.
“Is that why you changed your mind about letting me help?”
Ford nods. “I wanted you to help me hide some of my research, which includes part of the blueprint for the portal. But there’s no point in trying to preserve that. I’m going to destroy all of it.” He looks down at his hands. Too many fingers.
“Who do I need to murder?”
“I don’t see—”
“Who—” Stan stops, takes a deep breath. “Who raped you?”
Ford twitches. How does he know? What did Bill tell him? “I didn’t say—”
“Tell me if I’m wrong.”
He forces himself to breathe. “You’re not wrong.”
Stan makes a strange sound in his throat. “So, who?”
“I don’t know.” Ford swallows. “They didn’t introduce themselves.”
“They didn’t—of course they didn’t.” Stan is almost growling the words. “Can you tell me when and where? How many of them? I could dig them out.” He sounds almost as if he believes it would make a difference if he did murder those particular men, but it wouldn’t, and Ford wouldn’t be able to identify them anyway.
“It doesn’t matter. It could have been anyone. It could be everyone. There’s no one I can trust.”
Stan makes a choking sound. “Ford—” He looks up, meeting Ford’s eyes. “Can’t you—” His voice is much softer than before, but it’s cracking. “Please. I know I’m kind of a shitty person overall, but—Can’t you trust me?” He sounds earnest, but he still doesn’t understand. The problem isn’t if Stan can be trusted or not, the problem is that Bill has a hold on Ford and Ford has no control of what Bill does, or what he makes other people do. And there will be no problem if Ford can only rig the explosives right.
“I can’t say I understand what you’re going through,” Stan continues when Ford remains silent. “But—well, there was this one time in prison, when I got cornered by a couple of guys in the showers. They were bigger than me, thought I’d be easy prey. Turns out I was stronger than they expected, so I fought them off and nothing actually happened. Still spent the rest of the time terrified that they’d try again.”
Something stirs in Ford at the thought of his brother in prison, fighting for his life, and Ford never even knew about it. There’s so much he never knew about, and it’s too late, now.
“It was four days ago,” he says, forcing himself to talk, straining to keep his voice even. “I must have fallen asleep. I woke up tied to a table. Surrounded by strangers, I think they were all men. I don’t know how many in total, but there were six of them who—they made a point of that number.” He holds out a hand. “The rest of them just. Touched. And watched. They laughed when I—when I begged them to stop.” His voice isn’t even any longer. His shoulders are shaking, too.
“Shh,” Stan says. He’s right next to Ford and somehow that’s a good thing. It keeps him in the now. “You don’t have to tell me.”
He doesn’t have to, but he should. “I managed to escape when they were done,” he says. “I found my car, but I was driving blindly for a while. I’m not sure where I was. But the point is—” He wraps his arms tighter around himself. “—the point is that Bill arranged that. I don’t know how, but if he can make people do that once, he can do it again, and he—he told me that if I stop him from using the portal, he’s not going to hold back. There are so many people who’d be willing—and I don’t even know who they are. I couldn’t—I can’t—I can’t let Bill destroy the world, but he’s inside my head and able to convince people to do that and I can’t defend myself. Do you understand now?”
“Yeah.” Ford is so tense that he isn’t sure, but Stan seems to have gone rigid by his side, too. “I get it.”
“Good.” He slumps slightly, then shudders.
“I get it, but that doesn’t mean I’m gonna accept it.”
“What do you mean?” Ford asks, too quickly.
“Ford. Do you want to die?”
The question stings, because he doesn’t, not really, but the alternatives are worse. “It’s the only way.”
“That’s not—” Stan breath hitches. His fists are shaking in his lap. “Dammit, Ford, I don’t want you to die! I see you for the first time in over ten years, and you’re a wreck, and you’re about to kill yourself! I always thought you were doing well! If I’d know you were in trouble I could’ve—Ford.” He takes a shaky breath. “Please let me help you.”
He should say no. It’s unrealistic. It will just drag things out. “How?” he asks instead.
Stan swallows, straightens his back. “Let’s disable the doomsday machine for now, just cut some wires or something, you can point it out to me. And then—look. You said you can’t defend yourself, but I can. And I’m gonna. Your demon isn’t in my mind, so he can’t do shit to me, and if he tries to sic people on you—look, I told you I’ve got some experience getting out of dodge. I’ll help you get out of this one. I’m not gonna let anyone hurt you, I swear. I can help you get more sleep, I won’t let him out again now that I know about it. And food. I’ll get you some goddamn food. Doesn’t matter if you have money, I know how to rob convenience stores. You’re gonna be okay, just let me help you.”
Ford sits for several seconds, staring blankly at nothing, trying to let what Stan is saying to sink in. It seems unrealistic. He’s so tired, and blowing everything up is the only solution he’s seen. But he did have that brief fantasy of Stanley protecting him, and it seems childish and irresponsible to ask for something like that, but he’s offering. But Stan shouldn’t have to put himself in danger for Ford’s sake, especially not after so many years without contact. Ford is not worth it.
“You have your own life.”
Stan shakes his head. “Not gonna leave you here to kill yourself to get back to my own so-called life as a mostly homeless petty criminal, no.”
Ford doesn’t know what to say about that. “I’m sorry,” he says.
“Not your fault.” Stan pauses. “I’m sorry for breaking your science project. I didn’t mean to, but I did, and I’m sorry.”
Something about this strikes Ford as utterly ridiculous, and then he’s laughing under his breath. Or perhaps crying. He’s not sure.
“It’s gonna be okay,” Stan says, and yes, Ford is probably crying. He doesn’t mean to. “There’s gotta be some way to exorcise that demon. Or put up a psychic barrier. Or something. We’ll figure it out.”
Ford doesn’t know if that is possible, but for the first time since right after the betrayal, it feels like a worthwhile idea. If he can sleep—if Stanley can make sure no one else comes here—there might be enough time. To try.
He realizes that he’s leaning his head on his brother’s shoulder, and it doesn’t feel disgusting or violating, but safe. He takes a chance and wraps his arms around Stanley, squeezing him tight. Stan makes a small gasp of surprise, but quickly returns the embrace, and it’s alright. He’s warm and familiar and Bill was lying. He’s not a threat at all. He can help.
Ford buries his face in his twin brother’s shoulder and cries, but that’s okay.
He’s going to be okay.