goodguygrifter | (no subject)

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Good old Route 20. It starts in Boston and stretches all the way out to some-fucking-where in Oregon, and it's one of - if not The - the longest road in these great and United States. Stan knows that, because over the past few years Stan has learned a little thing or two about highways. Highways take you over state lines, they take you out of local cop jurisdiction, they take you toward your next big break. By this point highways and Stan are kinda' old friends. This one he don't know that well - not that he don't head up north sometimes, but he tries to stay lower, where the nights are warmer and he don't have to use up so much gas workin' the heater so hard.

Good old Route 20. Taking him away from - god, or more like God, the real big guns, upper case G-O-D 'cause there's been a time or two in the past, the past however long where Stan thinks he mighta' caught himself mid prayer, not that he's ever been a praying kinda' guy, especially not for a while, but sometimes shit just happens. He thinks a part of him might still be at it right now. If that feeling really is a part of him still praying he don't know why he's doing it or what he might be praying for but he don't stop himself, because oh, oh sweet baby Moses if there's a guy in a hundred miles who needs a miracle more than Stan Pines - or Stu Oakley, the latest in a long line of gen-u-ine home made fake IDs - then that poor bastard's earned it.

This rest stop might be the big break he's looking for. Not a huge break, but you take 'em where you can find 'em and he mighta' found it now because whichever armpit of the US he's tucked all snug into right now decided not to give their taxpayer funded state-welcome-and-rest-area working lamps over the parking lots. Stan hardly looks around, just keeps hobbling right over the curb and for once he ain't thinkin' about how he'd come off if anyone saw, he's not thinking about the extreme roadrash wide and red over his legs and his forearms and the backs of his hands, or the blood that dripped and dried from high up on his forehead where he didn't get his hands far up enough, or that one shoe he lost to who knows where, or anything. He just makes a beeline for the nearest car, yanks at the handle, and this sure is the big break because it comes right open, he stumbles back with how easy it comes open and kneels and makes a noise because fuck, what's left of the skin on his back really don't wanna' move like that and whatever's caked into the mess he's made of his knees sure don't want company, but this is his big break and he's not going to fuck it up and he's going to reach under the wheel and he's going to get those wires and he is gonna' go go go, and he is gonna' meet up with his good old friend the highway of Route 20 and he is going to be okay and he is going to be gone.

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It's possible that Ford may or may not have made a slight error in judgement, thinking he'd be fine driving for a grand total of eighteen hours in one day. It's also possible, you know, hypothetically, that he let his enthusiasm get the better of him, and in his effort to not waste any time getting to Oregon, he may have stretched himself a bit thin. Possibly.

He finds himself needing to blink a few times at the payphone, his eyes not wanting to focus or even stay open long enough for him to dial home. He slips a hand beneath his glasses, rubbing hard at his closed lids in an effort to wake himself up a bit, as the phone jammed between his shoulder and ear continues to ring.

He promised Ma he'd call her, give her an update every now and again until he made it safely to his new place. She had made a point of laying the guilt on thick before he left, to make damn sure he called - told him how she needed to be able to know at least one of her boys wasn't dead in a ditch somewhere.

That'd shut Ford up pretty quick. He had wanted to protest, tell Ma she was being overprotective, that he could take care of himself just fine - but the look on her face, the tone of her voice - he couldn't argue against that.

So here he is, half falling asleep in the middle of a reststop in the middle of bumbfuck nowhere, waiting for his mother to pick up the phone so he can stop feeling guilty for not calling her two hours ago like he said he would.

Finally, after the sixth ring, he hears that familiar voice firing off prices for a psychic reading, and a tired smile works its way onto his face.

"Hi Mom." He begins, and after that he can hardly get a word in edge-wise because his mother is if nothing else a talker.

She asks about his trip, how he's been, if he's been eating enough. She asks if he's seen anything interesting since he's been on the road, chatters on and on about this lovely young lady she met at Temple, and you have been going to Temple haven't you, and yes, Ma'am, no Ma'am, it's good to hear from you too Mom, love you, bye.

Once he can finally hang up the payphone, Ford can't help but let out a deep, relieved sigh. As much as he loves his mother, conversations with her can be...exhausting, for a lack of a better word. Besides, he was starting to run out of change to keep the call going. Another minute or two and their conversation would've had to end out of necessity.

His business at the rest stop finished, Ford turns to head back to his car, not wanting to spend longer out in this chilly weather than he absolutely must. It's not long, however, before he notices something off - he squints, unsure if his tired eyes can really be trusted to tell him what's actually going on in the dark.

That...doesn't look right. Ford slowly comes to a stop, the hair on the back of his neck standing on end as a chill runs through him. What the - who the hell is that? What the fuck is going on?

"Hey." He wets his lips, gathering the courage to speak up a little louder. "Hey!"

Jesus, there's no one else around for miles, there are no other cars in this lot - hes' completely alone. Just him, and whoever the fuck is skulking around his car.

Part of him wonders if he shouldn't have spoken up, if he should have just headed back to the payphone and called the cops. It's too late to do that now, though - he's already called attention to himself. Fuck. Fuck.

Not even a minute ago, he told his mother he was fine, and now he's gone and made a liar out of himself.

Stan's whole body jerks back, it would shudder but he don't give it time, he ain't even looking at the guy, for all his wide eyes are pointed more or less toward him. He just reaches around beside him and grabs one of the big chunks of plastic lying there, whatever it is that was covering those wires that are gonna' take Stan where he wants to go and he squeezes, and the cuts he got pullin' all that plastic off split a little wider and he don't care, he almost don't notice, all he notices is that one thought, can't screw up can't screw this chance up can't screw it up and "You back off!" and his voice is high and thready and loud, like someone snapped his volume knob off. It probably came off with all that skin inside his mouth, it probably happened when he fucked his tongue up and fucked his words up and they come out so weird now, stupid-sounding like Stan's got a heavy lisp and don't know how to use it, so he yells again, shaking the big sharp plastic in his hand like it means something. "You back offa' me! You go back, back, back to, to- Fuck off!" He waves the plastic a little, off to the side where those lights are, he don't look at 'em too much but they look nice, nice and safe all lit up. Like somewhere he's gonna' be, once he gets this done. Once this joker gets gone. Yeah. Yeah. Then it'll be fine.

He should have called the cops, sweet baby Moses in a basket, he should've called the cops because now he's got some crazy raving lunatic trying to do God knows what with his car and he could be armed and oh god he never prepared for something like this to happen -

Ford takes a half-step back, moving his hands out in front of him like he's trying to placate a wild animal - which he may as well be. That sure feels like what he's doing, dealing with this maniac.

"H-hold on, hold on." He begins, and damn if his voice doesn't waver a little in the middle. "Don't - let's not do anything crazy, okay?"

He can already feel regret welling up inside him as he takes a step forward, then another, each slow and cautious, like he's walking on eggshells. Or active landmines, more like. Four steps is all he manages before he stops dead in his tracks - not because he loses his nerve, but because something about the way the figure looks in the faint glow from the car's dome light stops him cold.

He blinks, waiting for his eyes to adjust, for the image he's seeing to reconfigure itself into what it really is. Because what he's seeing now, it has to be a trick of the light, or his brain filling in the blanks in his vision by making up what he can't see. Yeah, it has to be that. It has to be. This is all just some great big fucked up coincidence, is all.

Ford tells himself that, tells it to himself over and over inside his head like maybe if he does it enough he'll believe it, and that gnawing feeling of dread rising up in his throat that tastes an awful lot like bile will go away. Preferably before the sick, queasy feeling in his stomach comes to a head and he empties it all over the crudely paved parking lot.

He stands there, stares unblinking at the shadowed figure raving like a madman, and feels the color drain from his face as his mouth moves of its own accord and asks a question he already knows the answer to.

"--W-wait. Stanley? Are you--my God, Lee, is that you?"

Stan's eyes are huge now, he only knows his mouth is hanging open when something comes dripping out of it, drool, blood, he hunches over, spits half out, ends up swallowing the other half, almost chokes on it and once he looks back up again it's still there, tall, healthy, glasses and all, looking just like Stan always thought he would. Sounding just like him, too, and Stan's scrambling forward, tearing some of those scabs on his legs and knees open, staggering up, feeling that part of his mind that he didn't dare to touch opening up because he'll let himself pray, sure, 'cause the big guy in the sky's someone he knows ain't comin' and that part of him's been all boxed up since the moment those big guys put their big arms over his shoulders like pals and steered him toward the back of their teeny old car but it's opening up now.

"Hot damn," he says, tongue thick enough to fill up his whole mouth, moving like it ain't got enough room but moving, anyway, because you just fucking try to keep Stan Pines from talkin'. "Whatever they cut, cut that shit with, it, it-" maybe that's what he says, or maybe he just sobs, maybe he does both, a big sob that hunches him forward and sends a little more of that blood-drool leaking between his teeth and rolling over his lip but he tries to grab that shirt in front of him even when another sob comes out, tries to pull back toward that car because even a real granddaddy of a hallucination like this don't mean he don't have to move move, "move, go, gotta' go, you, you're the kinda' hallucination that sticks around, right, I, I had a friend, I knew a guy, thought he was talkin' to uh, that guy from uh, that movie with the aliens and the, the ships for like, three days straight one time," he falls to his knees in front of the dashboard again, makes that little noise because his fuckin' knees, his legs, "'cause I, I really need, I'll just call you once I get away far enough and hear your voice for a sec but uh, 'till then you and me can be road buddies, right? Ah, shit!" and he pulls his hand back to his chest and cradles it, stupid, babying his hand just 'cause of a stupid zap from a stupid wire that won't stay still no matter how many times he tries to grab it, and he stretches his other hand out to try and grab it again 'cause, "they're gonna', they're gonna' get here I can't, I can't walk that fast I, I need to go, I just, if I can just-" that wire's right there, and that other one's right there, and if he can just, he can just-

This one time, when he was just a kid, Ford had a real bad time in the boxing ring. He had a lot of those, bad times that is, but this one always stood out in his mind as particularly awful. There he was - getting his ass kicked like usual, because that's just what happens when you throw a ten year old in the ring with someone two weight classes above them - and he's standing there with blood pouring out his nose, and he can feel a few baby teeth wiggling around behind his mouth guard, knocked loose from a particularly hard hit.

One eye's swollen shut, he wants to just throw in the towel because he lost this round before it even started, but his dad is over there watching in the corner and if he gives in he'll never hear the end of it, so he just stands there and takes it even though every fiber of his being aches and all he wants to do is leave.

That's more or less how he feels now, only this is worse somehow. It's worse because there's no one kicking the shit out of him, it's just his brother standing there like he doesn't know who he is, like he doesn't think he's real, and there's nowhere for him to run where that image won't follow him.

So he stands there, frozen, his expression that of a man who doesn't know whether to be horrified by what he's seeing, or deny that he's seeing it all in order to preserve his sanity and emotional well being. Eventually the former response wins out, and that queasy, jittery feeling that he was gonna be sick comes back with a vengeance.

"Jesus. Jesus Christ, Stanley, what are you -" He stumbles forward, damn near triping over himself to scramble over towards his brother before he can - Ford doesn't even know. He doesn't know what Stan is doing, or what he's doing himself. All he knows is that he has to get over to his brother now, and the rest he can figure out later.

The need to move, move, move, to go go go and be gone, dissolves into something deeper and greater, when Ford, when he sees his brother close to him lookin' all well off, all big and grown up, like the guy Stan knew but more. There's a bigger need there, one that's been digging even deeper into him than the need to go, the need to move and never stop moving and once that big grown up Ford gets close enough Stan clutches at his clothes again and pulls at him again and tries to hallucinate all close up and a sob breaks out of him again because it's so real, he gets what all those people mean when they're all into their visions and sayin' they met Ghandi or some shit, because it's just like if his brother, his big brother, "You always liked to say you were the older one, the big, the big brother. What if you didn't care that I screwed up, what if, if you went after me and found me before, before um, jeez, Ford, it was so hot in there, that was the thing, it was so hot and it smelled like dirty socks and BO, it smelled like me and it tasted like rust, and the high hit halfway through and it was all, it was all-"

He lets himself lean forward, let someone else take his weight for once, take all the stains where the bloody drool oozes down out of Stan's mouth whenever he tries to force words out around the mass of screaming fuck that his mouth's decided to be right now, he closes his eyes and he sags and, for a second, for just a second, he lets himself believe.

Or, well, he tries. There's still that part of him that wakes up whenever he runs a con, the part that remembers what's a lie so the rest of Stanley, heart and soul, can keep on believing whatever shit he just spouted so it comes out sounding real. Well, he's gonna' con himself right now, if that's as close as he's gonna' get, that's fine. Stan Pines knows a big break when he sees one, and he can't count on getting a chance like this again.

He wants to make good on that chance, say something, all the things he always wanted to say to Ford, all the things he thought, late at night, that maybe, just maybe, and then shut those thoughts away once the sun started to rise, he wants to say all those things but his thick tongue can't get any of it out around the sobs because guess what, if he can't run if he can't go go go and he can't fight and if Ford's here in front of him, something his here and safe - well, maybe it's okay. Maybe it's okay. He lets himself sob, lets himself curl up against his big brother, his older brother, the brother who has his shit together because maybe, just this once, just for a little bit, Stan Pines can get exactly what he wants.

"Come for me. Come for me, Ford, please, please, I know I screwed up but I promise I can make it right, I can make it all right if I can just, just live through today, if I live a little longer I can figure out how to make up for everything. You'll see, just stick around and I'll make it worth it, just pretend you're still here 'till I get my feet back under me. Just, Ford, wherever you are, please. Please."

There it is. He was wondering what he was praying for, earlier, and look at Stan doin' it right this time. That musta' been why those prayers weren't coming true earlier, he was just putting 'em in the wrong mailbox.

Jesus. Jesus fucking Christ, he's never sworn so much using the name of a deity he doesn't even believe in so much in his life.

He makes his way over, he gets over to that mess on the ground that looks too much like his brother and sure enough the closer he gets the surer he is that it's him, it's Stanley, looking worse than he ever did back when they still got their noses bloodied every time they stepped into the gym.

His clothes are in shreds, his skin is too, and god there's so much blood up close, the smell of it so thick he can taste it on his tongue like an old penny and fuck, fuck, fuck this can't be happening.

It's like he walked into an episode of the Twilight Zone - everything was all nice and normal, then suddenly a shitshow was dropped into his lap out of the blue, and now he's gotta dance for the camera and show the audience how he deals with having his world turned on its ear.

Stan's babbling now, he's saying things that don't make sense, things that make too much sense that Ford doesn't wanna look too closely at right now, things he can't stop to consider because his brother is bleeding and probably - probably overdosing on who fucking knows what. Ford tries not to listen too much, tries not to let everything Stan is saying tear down what little composure he's managing to hold onto, because he needs to have his shit together right now. He needs to - Stan's saying it himself, he's, he's the big brother, he's got to fix this. He's got to find a way to make this right. He's got to do something, he's, he has to have a plan -

He finds himself taking hold of Stan's shoulders, his eyes wild more than a little wet at the edges. He has no goddamn idea what he's doing but it's something and, and he has to know what to do. He has to figure it out.

"Stanley, Stanley, it's okay, you're okay, look at me." His voice is tight when he speaks, and more than a little frantic. If he sounds like he's holding onto his vague semblance of calm by a thread, well, it's because he is.

"I'm here, okay? I'm here. I - we need to get you to a hospital, you need a doctor, a real one, not - goddamn it, twelve doctorates and not one of them in medicine, fuck me."

"Nah," Stan says, slow and relaxed, because that voice saying he's okay, Ford's voice telling Stan that he's here and that Stan is okay, it's like years of missed lullabies all at once, the cure for nights and nights and nights and days and days and days and fear and guilt and everything else, it's the cure he never thought he'd get, the one he's always been sure, never let himself think too hard but always been sure, would come out and fix everything. Ford's here. Kinda' sorta'. There's somethin' here, somethin' telling Stan's brain that the one person he's ever been able to trust is going to fix everything and Stan lets himself lean into it, wanting to resist those hands trying to pull him up just enough to stop trying to sit up at all and try to fall forward some more and maybe let his head lay on that shoulder, that shoulder that oughta' be Ford's, where it's safe. "Not fuckin' you unless I get to put a bag over your head first."

He snickers, quietly, his mush mouthed, lisping voice slipping away a little, going off on its own now that everything that really needs to be said is out, now that everything's okay so long as whatever it is runnin' through his head showing him this ain't worn off yet. "I bet that joke don't work anymore, huh? I bet you do look just like this, like you used to but more. And me, uh- I ain't a doctor but I played one on TV so trust me, I'll be fine. Always wondered if you seen any of those commercials. I hope not. You oughta' never see me like this."

"Be fine," he mumbles, his eyelids starting to dip down, all the terror and zip and go go go drained out of him because to believe that everything's gonna' be alright he's got to act like it, because if he acts like it then it is. "If they find me. It's fine. Jus', just stay, long as you can. I'll be alright."

A stray noise finds its way out, the kind of noise he realized he was makin' walking down the road and realizing he was missing one of his goddamn shoes, the whine chases its way out after the others because maybe all the fear ain't shaken out of him just yet and because Ford's here to help, he's off somewhere far away makin' his mark on the world and he's here, keeping Stan up while the couple scrapes on his butt bleed all over the concrete.

"I'll fight 'em off this time," he says, still mumbling, his voice all determination and tremble. "You know I can do it. You'll see."

This isn't how Ford imagined he and Stan would meet again. In the hundreds of thousands of scenarios he had run through his mind, over and over during those long sleepless nights spent staring at the ceiling or the wall, wondering where his brother was and how he was doing, wondering if maybe he was thinking about him too - in all that time, not once did Ford ever think things would turn out like this.

He's not sure if that speaks to his lack of creativity, or the mercy of his mind for not plaguing him with something so fucking awful. Because that's what this is, all of it, it's all one great big heaping shitshow of a situation and there's no right answer to how to handle it. This isn't like an equation, where all the numbers will add up the right way so long as you know the algorithm. There's no A, B, C or All Of The Above, there's no graphs or diagrams or anything that would give him an idea of how to proceed, how to respond to all of this, how to fix it.

All he has to fall back on is his deductive reasoning, which would probably be a lot more helpful if he could get his mind to stop screaming and firing off a hundred different thoughts all at once, each of them set to the tone of Jesus Fucking Christ.

"Stan." Fuck, fuck there's so much blood, it looks like someone took a grater to his skin, it looks like his mouth got in a fight with a blender and lost, God, what the hell, what the fuck-- "Stan we need to get you to a hospital."

He's shocked by how calm his voice sounds, surprised that the voice he hears is even coming out of him. He sure as hell doesn't feel calm - he feels like screaming, like running till his legs give out and just having a goddamn meltdown wherever he drops. He can't do that though, he can't do any of that because Stan needs him, he needs someone who has their shit together enough to help him, so that's what Ford's gonna be.

"Come on, come on get up." He moves forward, one arm slipping over Stan's shoulders while his free hand moves to press against his chest, because God help him he looks like he's gonna pitch forward and land on his face any second otherwise. "We've gotta go, Stan, we've gotta get you in the car."

"Look at you, helpin' me out," he mutters, standing obediently and making a noise when he does, when moving makes those big raw patches of him stretch in a way all the nerves and shit there really don't like, just the kind of whimpering noise he still wants to make because hell, who's around to hear it? "'s nice. Gotta' do it though, don't I? No one's gonna' stand up for me. I gotta' get this done."

He tries to bend over the seat again to get to those wires, those damn wires that are all he needs to get himself gone, gone, gone. He lets out a shaky breath because moving is, hey, still a gigantic bitch and bending over stretches his back out, he breathes out slow through his nose and reaches out and frowns at his hands, watches them, watches the raw purple dent on his wrists where that cord was and watches it shaking when his wrists shake, when his hands shake, and he frowns like he don't know what his hands are doin'. He's gonna' fry himself in a second trying to do anything with these. "Shit, you know how to hotwire a car?"

The idea makes Stan giggle, the noise breathy and scared and he swallows hard, wishes he was back in that place where he was falling asleep, drifting away, that was nice. He's glad he's not in that place, glad the terror's creepin' back in even as he resents the hell out of it, out of what it means, because it means he needs that terror to get the hell out, to get away, it means that no one's gonna' get this done but him.

"Talk to me, F-Fo..." He can't say it. He can say it. It's just a stupid name. "Ford, not about hospitals, I- A guy like my brother, he could stroll into any, any hospital he wanted but uh, a guy like me?" He giggles again, swallows hard again. "You gotta' convince 'em you can pay. And then the cops, the cops watch places like that. I ain't dyin' so no, uh, no hospitals. I'm not gonna' die today, Ford."

There's something in those last few words, something scared and hard and immovable. Bending over makes something drip down off his chin and he realizes his mouth's been oozing this whole time, swallows a bunch of bloody spit back down and almost chokes on it for a second, grimaces, red sliding out between his teeth and his hands reach out, wanting to fumble with the wires, still shaking and trying, still trying. "I'm gonna' live. I'm gonna' live to-today. I just gotta' go some-someplace. Where do you wanna' go, F-Ford? I just need to hear your voice, just for a little while. Just tellin' me where you want us to go together."

Edited (don't mind me just editing forever when i should be going to work) 2016-04-16 13:43 (UTC)

Yeah, that- that thing about wanting to find someplace to have a meltdown? Yeah. Yeah Ford think's that's happening right here, right now, because his brother is so far gone that he doesn't even think he's real.

Ford swallows hard a few times, blink away the sudden, stinging feeling making his eyes water, and clears his throat. He clears it again for good measure, because he doesn't trust his voice right now, doesn't trust it to make words the way it's supposed to. Clear, concise, moderated - not wet and choked and interrupted by miserable, distressed sounds that a grown ass man who has his shit together would never make.

"Stan, we're going to the hospital. That's not - we're not debating this, okay?" He tries to sound firm when he says it, like he's got enough control over what's going on to actually be in charge of the situation. He doesn't, he doesn't have a single damn clue of how he's gonna handle any of this, but Stan doesn't know that. He doesn't need to know that.

All he needs to know is that everything's gonna be okay, it's gonna - his brother's gonna fix this. He's gonna take care of this and everything's going to be fineand - and Ford's not sure who needs to be convinced of that more, himself or Stan.

"Come on, move with me, we're gonna move you over to the other side, alright?" He somehow manages to sound put together, minus the small waver in his voice. It must be the adrenaline, or maybe the shock, because Ford knows for a goddamn fact that he's not actually calm enough for his voice to do that on its own.

"I'm gonna drive, okay, so I need you to be in the other seat. Can you - you can do that, Stanley, I'm gonna help you there and then you can relax, okay?"

He moves his arm from over Stan's shoulders to under them, using the hand he pressed against his chest to instead loop Stan's arm over the back of his neck. He holds tight around Stan's middle, tries to haul him up and out of the car so he can drag his ass over to the passenger side. They need to move, they need to get going now and find a hospital or a walk-in-clinic or even a goddamn 24 hour drugstore - just someplace he can get Stan help.

Stan shuffles along, knowing he can walk on his own, not saying it, he wants to feel the heat of his brother next to him but the only thing he can think about is the heat in the air, that dry heat that never left, making the air all heavy, pressing down. He watches his feet shuffle, feeling that familiar limp of one shoe, one bare foot, one shoe, thinks about how he can't say no. He can't push the no, anyway, not for the reason he's really got to say it. Once one little detail stops lookin' right the whole show falls apart. Stan Pines has run a couple shows in his time, he knows how it works. You find a loose thread, you pull it, the whole thing comes apart.

He lets himself lean against the body next to him and doesn't pull at any little threads, it ain't that he's got to do this himself, he's just- shit, he's just-

"You gotta' let me drive. Don't ask me why, I- I'll see the car, I'll see 'em around quicker if I drive, 'cause they're gonna' notice ev-eventually, uh-" Talking about that makes him think about it, thinking about it makes his voice seize up for a second and, and what the hell, right, if there's someone here who'll stand up for him, just for now, if that person is safe and far away and safe, Stan can let himself have this. Just this once he can have this, he thinks, and lets the sob out when it wants to come. He don't have to let it but he does, leans against the one person he wishes, he wishes- His breath shudders out and shudders back in and his chest heaves, stretching the crusting skin across his shoulders and he sobs again, and hey, once more with a little more volume to it and Ford is here and crying's gonna' make everything okay and Ford is here, just once, just this once he don't have to hang up before he says it because no one's here to throw it back in his face and close that door on him forever, he can just say it and he can be safe and he can want, he wants-

"I want to go home," the words come out small, he hasn't said 'em before, dips his head toward that neck and shoulder next to his and they come out all dried up and cracked because words like that have been waiting around inside him for a long time, they got all old waiting around in there and Stan ain't paid enough attention to 'em to polish them up or keep 'em all shiny and new. "I wanna' go home, I'm sorry I hate you I'm sorry I can't cut it out here I'm sorry I can't make up that money I owe you, not and make it last, you gotta', you gotta'- You owe me, you owe me, you son of a-"

The sobs aren't waiting for him to let them out now they're just coming and his shoulders shake with them, that blood-drool is oozing out of his mouth at maybe a hundred gallons per second and Stan sounds stupid as hell, his swollen, ripped up mouth trying to kick around all those s's and he's "S-sor- I'm so-sorry, sorry, I, I-" and now that it's coming out it's all coming out so his mouth lets out a little wail, everything that's been all pressed up inside the dark corners of him since he was seventeen looking out the windshield of his brand new car up at the stars, everything crowding through him every time he dialed that damn phone number and breathed into it and heard that voice, in that instant before he couldn't, couldn't, and slammed the phone back down there was this, all this and it's not fair, "not fair, you never, you'll never hear, I can't, I ca-can't do this, I, I-"

His fingers are wound up in that shirt, pulling at it. "They'll catch up, some-someone will catch up to me one of these da-days before I even, and that'll be it, I'm so chicken that you'll never kn-know I-" He lets himself bend into that safe, solid body in front of him, and he lets the sobs keep shaking out and he lets himself leave the words there because an answering machine that ain't gonna' be checked don't need all the i's dotted and t's crossed, does it?

No, it don't. It don't, and he stays all bent up forward and keeps his fingers twisted in that shirt and hangs on. If this is what he has, if this is what's his, then he is going to have it.

One step, two steps, three, four, five steps - they're half-way around the front of the car - six, seven, eight, nine - he's fumbling for the door handle, feeling around in the dark with one hand because the other is wrapped tight around Stan's middle and he's not about to let go of him now, maybe not ever, and goddamn it where is the fucking handle-

He jerks the door open with more force than is strictly necessary, but it's too late. It's too late to usher Stan into the car then race back to the driver's side and peel out of this empty lot like the devil himself was at their heels because Stan is - he's making this sound and all the sudden Ford can't breathe. He can't breathe, see, because his throat has gone too tight for air to get through and when he tries to drag in a breath and swallow a few times to force it down, all he gets for his trouble is the taste of salt on the back of his tongue.

Stan doesn't know what he's saying. He's just - he's on some kind of drug, maybe a whole lot of drugs, and he's just having a bad reaction. He's having a bad trip, all the chemicals in his system are making him say and feel and think things that aren't right, that are worse than what's actually -

Ford bites his lip hard enough to bruise, hard enough for his chapped skin to split worse than it already has. He can taste the bitter tang of copper on his tongue, sharp and unpleasant and familiar, and it forces his mind to harbor thoughts he doesn't want to dwell on, thoughts about how much red is spilling out of his brother's mouth, his hands, his knees, his back. He thinks about hospitals, and how the hell he's going to explain all this to whoever's working the graveyard shift at the ER. He thinks about what he's going to do if the police get involved, if he should involve them himself, if he should go after the miserable sons of bitches who did this to his brother.

He wonders what poison is wreaking havok through his brother's systems, he wonders how long he's been wandering along the road in this condition, he wonders what would have happened if it wasn't him he met at this rest stop, if it wasn't his car he tried to hotwire. He wonders how his brother even got himself in this position, in a mess like this. He wonders how in God's name things got so bad for him, if things were always this bad and he just never knew.

Stan pours his heart out against his shoulder, soaking his shirt with blood and tears and desperation, and as he stands there, sobbing brokenly with all that he is, Ford holds him back and quietly hates himself more than he's ever hated anyone.

He let this happen. He let this happen to his brother and nothing he could ever possibly do in the remaining years of his life will ever make up for that. He'll never come close.

It's that thought which finally does him in, the last blow needed to topple his already crumbling defenses. The tears welling in his eyes finally fall, and he makes no effort to stop them, nor does he try to stifle the miserable, choked noise that bobs up inside his closed throat. He turns his face towards Stan's too-long hair, tries not to think too hard about whether the wetness he feels there is Stan's blood or his own tears, and holds his brother steady with all he's worth.

He hasn't done a damn thing for him in over four years, but he can do this much. He can stand here and cry with him and hold him steady until one of them is ready to pull away - and damn if Ford's not even sure anymore who that's more likely to be.

"God, I miss you so much," he lets himself mutter, after a while, quiet only because his throat's kind of raw, his eyes sting like a motherfucker. He forgot what it was like to cry like this, how weak you feel admitting all that shit, even to yourself, like when it all came out maybe it took something else with it. "I miss talking - just talking about stupid shit. Shootin' the shit with someone you only known for five minutes, some guy who'd sell you out for a box of twinkies, it ain't the same. And these books, some a' the books I been readin', I bet you'd have somethin' to say about them. I bet you would."

He sniffs, not that it'll do any good, he's leaking from everywhere, 'cept the places that are crusted over. "You might, uh." He swallows, hard. This next part makes his eyes sting a little harder, and maybe leak a little more, but like he said a second ago - who can tell? But it's the truth, and this one time, if this is the closest he's gonna' get, he's going to tell the truth. "Prob'ly tell me to fuck off or laugh in my face or somethin', if I asked- you know, if, if I asked- But you wouldn't sell me out."

His breath starts coming big and heavy and he knows what that means, so he stops to take a cry-break for a minute, because by now he's kind of used to the idea that he's going to be standing here blubbering like a baby when they come for him, kind of resigned to it.

"I've got that much. Shit, I've got that much, anyway, you bastard. That's the only thing I've got. Tried to make somethin' of, of myself for you, for you and dad, you know, I, I- I tried. Can't come to you with nothin'. Can you see it, si-sixer? Somethin' like me crawlin' up to your doorstep, askin' for- Jeez, I don't, I-I don't, let's go back to that other stuff, huh? I always liked that part. Think you could, could do that? Think of it as a, um. One a' those last request things. Let's just pretend I, I didn't cry I just, I just told you everything and, and you cried on me a little and you, and you asked me- Fuck, I'd. I'd like that. Always liked that part."

Nothing Stan is saying - not one single bit of it - does anything to dry Ford's eyes or make his throat loosen up enough for him to actually get air in without having to swallow hard a few times first. There are things implied there, ugly things Ford doesn't want to think about but does anyway because how can he not.
Stan's been - god, Ford doesn't even know where he's been, or who he's been dealing with, but he has plenty of guesses kicking around inside his head and none of them are pleasant. Not a single one. He used to think - before now, he used to think Stan had found his niche somewhere out there. He used to imagine he landed himself a solid job, something involving the sort of unskilled labor even a high-school drop out could manage, and that he was doing fine. He probably had a girlfriend, maybe a dog, and a flat that he hardly ever cleaned.

In his mind, Stan had found a way to make it on his own, like he said he would. He went out and proved he really didn't need him after all, and everything was fine.

He knows now that that was just wishful thinking, that the life he imagined for his brother and the reality he was actually enduring could not have been further apart. It makes him feel sick just thinking about it, thinking about how wrong he was, thinking about how this entire time his brother needed his help and he let him down.

He wasn't there for Stan when he needed him, but for what little it's worth, he can be there for him now. And if that means getting involved in - in whatever godawful mess that tore Stan up like this - then so be it. He never thought he'd literally have to take a bullet for his brother, but if that's what it comes down to, if that's the sort of trouble that's following in his brother's wake, then he'll deal with that when it comes.

For now, he has a job to do. It's a job he hasn't done in a long while, but it's one that comes as naturally to him as breathing. Wiping swiftly at his eyes, Ford sniffs, clears his throat, and gets his shit together because it's time for him to suck it up and be a big brother.

"Y-yeah, yeah, well, you'll like the part where we get you patched up even better." He tries to sound firm, but also lighthearted, but all he really succeeds in doing is sounding stuffed up and quavery.

"Come on, Stanley." He gives Stanley one final, hard squeeze before breaking away, his hands moving to his brother's shoulders so that he can more easily guide him into the passenger seat.

"We can keep talking once your inside the car, alright? We - we can talk about anything you want. You mentioned books, right? Tell me about those."

"Sure." Stan lets himself be moved, sitting in the seat easy as can be, sniffing and wiping at his eyes without any of the self-consciousness he'd show any other time. Then he looks at his sleeve, torn all to hell and coated with who knows what, and laughs a little. He probably just got the one clean part of his face all dirty, didn't he? Ma'd just spit on it and try again, wouldn't she? Yeah, that would work a treat just now. Whatever.

"Sure thing, smart guy. That was always you, wasn't it? I remember. The man with the plan." He tries to swallow a bunch of that blood-and-spit again, gets some of it down, and tries to spit out the rest on the concrete quick before the car door closes. "Fuck."

"I guess that's more like you than that other stuff, huh? You'd uh, you'd come up with somethin' great with that big old brain, you wouldn't, uh, you wouldn't waste time lyin' to me about forgiveness or, you know, all that stupid..." Stan leans his head against the window, slumping in the seat and gritting his red-stained teeth, shifting around to try and find a way to sit that don't set those huge raw scabbed places over his back and butt to yellin' at him.

"Books, huh?" He rubs the side of one hand against his eye, then rubs hard against his temple, still grimacing. "Shit, my head. Okay. Books. I like the ones with the... All those crusty old guys, you'd think they'd just write boring shit but there's a lot about, uh. About the sea. Boats. Sailing. I always wondered, you know, if they made you read the same sorta' shit at your fancy school, if maybe you were readin' at the same time as me and thinkin'..."

"Stupid," he mutters, "stupid shit," and turns his head a little so he's still leaning his head against the window - the glass ain't cool, everything's hot, heavy and hot and close, but sitting like this is kinda' comforting, anyway - but he can look at Ford, too, make sure he's still here. "So what's the plan, brain? Are we gonna', uh, am I gonna' be hidin' out here for a while? Gotta', gotta' lose 'em and then come back, um, quick, before they decide to do somethin' with my stuff. My car." Stan don't sound angry just then, but almost, frustrated and tired and maybe a little bit worried. They'll be watching his car. All his things.

"Nothin' for it," he mutters, frustrated, trapped, and he knows it. "Shit."

Ford gets his brother into the car, shuts the door for him, tries not to let out a throat-tearing scream the minute he's got some semblance of privacy because dear fucking God. He's heard of being up shit creek without a paddle, but this is leagues above any hopeless situation he's ever faced before. He's never felt this lost, this helpless. It would help, maybe, if he knew what the fuck to do, but as it stands he's got nothing - no plan, no clue, no options.

All he can do is just - just drive and hope a revelation dawns on him before Stan bleeds out or OD's or decides to make a run for it.

He jogs to the other side of the car, throwing his door open with an unnecessary amount of force as he hurries inside. He leans over, hastily buckling Stan's seat-belt for him before bothering to do his own - it's part instinct, part habit, and part need to distract Stan while he locks the passenger door, just in case.

Once his back is to the seat once more, Ford fumbles with his keys, cursing under his breath until the ignition switches and the engine roars to life. He throws his elbow over the back of his seat as he looks out the rear window, despite knowing damn well there's no one behind them for him to accidently run over. It's a habit, one he curses because it takes up 5 precious seconds of time he could be using to get Stan help.

He's quick to pull out, his tires kicking up clouds of gravel as he makes a three-point turn out of the lot and peels out onto the street. Normally he would be scandalized with himself if he looked down and saw he was going 60 in a 45, but in this one particular instance, he really could not give less of a damn about breaking the law.

His eyes dart from the road to Stan, back and forth and forth and back, unable to stay on one too long before switching to the other.

"We - we'll find your car later, Stan, okay? We're gonna get you patched up first, get you help like I promised, remember? We'll get your car back when you're in better shape, that sound like a plan?"

He doesn't know what he's saying - he has no idea where Stan's car is, who they need to get it back from, or why it is they're doing something to it to begin with, and he's not sure he wants to have the blanks filled in. All he does know is that Stan needs some reassurance right now - he needs reasons to stay calm and be easy, and if comforting lies keep him relatively composed, then that's what Ford's going to give him.

The thing is, okay, the funny thing, is that Ford - you know, this vision that looks like Ford, whatever - he looks like he needs more help staying composed than Stan does. Nevermind all that, you know, crying and shit. He ain't freakin' out, anyway. He's zen. That's easy right now for some reason, maybe he's just tired. Or maybe he knows, some part of him knows, that once he wakes up too much some little switch in his brain will flip and this happy little vacation where he's got someone here to freak out for him will be over.

First, though, he frowns and tugs at the seatbelt and focuses on getting it off, getting it off and away and off of him, and then he throws it back out of his sight and then, he's okay, he's zen, Ford is tearing out of the parking lot like the devil's tickling his asshole and Stan is getting out, he is getting away, he is closer to being safe with every second ticking by.

"Yeah," he says, because it does, it does sound like a plan, his brother is the man and his brother's got a plan and you know, Stan wouldn't of cared if he'd just heard that plan was teachin' gorillas to do the moonwalk, it's okay, he'd of gone along with it. Because Stan is the man, too, Stan is the man who has got his priorities in order. "Yeah, that's fine. You might, uh, might wanna' slow down there though, Dirty Harry, the cops pull this thing over for speedin' and we're, I'm just as done as if it was Jorge's guys, you know?"

He settles against the window again, watches the road, taps at the dashboard, then swallows his blood down and spits out the thought he's just been chewing over.

"You can slow it down on the worry, too," he mutters, real quiet, watching the ground fly by outside and feeling all his scabs itch. "It's nice and all but, uh, kinda' killin' the whole suspension of disbelief thing a little."

"Do you remember," he goes on, because you just try to keep Stan from talkin', you just try, it don't matter that the words - especially the ones with a lot of s's - make his tongue start yelling at him, every second he fills up with words is safe, and this is one more thing he wants to say to his brother, one more in a sea of things, things that matter, things that never did, things that used to. "You remember when I fucked up that boxing match and ended up havin' my jaw wired shut? And there was that stupid liquid diet an' you, you uh, I had to get you to stop goin' on it with me 'cause you were losin' too much weight, startin' to look sick."

He bumps his forehead against the window. Not hard, not fast, just gentle, just a few thoughtful taps, feeling the raw skin there sting against the glass. He's smiling, thinking of it, his whole face all faint and fond and warm and then it drains off, leaving something determined behind it. "I'll get that back one day, you know. Be someone you can worry about. I'll make it right. I'll make it big. One day. One a' these days."

Stan rubs his hand across his face because he's tired, the kind of tired where you need to rub your eyes some even if you know it won't do any good, but then he makes a face and a kind of faint, grossed out noise, because he forgot about the whole scab thing and now the one on the back of that hand broke open and he probably got blood over around his eyes, or something. Not really the look he's going for.

"Clothes. I'll make it one day but first I gotta' get clothes. That way people won't call the cops on sight, you know? And then I'll drive for a while, I think, uh, a couple states should do it. Jorge won't go any farther out of his territory than that. Then maybe I can sleep off the rest of this fucking comedown- Shit, uh, how much gas does this thing got? No way I'm gonna' be able to take someone else's gas with my mouth this fucked, might have to swap cars." Stan frowns out at the road and, hey, don't start feeling left out or nothin', friendly hallucination, it's just...

Remind him you're here, friendly hallucination buddy. Because the real world, it ain't lookin' half so friendly right now.

Ford does not know who this Jorge character is, but he can already tell, from what very little he knows, that he does not like him. In fact, Ford isn't sure he's ever wanted to punch someone he's never even met quite this badly before. Something tells him that wouldn't end well for anyone, punching this Jorge guy. But it makes him feel better, thinking about it, thinking about how cathartic it would be to lay some hurt on whoever put so much fear into his brother's eyes.

It really gets his red up, hearing that, hearing how worried Stan sounds because someone made him feel that way. Ford's anger simmers inside him, burning at a low but constant temperature in the back of his mind. He pushes it down, keeps it in check, but he doesn't extinguish it. That's the thing about anger - it can be useful. It can keep you going, give you the extra push you need to accomplish things you never could have otherwise. Ford has 12 PHD's to prove that.

He's going to hold onto that anger, hold it tight and close to his heart and hope it burns on the way down when he rams it down this Jorge guy's throat.

Stan's question draws him back out of his own thoughts, and Ford realizes he had been holding the wheel in a white-knuckled grip. He relaxes, or at least tries to, and steals a look over at his brother.

"Yeah, yeah I remember." He replies, distractedly, his eyes fixing themselves more on the road as it becomes increasingly painful to keep looking at Stan. "How could I forget?" He adds quietly, speaking more to the open air than his brother, who-

God, God, he's a mess. Ford sees the fresh blood smeared over his eyebrow and cannot help but wince in a queasy mixture of sympathy and worry, his mouth thinning in a tense line. He turns his eyes back to the road, forcing himself to focus on driving. Just keep going, keep right on driving until you see the city lights. Everything will be fine once they make it into the city, to a hospital. At this point Ford would even settle for some shitty 24-hour gas-station. At least there they could clean Stan up a bit in the restroom and slap some cheap bandaids on him.

Stan needs a whole hell of a lot more than bandaids, though. He needs sitches, antibiotics, a good detoxing, some new clothes, probably a good meal, and - fuck it, Ford's including it because it's something he wants Stan to have even if it's not something he needs - a hug.

"I have clothes in the back." He's not - he's not gonna say anything about Stan not needing to steal another car, or siphon gas. Something tells him Stan won't believe him, and even if he did, breaking his delusion that this is all a vivid hallucination miiiiiight not end well for either of them.

He'll wait to press that particular issue, put it on the backburner for a time when he's not flying down the highway at 60 mph.

"They might be a little, uh, tight on you, but that's just what you get for deciding to have broader shoulders than me, you giant moose."

He's not really in a joking mood, not in the slightest, but he needs to do something to ease the tension in here before one of them snaps from the pressure.

Stan makes a quiet, amused noise, slumping a little more in the seat and rolling those broad moose-shoulders forward so they look rounder, smaller. It stretches at his back and he don't have so much practice at it, at looking small, as he woulda' had someday, but he's had some. A lot. He's good at it. "Yeah, well, they look better on me. That ain't the only part of me that's bigger, you know."

He waits a second, comedic timing, you know, he watches his brother with a smile that's kinda' hopeful, kinda' sad, then pats his belly because that's the part he was talking about, right? It'll be nice, if that makes Ford laugh just like it used to, or at least smile. It'll be nice, to make Ford smile one more time, while he still can. Doing it with a stupid dick joke just feels right, like old times. He looks away again and runs his tongue over a couple cuts on the inside of his cheek, thinking about how some of those cuts have started bleeding a little less and wondering about the ones that haven't, wondering again if it counts as blood loss if you swallow most of it, and definitely not thinking about the stuff he wants to ask. About how Ford's doing. Where he was driving to, anyway. What he's got going for him these days, because whatever it is, Stan's sure it's a lot.

Suspension of disbelief, and all that shit.

Okay.

He ducks his head, squeezing his eyes shut and rubbing at his head again. "I can keep goin' for, uh, a couple state lines, like I said. After that you pull over some place, hide the car real good, and if I'm lucky I won't wake up i-in a body b-bag." He spits out a quick laugh but that goes off the rails too, just like that little joke-but-not-really did, because his voice decides it don't want to work with him and he ends up taking a few big, gulping breaths that, lucky him, ain't too hard to wrestle down.

"Okay. I'm okay. I'm fine, I, uh, I could uh, hah, I could outsmart those bozos any day of the week. Okay. T-tell me, uh, Ford, tell me-" It's real clear in his voice just then, how desperate he is to think of something, something Ford could tell him. Not how he's been since they last met, as much as Stan wants - doesn't want, hates, really fucking wants to hear - about all his brother's wild successes, he don't know how far he can push this hallucination thing, so he's got to talk about the past, but what, what-

"You remember the, the beach? Our beach? What a shithole, I always knew we only got the tourists who were too cheap to go anywhere else. I been to better beaches since, you know, nude beaches, even, and ones in uh, in real high-end parts of town, and none of 'em ever, uh, ever really match up. Do you ever, d-do you ever, uh, wish-" He squeezes his eyes shut again and starts tapping his forehead against the window again and doesn't finish that sentence and thinks,

Suspension of disbelief, and all that shit.

Okay.

Ford takes his eyes off the road, stealing a glance over at Stan as he makes that terrible, ill-timed joke. This isn't a funny situation, not in the slightest, and the very last thing Ford feels like doing right now is laugh.

And yet laugh he does, because he needs to let Stan have this. He needs to let himself have this, because right now his only options are to laugh or to cry and he's not about to break his ten year streak just because his heart hurts too much to make that laugh sound real.

Stan, he's got the same problem. He keeps talking, which is good, saying things that make that hurt in Ford's chest dig in a little deeper with every word, which is considerably less good. Ford lets him keep talking, though. He lets him keep talking and laughing that not-real laugh, because so long as he's talking, as long as he keeps going, that means he's gonna be fine, right? He's still got all his mental faculties, he's not going into shock or suffering from organ failure or - or whatever the hell else all those chemicals in his system could do to his body.

So Stan keeps on going, because Ford's not about to interrupt him, not about to derail his train of thought for fear of him never getting back on the tracks again. It's not until Stan goes quiet on him again that Ford finally speaks up, and when he finds he has to immediately start over before he can even get the first word out - his throat is too tight to force out anything more than a croak, so he has to swallow a few times before trying again. Even now he sounds rough - a mixture sleep deprivation and the acute distress this mess is putting him under conspiring together to make him sound more like his nicotine-addicted brother.

"--Stan. Stanley, stay with me, okay? Don't - don't get quiet on me. I wanna hear you talk, alright? Let's - lets go back to the books, you said you liked those. Did you ever read The Old Man and the Sea?"

That gets Stan to move his head. It's hard, like it weighs more than it used to, but the comedown - or shock or, you know, whatever-the-fuck - is the last thing he's got to worry about right now so until it looks like he's got to make a run for it, this whole 'it takes ten grown men to move a pinky finger' feeling that's starting to spread out all heavy and thick through Stan's body is a-ok with him. So he'll just move slow, he'll just start blinking hard and, kinda' gradually, looking more and more like what he really wants to do is go to sleep right here, with the car rumbling under him - that other car didn't sound like this, it was old and it ran old and it sounded old, that's why it only took teeth and a whole bunch of dead tastebuds to make a way out of it.

He blinks at Ford, slowly. Where was he? Oh, yeah. The car rumbling under him, his brother's voice in his ear. It's real nice. It wouldn't be so bad, going to sleep to that. There was somethin' weird about one of those things, though. Something weird.

"Oh, yeah. I remember what I was thinkin' now. You're still doin' that worry thing." Stan wiggles in the seat a little, trying to inch himself up so he don't slide down in the seat so much, and ducks his head away from that vision with its six-fingered hands around that steering wheel. "Cut it out. It's too- It's too real. Or it ain't real enough. I don't know. I don't know, I can't, 's hard to think." He presses the heel of a hand against his forehead but holding it up takes too much, it gets heavy real quick so he lets it flop back down, not caring whether it lands hard against the door beside him. "What was, uh- Old Man and the Sea? Lemme' guess it's, uh, it's about an old guy. And the sea. See? 's like I, uh, like I know all about it already."

That worry thing?

Well Ford can't much help that, the worrying. He feels like he's made of it, like it's sunk so deep into his bones that he's never going to be rid of it. He wonders if this is how their mother felt, that time when they were eight and they both came down with that bad case of pneumonia. He remembers how she hovered, floating in and out of their room with a mug of coffee in her hand, how she'd comb their hair back with her long, painted nails and feel their foreheads to make sure they weren't running a fever.

Ford can't help but wish that she was here - logically he knows there's nothing their mother could do that he, as a grown ass man, can't - but still. There's no running from that feeling, that deep-seeded conviction that one's mother can magically make everything better, even when you're at a complete loss.

He licks his lips, turning his eyes back to the road as he switches lanes, heading towards those bright, welcoming lights in the distance.

"You're right, that's what it's about. The title's pretty self-explanatory, huh? But there's more to it than that, there's a message, a - see, the main character Santiago, he's an old fisherman, right? And he's gone a long time without catching any fish, so he's feeling pretty down on himself. He lives alone, he's poor, he's facing his own mortality - it's not a good time for him. But Santiago, he doesn't give up, he doesn't let all those things get to him. He goes out and he takes his boat far out into the ocean, because he's gonna make it, he's gonna break his unlucky streak. He just - he knows it in his heart, he knows this is something he's got to do."

"So he goes out, and he finally catches a fish - a marlin, the biggest one anyone's ever caught. It's so big he can't even drag it up into the boat, so for three days it drags him around, but he never lets go. He ruins his hands and his back, and he starts getting delirious from lack of sleep, but he holds on. He holds on, and eventually he wins, he beats the marlin."

"But Santiago, he just can't catch a break. He has to fight off a swarm of sharks that want to steal his catch, and by the time he makes it back home the marlin's mostly just a skeleton. He went through all that trouble to catch it, but in the end he doesn't have anything to show for it, he can't make any money off it."

He glances over at Stan again, checking to see if he's following along, or if he's fallen asleep.

"That's the thing, though, it was never about the money. It was about Santiago proving himself, it was about him struggling against adversity until he overcame it, despite all the odds stacked against him. He accomplished this great, big thing even though everyone thought he couldn't."

"It's...I don't know. Inspiring? Thinking about a guy like that, I mean. Thinking you could be like that, with enough determination. Even though he doesn't really win in the end, you can't help but admire him."

Stan's staring at those lights too, trying to figure out where he is, how far they went when Jorge's guys- well, when they drove him out, how far he walked, how far away his car might be. His car. But before long he's looking away from the window, wiggling in his seat a little more to look at Ford and listen to him. Just listen to that voice of his, that voice Stan remembers - voice and brains, he remembers saying it some time after Ford's voice got all deep and smooth and his, well his went somewhere else, he remembers punching Ford's shoulder and ignoring that tight, sour feeling moving through his gut like he always ignored it and saying, someone up there gave you the real one-two punch Sixer, voice and brains, ladykiller.

"Haven't heard you talk more than, uh, couple seconds, in... Wow, uh. Long time. Missed it." He doesn't mean to mumble over Ford's story, doesn't realize he's doing it and isn't even sure which part of the story he's talking over, he just settles his head against the window at this new angle and watches Ford and gets more and more into it, imagining this fishing guy with his big, make-or-break catch.

The end makes him frown, though, and that little review after makes him frown a little more. Stan shakes his head, makes a quick, unhappy noise at what the move does for his headache, and turns his frown at the vision sitting beside him like it just dropped into a really weird foreign language for a second.

"No one admires a loser, Ford," he says, with the air of a guy making a very obvious correction. Come on man, you know this. "What's the guy got now? Fish bones and back problems. I bet no one'll even believe him, poor old fart."

Stan turns a little ways toward the window again, slumping over himself and looking back out toward that blur of light that's gotta' be a city, or a town. Somewhere. Something. "What happens to him after that, this Santiago guy? Does he ever catch a real fish again?"

Edited 2016-05-20 23:07 (UTC)

Somehow, Stan's response doesn't surprise Ford. His brother had always been a more materialistic sort of guy, the type of person who needs their efforts to be compensated in some physical way, or else all the trouble was a waste of time. He needed proof, something people could see and touch that he could wave around and feel validated in having.

Sometimes it was a paycheck, or a collection of fresh bruises from a fight, or a hickey he managed to score from some girl Ford never could remember the name of. Most of the time, though, it was just Ford himself that Stan paraded around like a prize-winning poodle, step up folks, take a look at the best in show.

Ford couldn't help but wonder what Stan had used to take his place, after they - after they parted ways. He didn't much want to think about it, really, and so he didn't. Instead, he chewed thoughtfully on the inside of his mouth, and tried to think of how to re-word the story in a way Stan would appreciate.

"It's implied." He begins, before cringing a little and deciding to start over again.

"The story ends before you can find that out, but it's not - Santiago isn't in a bad place, when it ends. He might not have gotten the marlin back in one piece, but he still managed to prove to everyone in the village that he had broken his unlucky streak by catching something that looked big enough to be a shark. That's something to be proud of, it's something that proves he's not a useless, good-for-nothing old man like everyone thinks he is."

Ford slows down a bit as they draw closer to the city, not wanting to risk being pulled over by a cop patrolling the city limits.

"And more importantly, Manolin - sorry, Santiago has this apprentice named Manolin, I forgot to mention him earlier. Anyway, Manolin - his parents want him to abandon Santiago and find a more successful fisherman to study under. They don't think he's going to learn anything from Santiago, they think he's all washed up. Manolin doesn't give up on him though, he stays loyal to Santiago and takes care of him, decides to stay with him despite everything, even when he comes back from his three day trip with nothing to show for it but a half-eaten skeleton."

"So Santiago, at the end of the story, he gets his pride back, he gets his apprentice back, and he just - he feels good about himself, he feels okay with where he is in life and where his life is going. Now, I know what you're thinking - the poor guy goes fishing for three days and all he gets in the end is something he already had before his unlucky streak started? Seems like a ripoff, right?"

He glances over, trying to flash a smile over at his brother, hoping his faux-cheer will somehow be contagious.

Stan tries to listen, he really does, but his head keeps falling, slipping down, jerking back up again and he opens his eyes and he makes a little noise, air hissing out through his teeth, shifting away from where the seat scraped against his back when he slumped down farther than he should've.

"Ripoff," he mutters, trying to piece together what parts of that he did hear and figure out what Ford's asking him. "Yeah. But the town, they buy his story, right? And, uh, this Mandolin guy."

Stan rubs his hands over his arms, hunching his shoulders. He can't figure out which city it is outside. He's forgotten he was even trying. It's just blobs of light in the window now.

"So this uh, this old guy. He's a loser, but he's a loser who's got someone in his corner. Hope he makes it big before his friend decides to make tracks. That part always sucks. Hey, you got a coat? Mine, uh. It's kinda' on its last leg, ain't it?"

His laugh ain't all of one, it's kind of quiet and drifting off just like the rest of Stan's brain keeps trying to do, but it's a laugh, anyway, because it's funny. Kind of an understatement, or something.

"I bet you've got better ones. I bet you're the kinda' guy who's always got nice coats." He pulls his arms a little warmer around himself and closes his eyes, makes this noise, and he don't know if it's a satisfied noise or a disgusted one. He wants it to be the first one, but thinks maybe, probably, it was a little bit more of the second.

Ford doesn't respond right away. At least, not with words - the click of a dial and the sudden, steady rumbling of the heater as it purrs into life is the only answer he can think to give, because he's never been good with words, and part of him doubts Stan would even hear all of them even if he did say something. The poor bastard looks like he's ready to pass out, like he's fading in and out of awareness.

Ford's not sure if he should let him drift off or not. God knows he could use the rest, among other things, but Ford's never had to deal with someone who looks so damn close to overdosing before. He doesn't event want to entertain the idea, but a big part of Ford is terrified that if he lets his brother fall asleep, he might not wake up again.

Suddenly uncomfortable with the silence that's fallen between them, Ford glances over at Stan, just, you know, to make sure he's still awake, still breathing. Despite knowing he should really keep both hands on the wheel, Ford gives in to the urge to reach over and lay a hand on his brother's shoulder. He gives a gentle squeeze, then a little shake, just - just to wake him up a little.

"Stanley? You still with me, buddy?"

Stan's sure as hell with him now. Or is he? He's with Jorge's big men with their big hands on his shoulders leading him toward a teeny old car, cheap thing, someone ain't been keepin' it up the way he keeps up the Stanmobile, someone left the trunk open.

One shoulder hits something hard and he twitches his head around to look at what, a door, a window, lights outside, big blurry buildings starting to dot the side of the road. Those are new, they must be headed into town.

They. He looks on his other side, at the way the arm he flung out might've landed on someone else's arm, solid, warm. The arm's attached to a shoulder, to a face, a face like his. His back is killing him. He leans forward a little, wanting to save whatever's left of his skin from rubbing up against the seat, clears his throat, breathes. "Right, uh- Right. Yeah. I guess I, uh- Yeah. Can't sleep yet, huh?"

"In the middle of your story, too," he says, rubbing at his eyes, breathing. "I didn't mean to. It wasn't that it was boring or anything, but it was kinda' bleak, you know? At the end there. Did you turn on the heat? That'll eat up the gas, you know. Uh, what, what were we- Mandolin. Manolin. That kid. Do you think he was right, to stick around with that old guy when everyone knew he could do better?"

He tightens what's left of his coat around him, remembers the heat and dark and the smell, watches the heat come out of the vents in front of him and looks out the windshield ahead, wonders if maybe he could open the window a little. "I think that's where the author fell down. If he's gonna' make it all realistic he's gotta' go all the way, what do you think? You think someone would really stick around like that when they both know this kid could do better without some old nobody ridin' on his coattails?"

Stan makes another one of those noises he's been making since he got into this car, another one of those quiet, frustrated pain noises and he presses at his forehead because, "Fuck, what I wouldn't give for some advil. Or a beer. What wouldn't I do? Haha." It's quick, that last noise, amused but only really a laugh because it's not anything else. It's a laugh by default. Damn, a beer. Nice and cold. A beer would be nice.

The look Ford gives his brother, it's not a sad one, exactly. It's not quite a guilty one either, but if you look at it just right, if you tilt your head and squint - well, maybe he looks a little remorseful, a little like he just disappointed himself somehow.

"I think..." He trails off, his eyes turning back towards the road.

He knows what he thinks about that sort of situation, in the context of Santiago's story. He knows how he feels about Manolin, how he feels about the difficult, brave choice the kid made - but something tells him that's not what they're talking about. That's not what his brother is really asking him, that's not what he actually wants to know.

Ford clears his throat, his eyes darting quickly as he hastily reads a road-sign before they fly right on past it.

"I think there's a gas station up ahead. I'll see if they have any aspirin, maybe get directions to a motel."

He risks a glance over at his brother, hoping that he hasn't noticed how blatantly he dodged his question.

"You, uh. You want anything else while I'm in there? Food, a pack of cigarettes or something?" He asks, despite not wanting to enable his brother's smoking habit. "You still like Lucky Strikes, right?"

Edited 2016-07-30 02:32 (UTC)

Lucky for Ford, Stan wasn't really expecting an answer, there. Someone who ain't real can't answer nothing, can they? They can drive, and offer to get him cigarettes, and tell stories, but you know what, he's tired, and his head hurts, and his everything hurts, and if he can forget that he's alone and on the run for just a second, you know what? Fuck it.

But that don't mean he expects this thing that looks like Ford to act like him, too, because he already ain't acting like Ford, Stan's brother is off in some big important school somewhere - or, a school, which is big time enough if you ask Stan - making some big important name for himself, and he's got no reason to talk to Stanley at all just yet.

So this Ford, this whatever is going on here, can answer whatever he wants, he can offer whatever he wants. He can avoid whatever he wants, or forget to answer, or whatever. Stan slumps down in the seat a little more, dealing with the rub of the chair against a few different scrapes so that he don't have to hold himself up so much.

"Whatever's cheap." He laughs a little. "Get me whatever you can scrounge up with the old five fingered discount, you know." It's a joke, see, funny because it's true, Stan wiggles his fingers to help make his point that quick hands and fast fingers ain't only good for picking pockets. "Think I might have to wait on food for a while, though. Remember what I said about uh, about us? My jaw, you know, way back when?"

He sticks out his tongue, or tries to, again making a point and this time with all the cuts across it and the way it's still kind of swollen. Talking like that makes the lisp and slur in his voice even worse but that don't matter, Ford will know what Stan says anyway, he's sure of that. "Think, uh, that. A liquid diet, maybe a slushie or somethin'."

When Stan sticks his tongue out like that, shows off the bloody aftermath of God knows what, Ford can't help but remember the time when they were eight, and Stan had found a dead raccoon on the side of the road, completely flattened in the middle. He had dragged Ford down to see it, because what eight year old kid wouldn't.

Apparently that's gonna be a life-long trend for his brother, showing him things that both disgust him and break his heart at the same time.

Ford looks away abruptly, swallows hard, and tries to ignore the way he can almost taste copper on the back of his tongue, there's so much blood in the air of this stupid, cramped cabin.

"Right, yeah, okay." He opens the door a little too quickly, shuts it a little too hard, and practically sprints into the gas station.

He tries not to make it obvious that he's keeping an eye on the car, but if Stan cares to look in the windows he'll be able to see the nervous, anxious looks being shot his way every -oh, five seconds or so.

Stan rolls down the window. A second later - well, maybe, time's been kinda' funny for a while, probably a couple seconds - he opens the door and swings his legs out and sits that way, slumped over himself staring down at the cracks in the pavement. At some point he glances at this car's trunk, and then at some point he looks up toward that window over there and hey, it looks like his personal friendly hallucination is about to jump right out of his hallucinated skin, and the gas station looks normal, like every other gas station he's ever been to, the bright lights and the stupid music and everything else, it looks like every other gas station he's spent about half his life stopping at. It looks too normal, it feels too normal, it feels like his life putting itself back where it should be and his mind trying to put itself back together the way it should be and, hey, that guy he was thinking of a while back, the one who'd had that hallucination for, like, days, it never drove him around, did it? And it never bought shit for him, if that guy callin' himself Stanford Pines walks back here holding stuff and he gives it to Stan and it's real, then, then what-

Just then, because sometimes luck actually is on his side, he forgets about all that blood and spit still trying to run out of his mouth and he forgets to swallow it, and he chokes on it, and when he's sitting there coughing with his arm wrapped around his chest he feels something in one of his pockets, one of the pockets that stayed in one piece even while his skin got ripped all to pieces. He takes what's in there out and holds it up to the gas station lights, and turns the little pill around and around in his fingers.

"Huh," he says, thoughtfully, and then, "Not the best idea you had today, Hal old buddy," to himself, because who's around to hear him? "But not the worst," and then he has to laugh, because nah, not the worst, not today. "And hell, it might even work, wouldn't that be funny?"

In fairness to the man behind the counter, it's the middle of the goddamn night, so expecting speedy service is asking a bit much. But still, the longer it takes him to ring up his items, the faster Ford's patience starts to run out - by the time everything's been punched into the register, Ford can't bring himself to wait any longer. He throws a ten on the counter, tells the befuddled cashier to keep the change, and rushes out the door and into the crisp night air -

Without a moment to spare, evidently, because just as he feared Stanley is doing something stupid.

"Stanley!" No no no, no getting out of the car, no trying to leave. "If you needed some fresh air you could've just rolled the--"

He stops short, his eyes locking onto his brother's hand now that he's actually close enough to see what's in it. He stares, dread welling up inside his chest as he prays to whatever God that's listening that the thing in his brother's hand is just a pebble, or some pocket lint, or an M&M or anything other than what he thinks it is.

"---Stanley. What the hell is that."

"Dunno." That note in his brother's voice, whatever it is, doesn't make a dent in him, Stan doesn't even seem like he notices it. Does it matter? What matters is getting to feel, for a while, like he's talking to Ford, what matters is hearing the name, and hearing that name called out to him in that voice makes something in Stan's face go all soft, it makes the cuts on his lips stretch and pull when he smiles, warm and fond, at his brother.

"Guess I could guess, if I wanted. But uh, you don't really say no when a guy like that decides to get generous, you know? Besides, uh, you used to know Stan Pines, didn't you? Did he ever say no to a free sample, even back then? And when they uh, when they, then they put another one in my pocket. A goin' away present. Haha. So uh, I guess what the hell this is is kind of a joke. They thought it was, anyway, I guess they thought bein' high'd keep me from gettin' out." His laugh then is a real one, quiet but real, and satisfied.

"Been doin' okay so far, right? I mean, I don't need to be all compos mentis or whatever, I got this far with just-" With just that friendly hallucination helping him out, doing things no hallucination should be able to do, and he makes a face, looks kind of barfy and the hand not holding that pill near his knees curls itself up around his stomach.

"Um... Where was I goin' with that? Shit, my head. Okay, uh, wouldn't it be funny, though? If that dickhole's joke ended up bein' what made all this worth it? Hey, you go to the john while you were in there, Ford? You might end up wishin' you had, I don't know if golden boy Stanford Filbrick Pines," and he says the name with relish, really tastes it coming out, and that one combo of letters feels good to hear, kind of warm and kind of awful like it always does whenever he finds another one of those opportunities to hear it, "ever had to drive a quick getaway with a full bladder but uh, it ain't gonna' do your upholstery no favors, you know what I mean?"

It's at this point that Ford wonders, idly, if he fell asleep at the wheel and this is all some sort of horribly realistic nightmare. If he waits it out, maybe he'll wake up in a ditch somewhere, or with his car wrapped around a telephone pole. He'd almost prefer that to the reality he's facing now, the horrible, nauseating scenario he always feared but never thought he'd actually have to face.

He tries to say something, anything, but his mouth has gone dry. He wets his lips, for what little good that does him, and clears his throat so that his words can get past the constricted airway blocking their path.

"Stanley. Let me see that for a second." It's said gently, a little too calmly, but it's still more of a demand rather than a request.

He moves forward to the side of the car, one hand propped against the doorframe as he leans forward, offering his brother the carton he bought while inside the station.

"Here, drink this while I take a look at it, alright? It should help."

It is not, in fact, a slushie, which should be pretty self-evident because of the fact it's in a carton. While the ice probably would have felt nice in the short term, the sugar wouldn't have done those lacerations any favors. Hopefully milk will be less abrasive.

"Milk? What, so I can grow up big and strong?" He leans forward, reaches for it. Then that little thought pops up in his head again, the one about how, if his hallucination goes in the store, and buys a thing, and gives it to Stan, and Stan drinks it-

It's a stupid little detail to get stuck on, out of all the details he could choose from, after everything. But it's just, it's just- "Look," he says, dropping the hand that'd been reaching out for the carton and curling it tight around his knee instead. "Look, it's nothing personal, I just, um-"

How do you tell a guy you don't think he's real? Or maybe that ain't it, maybe it's that you can't tell him that you do think- But Stan's high, okay, and probably in shock or some shit, and he's full of stupid ideas any day of the week anyway, not usually pants-shittingly terrifying ones but this is just- You don't, anyway, the point is that you don't tell him, not when that guy is Stanford Pines, standing there looking at you with your face, your face but better, talking to you in that voice that was maybe meant to be yours back before you fucked that up too, telling you in a voice that's your voice but better that he wants to have something you can't let him have because what if one, what if the other, what if the lady behind door number one and the tiger behind door number two are both ready to step right up and swallow him whole, how do you tell a guy lookin' at you like he's your brother that you don't want any of it, you don't want to know- What does he say? Stan's got to say somethin'. Something, maybe something that'll stop that face lookin' at him like that.

"I don't usually take shit anyway, you know? Not on my own, 'cause you know how when you start takin' people think you're hooked, and when they think you're hooked they think you're helpin' yourself to the merchandise, and that's not a good break for my wallet or my kneecaps, you know? But this, just this- I mean, I think I deserve a break, you know? Just, just for a few more hours."

He sighs, slumps against the inside of the car door, and breathes a couple quiet words to himself, tired, years worth of tired. "A few more hours. Just a few."

"Then I'll get up and I'll think, and I'll stand up on my own two feet and I'll do, I'll do whatever it is I need to do. I'll be alright. I'll get out of this. Just- I mean, it's not that I don't trust- I mean- I just need to make sure this don't get lost, okay?"

He curls his fingers tight around the pill and looks up, ducks his head to wipe a little bloody spit out of the corner of his mouth and then looks up, all hope. "So I can't let you have this, but if I take it I can drink your nerdy-ass milk an' we can keep drivin', just for a few more hours, and uh, maybe you could tell me a few more of those weird, depressing stories of yours and everything'll be alright for a while. A few hours. What do you say? That sound like a night out to remember or what, huh Sixer?"

There's a point, you know, sometimes there's a point where you have to put your foot down, a point where you have to make a stand and say "alright, that's enough." This? This moment right here, where Stan is looking at him like he's not really there, talking about him like he'll go away unless he poisons his brain with even more of whatever the fuck that pill in his hand is? That's Ford's breaking point. That's where he draws the line in the sand and decides no, no, fuck it, he can't do this anymore, he can't keep going along with this delusion.

Ford drops to one knee, lowers himself down so he's eye- to eye with his brother, and he grabs his hand - curls it over the fist holding tight to that pill - and he squeezes tight.

"Stanley." You'd think he'd follow that up with something, but no, no all he does is look at his brother and feel sick while looking at him because he had hoped if he had just played along long enough he'd have time to figure things out, to figure out what to do. But he can't do that, he can't go along with this anymore and he still doesn't have any goddamn idea what he's going to do and he's sorry.

He's supposed to be the one with the plan, the one who always knows what to do because knowing things is all he's good for. What does that say about him, if he can't even do this one thing, this one thing his brother needs him to do?

"I'm not going anywhere." He adds, just to say something, just - just to make it seem like he's got some sort of plan here, some sort of inkling of what he's doing.

"I'm here, okay?" He reaches out, curling his hand around the back of his brother's head, his fingers tangling in his unruly hair just to emphasize his point, to really drive it home. "I'm here. I'm here for you, and you don't - you don't need to take anything to make me stay. You don't need to do anything, alright? Just - just trust me, please. I need you to believe me. I need you to believe I'm not going anywhere."

Stan swallows when that big, solid hand closes around his, and he stares down at those six fingers. Then he swallows again, hard, and he doesn't look up at that familiar face, not even when there's a hand at the back of his head too and, hey, turns out he's got a few bruises on his head somewhere because having those six fingers all in his hair and pulling just a little at his scalp like that sorta' hurts, is that somethin' a hallucination oughta' be able to do?

He doesn't look up then either, he just closes his eyes, kinda' squeezes them shut, and he takes a breath for a second, smells gas, smells real, wide-open air, finds himself looking for that moldy, sweaty, BO smell, the smell of his own sweaty pits mixed with the smell of the blood he's leavin' on the inside of that trunk-

He just smells open air. He smells the reassuring smell of nothing in particular and hears that unsettling sound of his brother's smooth, comforting voice and he holds himself still just for a second, he feels the hair trying to raise up on his arms and wonders if he's gonna' have bald patches there once he's all healed up, he wonders how much of that thick Pines body hair he lost along with all that road rash. He opens his eyes just enough to look down at his lap and he shivers once and his head gives a throb and he thinks about that, tries not to think about his brother down in front of him, down on one knee, fuckin' holding his hand and everything.

"You look like you're about to propose, you know that?" Maybe he coulda' made his voice sound casual if he really tried, or maybe he couldn't have, but it's getting harder to believe that 'night out to remember' he was just talking about is actually gonna' happen so he's only half assing the whole sound-casual thing and it dips in and out of his voice, the words oughta' sound amused and that's what his tone's sort of reaching for but it don't ever really stay there. "I don't know, Ford, I'll wear your ring but I never looked all that good in white."

"You know what I believe? I believe my brother's gonna' get that-" Tell him, tell him, there's nothing you can't tell him when he's not real, I kept up with you, I kept after you, I called that school and asked 'em how you were doing, once a year I called 'em because I, god, Ford I- "He's gonna' get that twelfth degree of his and then I'll, um, it might be a little while before I got enough to show for myself to make it work but um, once I do, any day now, then things'll be- But you know how, if you try to make good on a plan too early you just end up run outta' town with nothin' to show for it but a couple warrants and an empty gas tank, right, that's why- It's just I can't let the high wear off yet. It's been on its way out for a while but it's too early, I- Not like this. It's not that I don't trust you, I just don't um, I don't- just don't feel too bad, okay, it's too early to let it wear off yet, that's all. Not like this."

Here they are, right smack dab in the middle of an absolute shitshow of a situation, and the first thing Stanley thinks to do is to make a joke.

Ford would laugh at the audacity of it if he weren't so sure that he was one wrong breath away from crying, and wouldn't that just be the icing on the cake that is this horrible night.

Rather than laugh, or cry, or do anything that might open the goddamn floodgates and turn him into an emotional wreck, Ford simply exhales out of his nose. It's an ambiguous gesture, one that can be interpreted as everything from mild, begrudging amusement to getting choked up, which is fitting because Ford's genuinely not sure which end of the spectrum he's falling on right now. He's not sure of anything right now, honestly, least of all what he should do next.

It's a horribly disconcerting feeling, not knowing where to go from here. All his life, that had been his talent, his thing. He had been the brains to Stan's brawn, the half of their dynamic duo who always had a plan, a way out, a third option. And yet here he is, kneeling in a filthy parking lot without so much as a clue as to where to go from here.

Maybe he'll just have to improvise, take a leaf from his brother's book and just...go with things and see where it takes him.

"You know what I believe, Stanley?" His voice is soft, or at least, as soft has he can reasonably make it now that his throat feels like he's been gargling gravel all night. "I believe, without a shadow of a doubt, that I'm not going anywhere. Hallucination or not, I'm gonna stay with you, alright? I'm gonna get you through this."

He knows it didn't do much good the first time, but he squeezes his brother's hand one more time, just for emphasis, just because he can.

"You've got to trust me, Stan. You don't have to think I'm real, but I can't- I can't help you if you don't let me."

That first question drags Stan's eyes over to that face, he can't help it, and when he looks at it a little thought speaks up in his head: Hallucinations don't believe a damn thing, it says, all weak and feeble, and then it goes quiet.

But this voice, now, this other one, it's his brother's voice and it sounds sure, it sounds a lot of things but it sounds sure, too. And the words themselves, they sound- A deep breath digs its way inside Stan's ribcage and then another one, those words are hitting his insides and bouncing around just like bullets and he don't know whether they're hurting just like bullets too or if they're doing something else entirely.

There's a part of Stan that always looks out for opportunities, times lady luck's dice roll his way, little ins with the people around him, a part that just stays on the lookout for chances. There's a part of him that always will. That part of him sees a chance now, a last chance that's about to whizz right on by because he's on the edge of believing something, something stupid, and once he does fall over that edge the other shoe's going to drop and it's going to kick him directly in the ass.

But before that happens, while he's over here teetering on this, this cliff or whatever, anything he happens to say is just like - well, it's like hearing some especially deep, smooth voice of some radio announcer asking a question and answering back reflexively, it's like catching a look at some part of his face in the rearview mirror and muttering an observation about anything, about his latest run of bad luck, about himself, about traffic, and then muttering a reply right back, deeper, quieter so no one but Stan can really hear. It's just like that. There's all sorts of things you can say when you know no one's listening. Even the truth, sometimes.

"I can't decide if it's a miracle or a fuckin' joke, hearin' that." Stan thinks he can feel the words falling out of his mouth there, he can feel them on what's left of his skin tumbling right out the corner where those cuts keep pulling open and instead of blood trickling down his chin it's words, ones that want to get out quick before Stan can think too hard about locking them back in where they maybe oughta' be, where anyone wiser and smarter would probably keep words like that locked up. But this is his last chance, maybe one of his last chances, and let no one say that Stan Pines lets any opportunity pass him by.

"Hearin' it now. I coulda' heard that in Columbia. I coulda' heard it in Russia. I coulda' heard it in fuckin'- in fuckin' Jersey, on that stupid beach, hidin' out in that fuckin' boat! What I wouldn't a' gave to hear that back when I coulda', back when I didn't know-"

"This ain't even what I wanted to say to you. Ain't that funny? Earlier today- musta' been just like, this afternoon, I was thinkin'- I mean, what I wouldn't a' gave, you know? That's what I wanted to say, here. I just wanted you to know how much I always, I always wanted- maybe you or, or even just some Joe Schmoe, just anybody, to-"

Then it's like a brain-switch flicks inside of Stan, or maybe it's like a brain fuse box, taking too much emotional current and stopping it right there. Anything that mighta' been like desperation drops out of his voice and his eyes drop off that face and he looks at a puddle of gas nearby instead, he looks at all the colors in it shining under those bright gas station lights. He focuses on that. "But I guess it don't work, your dialogue sounds wrong. Go back and rework your script, maybe some day you'll come back and really sell it to me."

He looks down at that puddle over there and feels his eyebrows pulling together and his jaw pulling tight and the line of his lips shaking just a little and his hand loosens around that pill and turns around to try and give that six-fingered hand a hard squeeze and tries to hold on tight, maybe too tight, and a deep breath digs into him and Ford's words, that help you, that get you through this, bounce around in his chest like bullets.

Edited (nitpicking) 2016-10-02 01:53 (UTC)

Ford's not sure what he's kneeling in, exactly. It might be a puddle of rainwater, or an oil spot, or a drink someone decided to dump out their window and onto the pavement. Whatever it is, its soaking through his jeans and making the cold, gritty feeling of the concrete beneath his knee all the more unpleasant. He focuses on that feeling instead of the words coming out of his brother's mouth, thinks about how he's probably going to have to use some lemon juice and baking soda (or was it vinegar?) to get rid of the stain he's undoubtedly going to be left with.

He thinks about that instead of Russia and Columbia and the waver in his brother's voice, because if he thinks about any of those things for too long he might just lose what little composure he's got left. One of them has to be the designated Adult here, at least one of them has to have their shit together and make sure this clusterfuck of a situation gets resolved somehow, and Ford's not about to foist that responsibility off on Stan. Between the two of them, at least he's not high off his ass and in the process of staving off what appears to be one spectacular emotional breakdown just waiting to happen.

"I'm not trying to sell you anything, Stanley." His voice sounds a little tighter than he'd like, but at least it doesn't waver. "You know I'm not."

He pauses, swallowing hard despite how dry his mouth feels.

"We grew up inside a pawn shop. I think you know what a sales pitch sounds like."

"So." The way he's holding Ford's hand means he can't really feel Ford's fingers, he's just kind of grabbing at the whole hand at once, but he tries to count Ford's fingers anyway, running his thumb over the ones he can reach without shifting his hand around too much. He remembers being young, small and scared - it feels like he's always scared these days but it happened when he was a kid, too, that sharp, tight, too-much feeling like all his emotions were too big, too much, trying to tear right out of him. It ain't coming on like that now but he remembers it, and he remembers Ford's hand tight around his.

"You know," he adds, interrupting himself before that first sentence even really got started. "It's been a long time since I uh, you know, held anyone's hand. Not 'cause it'd look stupid, it just uh, it, it doesn't feel, uh..."

Stan realizes he's looking down at his hand holding tight around those six fingers and then he blinks a few times, he frowns and presses the heel of his free hand against his temple. "Where was I goin' with that other stuff? That's right, you and your shitty sales pitch. I could teach you a thing or two. Heh, bet I could teach dad a thing or two, shit. Even if you mean it, you never start out tellin' the guy everything he wants to hear, not straight off. That ain't... it ain't how life works. You don't just get shit, you don't just get what you want. You gotta', you gotta' make 'em work through some BS first, everyone wants to feel like a discernin' customer. But you know, since we're here-"

He stares down at their hands, he tries to chew at his lip, he grimaces as a couple cuts pull and he fails, totally and completely, to sound casual.

"-You might as well, you know, since you already blew that train outta' the station, you might as well tell me what you want. I mean, you said I had to let you help. You, uh. What is it you want me to do?"

If it weren't for the fact Stan's holding onto his hand, holding to it tight like he's drowning and its his only lifeline, Ford might have made a grab for the pill. He might have tried to wrestle it away from his brother so he could throw it as hard and as far as he could, but he doesn't get the chance. That hand holding onto his keeps him from being able to do anything but hold right back, just as tight.

It's not just a habit, or an instinct. It's a rule, a law - it's an unspoken promise they've never once broken, not in all their life. You don't let go until it stops hurting. You just don't.

"Come on, Stanley." His voice hasn't cracked like that since puberty was kicking his ass up and down the stairs, but you know what that's just what having a raw, tight throat will do to you.

"Don't make me repeat all that. I will, if I have to. I'll say it as many times as it takes for you to believe it, but I think - I think you already know that. I think you want me to be telling you the truth, and--and that's why you don't think I am. Because why would anything ever go your way, right?"

It hurts, saying that. It hurts his throat and his heart and his soul, and he'll be damned if his glasses aren't fogging up as proof of it. The heat behind his eyes has built up to the point where he's genuinely surprised they haven't started melting yet, though the dampness of his lashes certainly seems to imply otherwise.

"Why...why would someone who hasn't talked to you in years suddenly care when they, when they were the one who--"

He cuts himself off abruptly, closing his eyes tight for a moment as he swallows down a pathetic, miserable sound before it can escape his throat. He is not going to cry, God Damn it, not for himself. If he's going to cry for any reason at all, it's going to be for his brother, for what's been made of him, for what he let happen to him - he refuses to allow guilt, as heavy as it might be, to be the thing that finally pushes him over the edge.

Ford swallows hard, his eyes screwed shut tight as he drags in a shaky breath though his nose and lets it out in a quite curse.

"God." He breathes. "Stanley, I'm - I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

Stanley's silent a second. Maybe a minute. Time's funny just now, so he ain't sure. He's looking at Ford, staring at him. He'd looked away when Ford - when Ford's voice - asked him why would anything ever go his way, because hearing that in Ford's voice, it was- but then Stan looked at Ford and didn't stop, he looked with all the emotion gone out of his face, just looking. Listening.

So he stares at his brother - at his brother's face - for a minute, or for a couple seconds. He blinks, takes a slow breath through his nose, leans back a little bit and turns over the fist of the hand that's holding that pill and he looks at his fingers, silently. Some kinda' expression might leak back onto his face eventually, but for now all he looks is thoughtful.

"I take back what I said about your sales pitch," he says finally, honestly, and depending on how tangled up the hand holding the pill is with Ford's flock of fingers, Stan's going to open up his fist and let his one way out of all this bullshit just sit there out in the open, at the mercy of god and everybody.

Or, you know, at the mercy of Ford. Which is worse.

There's no way things can go from here that ain't worse. Either the high fades off and so does the absolute worst trip of Stan's life and that's that, you know, finito, or the high fades off and his brother is here. Either his brother is gone and, to the surprise of no one, gives not one single solitary shit about any of this, or Mr. Perfect is here and stays here and he knows. He sees.

Either Ford never sees him again or Ford sees him like he was never supposed to, Ford sees him like this.

Like he really is. Stan can think that now, he can admit the truth to himself right now as long as he never thinks too hard about it again. Either he's lost Ford again, and that would be bad enough, but if he doesn't then Ford sees the guy his brother really is.

There is no way giving up this pill is going to end well. Not for the guy who, once upon a time, went by the name Stanley. But everyone has their price, and he knows his when he hears it.

"This is what you wanted, right?" His voice isn't empty but it isn't full of anything in particular, either. There's no reason to pour it full of anything. The deal's gone down, the rest of it's just details.

"Oh yeah, and that milk of yours. Wanted me to drink that too." He stretches out his fingers and then curls them in a few times, beckoning the milk closer. "Come on. Gimme. Gotta' get my calcium, or some shit."

Even with his eyes shut tight against the sharp, pricking heat building behind his lids, Ford can feel his brother's stare. He can feel the weight of his gaze, the quiet heat of it. It feels like being accused. No, more than that - it feels like being judged, sentenced. We the jury find the defendant guilty of being an absolute bastard of a brother.

Ford breathes out gently through his nose as he waits for the hammer to fall, for the court to be dismissed. He waits for Stanley to throw his apology back in his face like the worthless sentiment it is because there's no making amends for what he's done - for letting things come to this. For turning a blind eye while the world happened to his brother.

But, wouldn't you know it, the hammer never falls. That apology never comes back to hit him where he lives. Stanley just...turns his hand, uncurls his fingers. He doesn't hand over the pill, but he gives up on trying to keep it to himself.

Shocked, and maybe just a little hysterical with relief, Ford curls his own fingers tight around Stan's hand, trapping the pill between their palms. He could have just knocked the damn thing to the ground, snatched it up and put it in his pocket so maybe someone at the hospital could figure out what the hell it is, but no. No, this feels better. This feels more right.

"Y-yeah. Yeah, right. Right, right, ha-"

His smile is a shaky, unstable thing, and the amusement in his tone is nervous and forced. This emotional roller coaster just keeps throwing him for loops, and he's finally starting to feel the whiplash.

He fumbles for the milk, forgetting for a moment where he set it, before practically shoving it at Stan in a jittery fit of over-enthused nerves, as if Stan might just change his mind after a second's delay.

"Here, uh. You can drink it or just use it as a rinse. It, it doesn't really matter. Whatever makes you feel better."

A little bit of expression might be creeping in, now. Just a little. A little frown, a tiny pinch between those fuzzy Pines eyebrows, the look of a guy not seeing what he expected. It feels bad, too - there's this sort of heavy, inevitable feel behind the thought, there's another mark in the 'real boy' column. Heavy and inevitable like the anvil of Damocles, or- wait, sword of Damocles? Is it a sword?

Whatever.

He dismisses the thought, just watches Ford all jittery and maybe babbling a little, showing the kind of nerves he'd never imagine Ford having after a moment like that, not even in an uncontrollable hallucination, and he feels that weight hanging over his head.

"Thought about hearing you say that about a million times," he shares in a voice whose tone has started to slip over from 'bland' into 'dull'. He can't think of any reason not to share. It's too much work, anyway, to keep his thoughts from coming out his mouth. He lets Ford clasp their hands together, feels those six fingers against his like some lost and golden dream and tilts his head back to take a swig of that milk, making a face as he tries to decide whether it hurts his mouth.

It's not too bad. He swallows, and considers a second more. "I never figured you'd get all spazzy after."

He puts the milk between his knees so he can rub his forehead, eyes briefly closed, and he feels some vague sort-of regret at having had to trade off that last pill. Maybe that heavy feeling ain't all because of Mr. Friendly Hallucination waving that metaphorical Greek sword around, and the pill coulda' put that off a little while.

It was a good trade. A great trade. The best deal he'll ever make in his life, probably. But that don't mean it ain't a shame, sort of.

"Come on." He straightens up, swinging his legs inside the car and leaning back against the seat, leaning his head back, too, so no part of his body has to try and hold itself up and he looks up at Ford through eyes that don't want to stay all the way open. "I know those guys, uh, from before, I know they were real but I don't, uh, I don't really know how far I got. So we better vamoose while the vamoosin's good. Goin' until you run outta' gas is usually a good start, but I don't know when they woulda' noticed. Maybe on the road. Car woulda' been lighter, at least, and I mighta' made some noise..."

He trails off, eyes sliding off to one side of Ford's face and going out of focus as he tries to think about it. "Hey, Mr. Successful, you happen to know anything about spottin' tails?"

Okay, okay. Stan is cooperating. Things are going good. He just has to keep him distracted, keep him talking even though every other word out of Stan's mouth makes his stomach twist.

He's got this. He's got this situation under control. He is definitely, definitely not just hanging on by the skin of his teeth and hoping that will somehow be enough to keep this house of cards that is his fucking life from collapsing in on itself.

He flashes Stan a small, tight smile that he almost doesn't have to force and tries his damnedest to look encouraging, like someone who Stan could have even the slightest bit of confidence in.

"I don't think that's going to be a problem, Stanley."

Or at least he sure hopes it isn't, but if he can pretend for at least a little while that they have one less massive problem on their plate then maybe he can actually get them through this clusterfuck of a situation with his nerves intact.

"But just in case, why don't you keep an eye on the rear-view for me? Watch my six?"

Just like when they were kids, pretending to be soldiers or explorers or some other daring pair of adventures who were in way over their heads. Just like that, only this time the danger is real and they can't just avoid it by deciding they don't want to play anymore.

"The closest motel is about thirty minutes away, twenty if we ignore the speed limit a little. Think you can stay up that long?"

It's not a necessity, really, it's probably not even something that needs to be done at all, but if it helps Stan relax and it gives him something to do, to keep himself distracted, then Ford has no qualms with playing along and pretending it's important. Besides, having a task might help keep him awake, and Ford would very much rather be able to drive without having to take his eyes off the road every three seconds to make sure his brother is still breathing.

Even feeling slow and heavy as he does, Stan laughs a little. It's not really a laugh, kind of a huff, but whatever. "Your six, good one."

After a second, maybe a couple seconds, he realizes he hasn't answered. "Uh, yeah, sure. If you're real nice I might even watch your twelve."

Then he settles back, content to wait for Ford to hang around some more or start driving or whatever it is he wants to do.

"I never found out what you were like on road trips," he says after a little bit in a slow, musing voice. "Not real ones, long ones, you know. Guess it makes sense you'd be the kinda guy who plans out his hotel stops."

He hesitates. It's, like - okay. So if Ford's real- but the penny hasn't really dropped on that one yet. It isn't like Stan don't know how he looks, he probably looks like he feels and he feels like one giant, pulsing scab. And if Ford, genius college graduate grown man PH-goddamn-D Ford is actually here looking at the giant, pulsing scab that used to be his brother then he already knows, it's already too late to disappear and come back when he's finally made something of himself. But it doesn't feel too late. That's the weird part, and he's putting it down to that drug, whatever it was.

But if he asks after Ford's life, like this guy sitting beside him is a real guy with real travel plans and destinations and all that shit, then that makes him even more real, doesn't it? Or it makes him real sooner. Or something.

But if he doesn't ask about Ford's life now, before that penny finally drops and maybe shatters Stan's skull or something equally shit-awful, he's sure as hell not going to ask after. And he wants to know.

"So, uh, where you headed, anyway?" he asks, and realizes as he says it that he doesn't know how much time went by since he mentioned Ford's road trip habits in the first place, and doesn't know if Ford tried to say anything to him, and doesn't know if they even started driving. Maybe if he keeps the conversation going a little he'll figure some of that out. Turning his head to look out the window to figure out the rest he can do, but in a minute. Turning his head sounds like work. "Far enough from Backupsmore that you gotta' plan out your hotels and shit? Wasn' sure how I'd keep track of ya' after you graduated so I uh, I guess I was kinda' hopin' you wouldn't go that far."

He starts to close his eyes but then opens them again. Eyes on the road. Eyes on those rearview mirrors. Right.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

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sorry for this run on paragraph, that's where stan's head's at right now

Don't be sorry for the run on be sorry for BREAKING MY HEART

i refuse

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oops i wrote a book its a book of angst

Oops I wrote a sequal to the book - Angst Brothers 2: Electric boogaloo

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i assumed a heacanon here that we talked about once so let me know if i should change that

Change nothing it's beautiful

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Oh would you lookie here, character parallels

that was cool the way you did that, I like it a lot

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