goodguygrifter | (no subject)

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Well, Stan's been crammed deeper up the ass end of nowhere before, but that doesn't mean that creeping, uneasy feeling doesn't get worse the deeper he gets into this damn forest. It's dark, it's spooky, it's -

It's exactly like the kind of forest you used to see in those old monster movies, actually. The kind he and Ford used to sit in front of, enraptured, arguing over how many pieces the monster of the week was going to tear the ditzy teenage protagonist into.

Maybe it's not the forest that's giving him such a bad case of the heebie jeebies. He can admit that to himself now that he's almost there. His car rolls to a stop and he sits there while the engine ticks cool with his hands still in their old, familiar grips on the wheel. He gets out. He shuts the door.

"No problem," he mutters to himself, watching the door of that weird, creepy little cabin like he really is in one of those old movies and something's about to jump out and grab him. "It's only been nine years. And ten months. And fourteen days. And he doesn't even want you here. That's no, no reason to, to uh..."

The doorknob of that weird, creepy little cabin door is under his hand. If his hand moves a couple more inches, he'll open it. He'll open the door, and then he'll -

You'll what? he thinks to himself. You'll what, genius?

"Aw, shit," Stanley says, and takes one step back, and then another, still looking at the door like it's about to bite him.

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That gentle but insistent push earns Stan a fond eye-roll and a light bap on the arm, because Ford is not going to take being coddled lying down. He's going to do it while sitting up, then he's going to lie down, because he's emotionally and physically exhausted and this has been a very, very long day. (Never mind that he's only been awake for an hour or two at the most.)

"You'll have to be if you're going to wake me up."

Lying back, Ford props himself up on his elbows and raises a brow at his brother.

"You are going to wake me up, right?"

Something tells him Stan's just going to let him wake up on his own regardless of what he promises.

"Yeah, yeah." Stan gets to his feet and gives one of those elbows a light little slap. "You'll wake up, don't worry. Go on an' sleep already, come on. A guy might start thinkin' you don't trust him, or somethin'. I'll keep everything real quiet."

(ooc: sorry about length, I just figured there's not much to do here until he goes to sleep and also have been up for a while and also figured with where this is going next you won't need hooks here but if you do need some let me know and I can provide)

It was meant as a joke, but it gets Ford thinking regardless. It came up earlier, and he didn't know what to say, didn't know how he felt. But now, after everything that just happened, after they've cleared the air and bared their souls and made complete embarrassments of themselves, Ford feels a little more sure of how he feels now.

"Alright, alright, I trust you."

He waves his hand, trying to make that statement seem less significant than it really is, before turning on his side so that his back is to his brother, because if he keeps facing him they're going to have another Moment and God, is he too tired to deal with another one of those just yet.

"Just try not to burn the house down if you decide to try your hand at cooking, okay? I'm still paying off this mortgage."

His eyes are already closed as he speaks, and if Stan has anything to say in response, he doesn't hear it. Sleep rises up like a monster from the deep and grabs hold of him before he can even think to tell his brother goodnight.

-------

Stan never gets the chance to keep his promise. Not through any fault of his own, no, he can't be blamed for what happens. Neither of them expected Ford to wake up on his own, an oversight which Ford will be kicking himself over for the rest of the week, assuming he doesn't have a heart-attack before then and put himself out of both their misery.

It starts off innocently enough, at first. There's some tossing and turning, typical movements one might make in their sleep, nothing worrisome there. But then his breathing shifts, hitches, turns labored. Everything comes to a terrible, pained crescendo when a scream finally tears its way through his throat and he awakens with a jolt, bolting upright in bed as he hurriedly looks around in the darkened room with wild, red-rimmed eyes.

His breathing is worse now, his chest heaving like his lungs are starved for air as a cold sweat soaks his clothes and makes them cling uncomfortably to his skin. So much for that shower.

Stan doesn't think about the words as more than a casual phrase when he says them, he doesn't realize they might be a little too close to home until Ford says it and Stan hears I trust you. He stops in his tracks, stares, open-mouthed, at his brother's back. It's almost a relief when he realizes Ford's asleep, a guilty relief, because he may not have walked further than this room in the last, say, hour or so, but he is tired, in that way too much fear for too long makes you tired, only he ain't afraid this time.

Well, he is. But this ain't the same. This time he's relieved, too, worried in that old, reassuring sort of way that means there's someone other than his own self here to worry about. And tired.

He goes to the kitchen, just quick enough to get a can of the first thing he sees, a can opener, and a spoon, and comes back to set it all near the bed. He looks at the door a moment, but like hell is he going all the way to that guest room now. Like hell.

He settles himself on the mattress, leans against the wall, and there ain't no harm in sleeping now, is there? They're in the middle of nowhere, and he's been here a while and no one's come knockin' on the door. And he's right here. Stanley lets his eyes close.

-------

"Fuckin' shit!" There are worse ways to wake up than to a scream, even one of those raw, genuine screams that always stick with you, somehow, even if you don't know who made the noise or why, but not too many. Not very many at all, once Stanley looks around the room, remembers where he is, and realizes the voice that made that noise is his brother.

"Sixer?" The only parts of his brain that are awake right now are the instinct ones, all that fight-or-flight stuff jazzing up his system, and his first thought, one he doesn't question, is to put his hands on Ford's shoulders and try to pull him around so they face each other. "Hey, talk to me, what is it? What, what happened? Fuck, are you, are you okay?"

Ford dreamed often as a boy, but rarely did those dreams take a vicious, unhappy turn. He remembers how, on the odd occasion that they did, Stanley was always there to comfort him. Even though he was terrified of heights, he would climb up into the top bunk and tell some stupid joke to get him laughing, or simply sit there on top of the covers and just be there for him, like he always was. Like they promised they would always be.

Stanley is here for him now, just like he was back then, but his presence is anything but comforting. The sound of his voice, the feeling of his hands on Ford's shoulders - they send him jerking backwards, his shoulders slamming hard against the wall as he shoves blindly at his brother in an effort to push himself away from him.

Ford recalls seeing once, when he was young, a raccoon being struck by a car. The poor thing had survived the initial impact, but it had gone into shock. It simply laid there by the side of the road, eyes blown up wide as it panted rapidly through its teeth until finally its breathing slowed and it went still. Ford never thought he would find himself in the same sort of state - shaking down to his very bones, terror in his eyes as he struggles for air and chokes on the all-encompassing feeling of dread that accompanies knowing you're about to die.

It's a dream. It's a dream, It's a dream, It's a dream - He can't die here. He's going to be fine. He's going to wake up and be fine - He keeps telling himself this. He keeps saying this over and over in his head, keeps saying it because maybe if he says it enough he'll be able to believe it.

Bill can only kill him so many times with his own brother's hands before he eventually wakes up. He just has to hold out until then.

Stanley doesn't think twice about trying to catch hold of Ford's shoulders again because these are his brother's shoulders, that was his brother's scream, and all he knows is that he needs to help. He isn't thinking of those times when they were boys, because Ford's never woken up like this, he's never seen Ford wake up like this. He's never seen anyone wake up with a scream like that, not outside of a couple really bad trips he's seen, and outside of movies, but you never get that kind of scream in movies, that makes your heart thump hard and your entire brain just shut everything down except the need to do something. God, something.

"Jeez, Ford, it's, it's me, okay?" Stanley recovers from the shove - it didn't send him far - and moves closer, reaching out to try and bring them closer together. As long as they stay close everything's gonna' be okay, and he believes that without even a second to consider it, believes it before anything but the most basic parts of his mind have even had time to come awake yet. "It's me! Breathe! It was a dream, you're okay!"

Ford tries to move, to evade the grasp of the thing that looks like but is not his brother, but it's no use. His back is to the wall. There's no where for him to go. He's trapped, like countless times before he's trapped and it's going to start all over again. This little game Bill's playing, it's going to keep going on and on and on until he gets bored of it. He can keep this going as long as he wants - time is meaningless in the mindscape. Ford could die a thousand deaths in this place, while only a few moments pass in the physical world.

He wonders how long Bill's going to drag this out - a hundred times? A thousand? Ford knew he would be livid about the metal plate, knew he wouldn't take well to not having a vessel to play in anymore, but he never imagined he would take things this far.

Ford supposes this is just what he gets for being so foolish, for holding onto the childish hope that maybe, just maybe a shadow of the person he thought was his friend was in there somewhere, and that that person would just let him go.

Evidently, he was wrong. Again. Like he always was, always will be.

His shoulders tense beneath the hands that grip them, but he doesn't pull away. He simply tenses up, shuts his eyes tight, and braces for what's to come. He doesn't want to have to see it coming this time.

Stanley frowns. In the moment before Ford closes his eyes, he frowns.

"It's me," he says, but uselessly, it's his same voice but with all the hope dropped out of it, because Ford knew very well what he was looking at. Sort of. It ain't that dark.

"It's just a dream, you can snap out of it," he tries, because he's gotta' try. "Look, Sixer, l-look at me, okay? I, I can't talk to you if you don't even see me."

He catches himself shaking Ford a little and stops, looks at him a couple seconds like the right answer's just gonna' pop into his head, the right thing to say that will make all this go away. He needs to see his brother's eyes again. "This is an, an uh- episode, right? That's, that's what they called it, the uh, the doctors. But-but I, uh. I don't know what to-"

He doesn't know what to do, but not knowing what to do won't help Ford. Not knowing what to do don't help anyone, and talking about it definitely won't. It never has, he knows that, and so all at once Stan straightens up, the spine going back into his voice.

"That's fine," he says, steady and easy and moving to lean back against the wall next to Ford, letting his hands slide off and away from him but making sure their shoulders press together instead. "You don't have to look if you don't want. It's a great view in here, though. Or, hey, it might as well be, if you ain't going to open your eyes anyway."

"Do you wanna', uh, talk about it? I hear that, that's supposed to help." That's what all those shrinks do, ain't it? Stan's never been a shrink, but if he's gonna' stick around with Ford here it looks like he's going to need the practice.

He holds his breath, waits, but the moment he's preparing for never comes. Instead things take a different turn, they go all pear shaped and Ford's left sitting there breathing hard and wondering where the hell things are going to go now that Bill's gone off-script.

He feels the shoulder brushing against his own, feels the weight sinking into the mattress beside him. He opens his eyes, but doesn't look over. He doesn't dare. He simply sits there stock still while his heart hammers against his ribs and his breathing goes from fast and desperate to deep and shaky. He wishes he could say this was a sign that he was calming down, but in truth he's not any less horrified than he was when he was hyperventilating. All he's doing is dressing himself up as someone who's having a slightly less severe panic attack than the one he's actually having.

"Why are you doing this to me?"

His voice is quiet and just as shaky as his breathing.

"This is - this is low, even for you."

He could handle another death. He could deal with dying at his "brother's" hands, but this? This is just sick. Bringing about pain and fear is one thing, offering false hope and comfort is another entirely.

"What?"

Stan leans forward, too shocked and confused to be hurt and wanting to try and get a look at Ford's face, but he sits back before he can see much. He knows already how he's got to play this, and it makes him sick. He's got to talk to Ford the way he'd talk to one of those guys in some of those really bad apartments, the ones you have to just nod to no matter what they say to you, don't move too quick, and try not to make any sense outta' anything. Ford's not one of those guys. He's not.

He's not.

"Well, uh, that's fine. You don't have to talk, I ain't too invested in the idea."

You can't try to make sense out of this stuff, but that's when you're talking to other guys. That's for the guys so far gone that they don't even know what they're trying to say anymore, and never will. But Ford, he knows what he's saying. Ford's different. It's just Stanley who can't get with it.

"What, uh- Remind me. What is it I'm uh, doin' to you, exactly?"

Ford can feel himself bristing, his shoulders squaring as the rest of him draws inward. He curls in on himself a bit, feeling sickened and angry and still so very anxious, along with a cocktail of other things he doesn't care to put a name to at the moment.

"You know damn well what you're doing."

He folds his arms over his chest, wrapping them tight in an effort to get his breathing under control - it's a lot harder to let himself take those too-deep breaths when his arms are keeping his chest from expanding too far out.

It scares him, how much this feels like the real Stan. He supposes he shouldn't be surprised - Cipher had access to all his memories. Everything he knows about his brother, so does he. Everying thing except...

Except what happened after he put in the metal plate.

Ford looks up suddenly, feeling something small and dangerous well up inside of him. Something that hurts to harbor in his chest because he knows how very easily it can be snuffed out.

He risks a sideways glance at Stan, not wanting to dare hope it might really be him, but being unable to help himself.

"Wait. If you're--Stan would know. If you're him, you'd know."

That doesn't make any sense without context, but thankfully Ford is quick to fire out a question that makes things a little more clear.

"What was the last thing I said to you, to Stan, before I went to sleep?"

His brother's breath is still shaking and that's hard enough, listening to Ford like that and knowin' he's got to play it cool, but when Ford wraps his arms around himself not reaching over and doing something about that almost actually hurts, gives him that same feeling in his chest you get when you wrap your ribs up a little too tight and know you won't be able to take it off for a good long while.

That feeling gets worse a second later. If he's him, Ford said. Ford doesn't even know if it's Stanley, his own brother, jesus, how far gone is he? Jesus.

His chest is tight, his jaw wants to clench, his gut feels like it actually is clenching, and bad enough that Stan's glad he ain't had nothin' to eat just recently. But Stanley Pines plays it cool, damn it. Stanley Pines is cool. For his brother, Stanley Pines can be unflappable.

"You said you trusted me. And then uh, somethin' about not burnin' the house down so you didn't want me to cook. An' then you went right to sleep."

Stanley wants to add something else, he's not sure what. Something comforting, something funny. He plays it cool. He plays it safe, and calm, and cool. You could say Stan is comfortable with risk, maybe even settled down and painting white picket fences with it, but he ain't takin' risks here. Not with this.

Ford watches, waits, tries and fails to not get his hopes up. He waits for the answer to his question, waits for his brother's eyes to turn yellow, waits for that dark, twisted laughter to bubble out from his chest and fill up the room.

He waits. He holds his breath. Then, his brother speaks to him. His brother speaks to him, and all at once a wave of relief comes crashing down over him with enough force to knock the breath from his lungs and make him forget how to fill them back up again.

All that air comes out in a deep, shuddering sigh as his eyes fall shut of their own accord and he slumps forward, his head bowed as he buries his face in his hands.

"Oh thank God." His voice is thick, watery. He repeats the phrase a second time for good measure, more quietly, then a final time in a near-whisper.

He needs to pull himself together, he knows. He needs to stop being so goddamn emotional about this and just suck it up, be glad that it's over for now and just get over it, but he can't. He just - he can't do it. He needs a minute, maybe a lot of minutes, to just get everything out of his system. It makes him feel weak, spineless. A nasty voice in the back of his head that sounds suspiciously like their father is quick to remind him that he's sitting here crying over a dream like some sort of little kid.

He'll feel properly ashamed of himself later. For now, he's too damn relieved to pay mind to anything else.

Stanley realizes, watching Ford, that his own breathing's getting kinda' shaky too, and tamps it down. You didn't know? You couldn't just look at me and know?

He tamps those thoughts down, too, and after a moment - feels too long, like he hesitated too long and broke the old cool and easy face he's got on but hell, it's not like Ford will see, he's too far gone to see anything.

Okay. Put a hand on his back, good, and he can rub Ford's back a little too, that's something he can do. He knows how to do that. "That was, uh, it was a hell of a dream, huh?"

The cool and easy thing breaks a little again and because of his voice this time, because it wasn't just a dream, it wasn't, it was terror. Real, honest terror, the kind you feel if someone's out to kill you or-

Or if no one's in the room at all, just the guy you've known longer than you've even been alive. They said this, the doctors he called, and he's sounding like a broken record now even inside his own head but they did, they warned him, and he'd stopped thinking of it because Ford seemed so normal. He was fine when they went to sleep. He was fine.

Ford's crying now, Stanley thinks, he might be. He can't really tell, Ford's too hunched over for him to really see. His own chest is tight, too, still, like there's too much pressure on it, and it'd always pulled him in when Ford cried, back when they were little. When it happened Stanley always had to get closer, always had to do something. He can't do something now, can he? He can't do anything. He could have done something, once, when Ford was, before all this, but he didn't, and now?

Well maybe, maybe this is a one off. Ford seemed fine, maybe this is just, it's just a moment. He's just having one bad night. "Good thing that don't happen often, then you'd never uh, you'd never get any sleep at all."

That laugh he gives then don't belong here, not when Ford's- not now, but it's out before he can stop it, all thin and nervous because Stan knows a lie when he hears one, even if it comes from himself, even if he don't want to admit it.

It's hard, getting his breathing back under control. His lungs ache, his ribs are sore, and he still feels like he's not getting enough air, like he'll never get enough air, but he knows that's just what happens when you get so worked up you start hyperventilating.

He has to force himself to take deeper breaths, to hold the air in and let it go slowly even though his addled brain feels like it's being starved of oxygen. It helps that he's done this before, that he's figured out how to handle himself when things get--when everything's just a little too much.

He straightens a bit, one hand moving to his chest while the other presses against his diaphragm so that he can better gauge his air-intake. Inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale, inhale -

He realizes, absently, that Stanley is saying something to him. He doesn't quite catch all of it, but what he does hear is comforting. Not because of the words themselves, but because they're coming from Stan - the real Stan - and Ford is unspeakably grateful to have him here right now, even if he feels mortified that his brother saw what he did.

Ford can spontaneously combust from the sheer intensity of his humiliation later, though. For now, he's going to shut his eyes and sink back against the wall as his breathing finally starts to slow down and become somewhat manageable again.

He mutters a curse, just because it feels good to swear after all of that bullshit he just went through, then mutters second one just for good measure.

"Jesus Christ."

He sucks in a deep breath through his teeth, holds it, then swallows hard and shakes his head, to clear it.

"It--it's never been that bad before." It's not clear whether he's talking to himself, or Stan, though it probably doesn't really matter one way or another.

It doesn't occur to Stan that his stupid questions were helpful just because he said them. He can't see that Ford's comforted, even a little. What he sees is that Ford has to press his hands to his chest just so he can breathe, he hears that it's happened before. Stan can take care of himself, he knows how to do that. Alive, ain't he? But his brother? He always thought he could. Stan always thought he just needed to wait, just wait a little while, and he'd see his brother again and he'd take care of him, just like he used to. Not that he'd need to, not after Ford became a professional nerd, got in tight with all them other professional nerds with their big brains and important jobs and stupid labcoats. That's how things were gonna' be.

All those times Ford used to cry Stan always kept cool, except when he got mad, but he never freaked out. He never cried with Ford, that ain't how you help. So when Stanley realizes that tight feeling in his chest, it's about to force something out and he don't know what, he just knows he can't find out here, not here with his brother still needing him, needing him to do something.

"You, you need water after all that, right? Dry mouth, and all that, I'll just- Yeah, I'll be right back, okay?"

And he's off, he's out, and it makes that clenching in his stomach feel worse, leaving Ford alone, but he shuts the bedroom door anyway, thinks he made some kind of noise before he did it but shit, he's out now, down the hall, stops in a doorway and leans against it and covers his mouth.

"I can't, I can't, he, he needs help and I, I- God, what am I gonna' do but fuck it up again? I'm gonna' fuck it up and he, he can't end up in one a' those places, they decide people are crazy an' they throw 'em in there and, God, Ford doesn't- But every night like this? I'm gonna' fuck it up again and he's gonna' end up in there but I'm all he's got and it ain't fair, it ain't FAIR!"

That feeling in his chest finally squeezes something out, a wordless whine that comes right on the heels of that yell and keeps coming out of him as he takes a few steps away from the doorway and sweeps everything off the nearest table and fuck, fuck, Ford is going to hear that, but he can say he tripped, can't he? He tripped and knocked something over, right. He straightens up, taking deep, quick breaths, wipes his mouth, turns toward the hallway again, still trying in a shaky kind of way to straighten out his story.

Ford doesn't get the chance to respond - Stan doesn't give him enough time to. One minute he's tripping over some lame excuse to leave the room, the next he's making a break for the door like the devil is on his heels. Ford watches him go, opens his mouth to call out to him and ask what's wrong, but he stops himself. He knows damn well what's wrong, and that's what makes him settle back against the wall rather than follow after his brother.

"Fuck."

It's not a word he says often, which is probably why it feels so strange on his tongue. He says it again, a bit more loudly, and then sinks his hand into his hair and drags it back over his scalp as he stares at the closed door and wonders what the hell he ought to do. He's gotta do something, right? Check on him, maybe, or try to apologize? No, it's probably not an apology Stan wants, it's assurance - something to give him some peach of mind about all of this.

The only problem is, Ford has no idea what to tell him. The truth is far from comforting, not that Stan would believe it, and Ford has never been good at lying to his brother so that option is out too. Frustrated, Ford worries his lip, sinking his teeth into the corner of his mouth as he tries to get his head in order now that he's finally starting to calm down.

It's not until he hears the tail end of that shout echoing through the hallway and passed the closed bedroom door that Ford realizes what he has to do. Spurred by the sound of his brother's distress, he swings his legs over the side of the bed and pushes himself to his feet, swaying a bit as all the blood rushes away from his head and his vision goes spotty.

He swings an arm out to balance himself and trudges onward despite the sudden vertigo, and makes his way towards the door just in time to hear that godawful clatter. Ford swears - something he's been doing a lot, recently - and picks up his pace. He swears a second time when, in his haste, he rams his knee right into a chair he had forgotten was there, and it's only because he remembers he's not wearing any shoes that he refrains from kicking the damn thing in retaliation.

He finally makes it to the door after that minor delay, but once his hand touches the knob he finds his resolve beginning to wane. Maybe this is a bad idea after all. Maybe he should just - just let Stan blow off some steam, or have a moment alone, or so whatever it is he feels he needs to do in order to not look at him like that anymore.

Ford shakes his head, dismissing that thought. He steels himself, sets his jaw, and takes a steadying breath as he turns the handle and opens the door to face whatever is on the other side.

"...Stanley?" His voice sounds smaller than he'd like, so he tries again, a little less meekly. "Stan, is--is everything okay out here?"

What an impressive sight he must be, Standing there in the doorway in a too-big sweatshirt that used to fit just right before stress killed his appetite, his hair going every which way, his face still a sickly pale save for the red splotches around his eyes.

"Fine!" He reaches out to lean against the wall and when he sees Ford his fist clenches, he feels his short fingernails scraping against the wall because all the anger he hadn't been able to let in earlier, because there's no one to use it on, because nothing he does with his fist is gonna' help Ford out of the shit inside his own head, it's sure here now, here the moment Stan sees him. Ford looks sick, damn it, he looks sick and starving and exhausted, probably because he is all of those things, all of 'em and more, Stan can see it even better in the brighter light out here.

"Fine, I tripped, go back to-" Go back to bed, go back to sleep, where the bullshit demon eats your eyeballs so you can't even see your own brother without that look in your eyes, that look of terror so big and deep there aren't even any words for it. After Ford woke up, before he closed his eyes - Stan's seen people look that way before, not at him but near him, and the first person to look him in the eyes like he's the one dishing out all that big, deep terror was not supposed to be his brother. It wasn't ever supposed to be Ford.

"Can you even sleep?" And suddenly he's pacing, flinging out an arm and stalking to the other side of the room. "Can you eat? You got all this food an' it don't look like it's been touched, you got dust on all the cans."

And back he goes to the other side of the room again, fast and scowling. "They can feed guys like you in those 'facilities', they got IVs and needles and beds with big thick straps on 'em, guys like you go into those places and they're fed and watered an' drugged up 'till they sleep real deep every night, an' guys with lotsa' letters after their names talk to 'em every day, an' when guys like you come outta' those places they ain't guys like you no more."

It can't be called pacing, what he's doing, because it's not straight back and forth so much as the path of an eightball shot by an excited kid who hit way too hard and sent the thing bouncing against every one of the walls without coming close to a single corner pocket. The kid here is his temper, he guesses, and the pool cue in this case is that feeling all tight and tighter inside of his chest. It's a science thing, isn't it, something about what happens when you put a lot of pressure into a very small space, what is it that happens after that? Ford would know. Maybe Ford would know. He's not sure how much of anything Ford knows, right now.

"I got none of that, no little IV tubes, no fancy drugs. I could get some, I bet I could fix you up real good, an' then sit here keepin' my brother stoned out his mind for the rest of his goddamned life! If it were me, well, it wouldn't be the shock of the century, would it, me endin' up like that, but you? You? It ain't fair!"

His spinning eightball path has him in front of a little glass-fronted cabinet now, weird-shaped things in jars filling all the shelves inside it, and he can't tell what they are but he bets every single one of 'em is part of some brilliant experiment with about a million pages of flowing, illegible notes stuffed in some filing cabinet somewhere. Hopefully those notes are good, because a bunch of bits of shattered glass all spinning out and landing inside 'em like that is probably enough to ruin any experiments. Not all the glass bit it, just the one side over by the part of the wooden frame he punched, but what's left cracks a little more when he hits that frame again and the noise out of his mouth is a wordless one, a noise of frustration and pain when that second punch sends the bigger splinters and a few slices of glass he didn't quite avoid digging even deeper into that soft skin between his knuckles. It hurts but in a satisfying way and he keeps grimacing, standing there and panting at the crooked cabinet frame, not saying anything because that feeling, the satisfaction and half-release of that awful pressure tightening inside his chest, that feeling's all he's got, and he wants to pretend it's going to last.

Edited 2016-01-06 12:51 (UTC)

What Stan's doing right now, the way he's moving - Ford's never seen a person do that before. He looks more like a cornered animal than his brother, like one of the more wild, vicious creatures that he's encountered in the woods since coming here. It's scary, seeing him move like that, seeing all that anger coiling in his fists, hearing it bleed into his words. Ford's never been scared of his brother before. He's never looked at him - when he knew it was actually him - and thought to himself, this person is dangerous. This is someone I should stay away from.

Well, he's starting to think that now, and he hates himself for it because this is Stan. He should know better than to ever think he needs to be scared of his brother. All that anger, all that pent up rage that's making Stan act like this - he doesn't have to worry about it being taken out on him. He'll never have to worry about that, because Stan would never -

The sound of shattering glass makes him flinch, despite himself, and Ford feels all those reassuring words he was telling himself beat a hasty retreat. He hangs back in the doorway rather than try to approach his brother, the fading echo of his dream still fresh in his mind. He grips the doorframe, unsure if it's safe to break the silence that follows Stan's outburst. Ford decides to risk it, decides that he's got nothing to risk in the first place because there is no risk because this is Stan. This is Stan, not - not him.

"Stanley, you're scaring me."

He bites his tongue, immediately regretting his words.

"You - you need to calm down."

Before you hurt yourself even more.

The words stop him short. Maybe nothing else coulda' done that - it ain't like he's on a rampage or nothin', he ain't like some a' those other guys, he's not, but all the same-

From anyone else it'd just be his cue to look around, hearing that, check the situation out a little. Reassess. From Ford, though? From Ford it's a shock, makes his eyes go wide and his whole body feel cold. Not that last bit, no, there will never be anything more annoying than 'you need to calm down' and he takes a slow breath, feels himself bristle a little bit, squaring up his shoulders and shifting his whole posture, getting ready like he'd have to if anyone else were saying that. But Ford don't mean anything by it. Ford ain't trying to goad him into anything, don't want to test how tough he is. Ford's seen him weak, Ford's seen him cry. More than once, for shit's sake.

So when Ford says he's scared, scared of Stan- god, this ain't some chick sayin' it just to keep a couple guys from wrecking her place. This ain't some guy tellin' him to calm down just to try and piss him off more. When Ford says all that, it's because he means it. God. He flexes his fist and does it slow, lets the feeling of the wood and glass shifting around in there do what it can to ease the awful, tight feeling in his chest that hasn't had a chance to really get out of him yet. And won't, either, he doesn't think. He can't let it out.

"Fuck," he mutters, turning finally and taking a look around at the shit he'd swept off the table, at the glass on the floor and the way the top half of that cabinet kind of looks like it's getting ready to fall right over. "I think I ruined your uh, your nice little room, here."

"I," he tries, eyes darting up toward Ford and away again. He's trying to figure out how to apologize for even being here in this nice little house, doin' what guys like him do.

"Don't belong here, do I?" Stan says it real quiet, not really realizing he said it out loud. Then his voice goes all cheerful, his face follows suit, and he takes a couple hurried steps to his brother. "I'll just get a broom, get all this up real quick. You go sit down and uh, don't worry, I'll be careful around your stuff next time, huh?"

He doesn't give a single second thought to the impulse to try and give Ford's shoulder a little bop with his fist, because that's just what you do when you joke. And that's what this is, no worse than a dog leaving a little mess on a nice carpet. No worries, no problem. No need to be scared of a joke, Ford, everything's just fine. Everything is cool.

Edited 2016-01-07 12:36 (UTC)

For a minute, Ford worries he misspoke. He watches Stan square his shoulders, bristle like he's a firecracker about to go off, and wonders if he ought to take a step back. But then his brother turns around, looks over the room he's made a mess of like he's only just now realized what he had done. Then he swears, looks shamefaced, and Ford lets out the breath he didn't know that he was holding.

Before Ford can get his brain to cooperator with him and come up with something to say, Stan is whirling back around towards him, radiating forced cheer like nothing happened, like Ford didn't just see him ram his fist into a glass cabinet in order to achieve some sort of violent catharsis.

That fist comes to bump his shoulder a moment later, but it doesn't prompt him to match his brother's smile with one of his own. If anything it makes his worried frown deepen as he looks from Stan's hand, to his face, then back again.

Then there he goes, trying to catch his brother's wrist so he can take a look at the hand in question - look at it and frown, and frown hard because it's not okay when Stan's the one bleeding.

"For chrissakes, Stanley. You tear up your hand and think it's the cabinet I'm worried about? Give me some credit here, I'm not that terrible."

Stanley's hand is still and his arm is, too. His fingers uncurl slowly but that's the only movement there is there and he stares at Ford's hand on his wrist, his cheerful look replaced by something much quieter, a little surprised.

"It's just a couple cuts," he says, all awkward, once he looks up. "Once it stops bleedin' all I need is some tweezers and somethin' to wrap it, then I'll be good to go. Your stuff, uh- Maybe not so much. Besides, you need-"

You need to sleep, he doesn't say, because the thought scares him, sets that locked-up feeling inside him to thumping hard at the bars of its cage, so Stanley doesn't say it.

"You oughta' sit down, get at least a little rest that way. 'Sides, all that glass, you'll hurt yourself."

There is another thought he doesn't say. That thought is, again, and the thought is so big just now in his head that he can't think to say anything else, it crowds everything else out. More than you already did. From the way he stares at Ford, jaw going tight, maybe he might as well have said it.

"I'll, I'll get that broom first," he manages, breaking his eyes away from Ford's face. Away from his head, his neck, hell, just Ford in general, 'cause is there really any part of Ford he couldn't imply that thought right now just by looking at? "You just take care of yourself, okay? I'll deal with all this."

There's a lot Stanley isn't saying. Not with his words, at least, not in any way that requires conscious effort. But his eyes - those give him away. The look he gives Ford when he says "you'll hurt yourself", the way his jaw goes tight as he stares at him, at what was done to him - it's not hard for Ford to figure out what his brother is thinking.

That feeling in his stomach is back, the horrible twisting in his gut that makes him feel like he's going to be sick. Maybe he is sick - not in his insides but in his head. Stanley certainly seems to think he is, and no one in the world knows him better than his brother. If - if even he thinks there's something wrong with him, then maybe something actually is after all.

Ford swallows against the knot that's formed suddenly in his throat, but he does not let go of his brother's wrist. If anything his grip tightens, just enough to keep him from pulling away because what he has to say next is important. It's important and goddamn it he's not going to repeat himself because he's almost entirely certain that if he has to repeat himself his confidence is going to waver and ruin any conviction his tone might have.

"Stan. I'm not going to fall apart if you take your eyes off me for five minutes. I've been dealing with this for months. That cycloptic sociopath is gonna have to try a lot harder than this if he wants to break me."

Months, not years. But he'd said this, this freaky floating eyeball hallucination shit started way before that, so this, this whoever it is Ford thinks is doing this to him, it's a new one. He's got to ask, don't he? A doctor would ask, get all the details. He ain't one and he never will be, but he's all Ford's got. And he's got to ask now, don't he? He don't get to let go of all this shit that's pressing all inside of him, he don't get a break to - to do something, anything, he doesn't know.

Well, that's how life is. Sometimes you don't get breaks. He got more of one than he'd deserved when Ford passed out after- after that head thing, and that didn't help anyway, did it? It just gave him time to figure out what he already knew, and didn't make it any easier.

He raises one hand and the wrist Ford's holding tugs at that six-fingered grip to come with, but Stan stops it. The one free hand he's got is enough to cover his face up, give him time to breathe, pull himself back together, god, he's never had to try so many times to put that face on as he has since he got here, the face of a guy who's got his shit together.

"Tell me about him," he says, letting the shelter of his hand over his eyes slip off and bring him back into the big, bad world again. He's got the voice on, too, the voice of a guy who's got his shit together, although let's be honest here, he should probably expect to freak out again in the next five or ten minutes, maybe fifteen if he's lucky. Well, gotta' try.

"Your sociopath guy. I mean, I still need a broom but uh, you can come with me while I get it, tell me all about him. It sounds like somethin' I need to know if I'm gonna' be, uh. You know."

Stan hopes he knows because the idea of using the phrase 'taking care of you' leaves a bad taste in his mouth, knowing like he does what it would really mean. He may have been angry when he talked about keeping Ford higher than fuckin' Mount Everest for the rest of his natural life just to keep him relaxed and safe but that's because the idea makes him want to scream. Just because he was angry when he said it don't mean that, that and staying two steps behind his brother for every minute of every hour of every day, isn't the only idea he's got.

If he wasn't sure of it before his brother covered his face with his hand like he was trying to make the whole world just stop, he is now: Stan thinks he's lost his mind. His own brother thinks he's gone insane, and the worst part - the real fucking kicker - is that Ford can't blame him. How could he? Any rational person would take one look at him and think "Ah yes, this person is a danger to himself and others, we should lock him up and throw away the key."

That Stan has somehow managed to hold out this long, pretending that things don't look as bad as they do - well, it's to his credit. But Ford isn't about to give his brother a medal for that just yet, not when there's still even a single doubt in his mind that he's not as crazy as he seems, that Cipher really is out there, just waiting for the chance to tear their world apart.

His hand tightens its grip on Stan's wrist once more, but this time it's hard, almost vice-like. It's the sort of grip that says 'just fucking try me' in response to being asked to let go.

"I need to show you something. Before I tell you anything I need to show you something, because I'm not going to waste my breath saying things you won't believe."

There's an edge to his voice, a hardness that borders dangerously close to anger - Ford supposes that's just what happens to frustration and fear when you throw them in the same pot and let them mingle for a while while you gradually crank up the heat.

Shush the reply is beautiful and worth the wait

thank

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drama drama drama drama

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That icon kills me