goodguygrifter | (no subject)

The look Stan gives him when the stairway opens, the pride in his tone as he speaks and grins like he hasn't in God knows how long - well, suffice to say, it makes that tight knot of anxiety in Ford's chest loosen enough that he can finally breathe easy again. He finds himself having to bite down on the inside corner of his mouth to keep from smiling himself, though a crooked little grin still manages to sneak through anyhow.

"Among other things."

He nods towards the stairwell, his mood considerably brighter now than it had been during their entire trek through the woods.

"Come on, there's more inside. And watch your step, it's a long way down."

He takes the lead, gesturing for Stan to follow by touching his arm lightly as he passes him by on his way to the stairwell.

"Yeah," Stan agrees, still grinning, and follows. He moves the flashlight all around the place as they head down, looking over the steps and the walls and even up above, once they get far enough in that the teensy bit of light from the outside world starts to disappear. "This musta' taken... I don't know, years. The construction's real solid. Did your uh, your friend, Fiddle... Fiddleston, did he help you with this?"

"Fiddleford. And...not exactly."

Ford's not quite sure how much he ought to reveal about how this bunker came to be. After all, he doesn't want to overload his brother's brain with hard-to-handle information, and something tells him informing his brother that he developed a machine which can create exact paper duplicates of living people would be a liiiitle hard for him to handle.

"Let's just say I have my ways, and leave it at that, alright?"

Eventually the stairway ends, and they find themselves on solid ground. Ford doesn't give his brother the chance to take in the sights, however, as he keeps up his brisk pace and continues on past the winding metal halls, the stockpiled supplies, the weapon cabinets and other assembled things one would expect to find in a fallout shelter. It's not until they reach the security room that Ford finally slows to a stop, then turns to give his brother a meaningful look.

"Alright, before we go any further I have to tell you that we're about to walk into what may or may not be a literal death trap of my own design."

He pauses a moment to let that sink in before elaborating.

"Don't worry, it's perfectly safe to pass through so long as you know the entry code."

"You know what?" The relief of not spending half an hour camped out by a tree in the woods trying yet again to pretend his brother is okay, the thrill of being here - seriously, this place looks like somethin' straight outta' the damn movies - it brings his grin right back.

"You know what, that sounds like fun. Bring it on. We can handle it, right?" He slaps at Ford's arm, honestly excited. "What did you make somethin' like that for, anyway? The hell of it?"

Ford tries to match his brother's smile, but his attempt falls short, and what he flashes instead is more of a grimace than a grin.

"Like I said, I've mad a lot of enemies, and even more mistakes."

If Stan wonders what he means by that, well, he can continue to wonder because Ford isn't going to elaborate. Instead, he steps down from the entry-tunnel and onto the floor of the security room, careful to avoid setting foot on the wrong rune. He turns back to Stan, holding up one hand to signal for him to wait.

"This'll only be a moment, hold on."

And then, with surprising speed and agility for a man who hasn't eaten in what's going on three days now, Ford races to the far corner of the room to press his hand against one of the many square tiles that line the walls, ceiling, and floor. It lights up under his touch - as does every other rune before the room begins to shift and close in on itself.

"Uh?" Stan understands as much as he needs to. He understands that this thing is going to cut him off from his brother if it closes up much more, so without thought he steps forward, slipping the flashlight into a pocket, and ducks under the squares that look like they're about to close up in front of the entrance of the tunnel. He, of course, is plenty agile thank you very much, but that doesn't mean he knows where to step. "Ford? Did somethin' go wrong?"

Goddamn it Stanley, you had one job.

Ford looks sharply over his shoulder, sighs roughly in frustration, and hits a second tile a little harder than is strictly necessary before side-stepping one of the shifting pillars blocking his path and making his way over to his brother. It's just his luck that the third tile is near him.

"Remember when I said this was a death trap?" It's a rhetorical question, but even so he asks it like he's asking if Stan recalls a particular episode of some old cartoon they watched as children.

"Because I'm pretty sure I explicitly told you this was a death trap."

"A death trap you're in." Stan says it like it's an obvious fact that Ford missed, frowns at him like he's confused about just why that might be. That's because he is. If Ford is in here, isn't it obvious Stan's got to be here too?

He looks around, ducking a shifting set of blocks and trying (and, of course, failing) to make anything at all out of all the different symbols. "You don't have to walk me through it or nothin'. I trust that big old brain of yours. Just tell me what to do."

Maybe he shouldn't, maybe Stanley shouldn't trust a single damn thing that comes out of Ford's head now, but this honestly does not occur to him. Up in the woods he'll doubt him, sure. In Ford's house, sure. Normal places. But this ain't a normal place. This place is new, and weird, and more than a little dangerous, apparently, and when it comes down to it? Well. Yeah. Old habits, and all that.

Ford side-steps yet another pillar, then ducks under another and nearly trips over a third before catching himself at the last minute. He frowns at Stan, not in the least bit happy that he's putting himself inside the literal death trap without so much as a second thought.

"A death trap I know how to navigate." He corrects, before kicking another tile with his boot, making it glow. "Unlike a certain someone who is standing right in front of the last pressure pad."

He gestures towards his brother, or rather, to the pillar closing in behind him.

"Press the tile, if you'd please, before we're crushed to death."

Funny, how he doesn't sound particularly alarmed despite how grave the situation is.

"This one?" Stan turns, steps out of the way of a couple of the weird moving wall things, and stretches to slap at the one he's pretty sure Ford meant. "There. That wasn't so bad. Come on, what other sci-fi alien deathtraps did you build into this place? I can handle 'em."

Stan doesn't sound too alarmed either - in fact, he sounds cheerful. He is cheerful. They haven't even done anything yet, but it's like - it's fun, doing this, it's so different from all the shit he's spent the last few days, hell, the last month, the last few years, dealing with. It's a relief.

Besides. This wasn't that deadly. No one squished or anything. Good news all around.

Things are starting to get a little tight now - Ford hurries his pace a bit, dodging this and that pillar as he makes his way over to Stan and grabs his sleeve.

"You won't be able to handle this one if we don't keep moving."

And he's not just saying that either - because even as he hits the fourth and final tile, which prompts the door on the other side of the room to open, the pillars keep closing in on them.

"Come on, hurry it up."

He doesn't let go of Stan's sleeve as he moves forward, stepping over one pillar and ducking beneath another. If anything, his grip tightens - he doesn't want Stan to fall behind.

Edited 2016-01-14 03:34 (UTC)

"That's one hell of a security system." Stan turns to watch behind them as the room closes, fascinated. "I've never seen anything like it. If more folks had a room like that in front of their valuables it woulda' saved me-"

It would have saved him a trip to the big house, yeah, but he remembers just in time who he's with, who it is he's talking to. This ain't just a joy ride inside some rich asshole's mansion, or whatever. This is his brother, leading him to somethin' that's supposed to make him believe all that, all that stuff, make Stan believe in those things Ford's been seeing for, how long was it he'd said it was? Years?

"-a lotta' people a whole lot of trouble," Stan finishes, his light spirits a little dimmed. "You get that many people sneakin' in down here?"

If Ford notices the way Stan trips over his words in the middle there, he doesn't bring attention to it. There's a time and a place to ask about certain subjects, and when it comes to Stan's...less than legal activities, this is time and place is neither nor.

Ford makes a mental note to ask Stan about that later, sometime. If, you know, if he ever gets the chance. The closer they get to their destination, the less sure Ford is of how well this plan of his is going to work out. He can't help but worry that maybe - because wouldn't that be just his luck - there would be nothing to show Stan after all. There would be nothing there with which to prove his sanity because there never was anything, because he's not sane, because this is all in his head after all.

Stanley certainly believes that's the case - he tries not to show it, but Ford knows. Ford knows, but he's not sure Stan knows that he knows, and he'd prefer to keep it that way until they figure out for certain which of them is in the wrong.

"No, thank God. As far as I'm aware, you're the only other person who even knows this place exists."

That says a lot, really, about how much Ford trusts his brother - or maybe it just says a lot about how desperate he is to prove his own sanity.

You know what else it says a lot about? Whatever the hell is down here. Because Stan knows plenty about stuff meant to keep people out, yeah, but he also - as has been established although, luckily for Stan, not out loud - knows a little somethin' about stuff meant to keep people in.

"Aside from the guy who was helpin' you, right?" Unless he's a figment of Ford's poor brain too, jeez, don't think that, all this is enough to deal with already without things being that bad.

"So you just put that deathtrap room in for shits and giggles? And this whole place, it's for, uh... Science stuff?" Stan sweeps the flashlight around, frowning. The excitement of the place is starting to wear off more, the more time he has to think. And the things he's thinking of? Mostly questions. Scary ones, and the worst are the ones that start with why. It might show in his voice, that unhappiness, the hope that Ford will come up with some perfectly innocent answer that explains everything. Because as cool as all this is, as much as it all looks like something out of a movie, Stan can't help but wonder just when Ford made all of it. Did he make it before his mind started to... Well, before? Or after?

"It's a lab." Ford corrects, as he very carefully dodges the question about Fiddleford. "One I've been conducting some very...unorthodox research in."

There's really no good way to word what he's been doing down here without digging himself deeper and reinforcing Stan's belief that he's lost his marbles, so he's just going to hold off on the in-depth explanation for now.

He walks to the other end of the room, puts his hands on the circular latch which keeps the door sealed shut, and hesitates. He glances over his shoulder at his brother, and feels his hands begin to sweat a little. This is it: the moment of truth. Once they make it past this door, they'll be inside the lab and Stan will finally get a look at the - at the proof he needs. Or maybe they won't find anything at all. Ford's not sure which idea scares him more.

He swallows, his mouth suddenly feeling dry, and then turns the handle.

"We'll need to stand under the decontamination spray for a minute or two before the door will open to the other side."

He steps into the small enclosure, which is more or less the size of a particularly roomy closet, and waves his brother in.

"Don't worry, it's not toxic unless you ingest it. It'll just hurt like holy hell if you get it in your eyes."

Ford makes a point of taking off his glasses and slipping them into his coat, so he won't have to wipe them off later. Out of habit, he rubs at the red-spots the nose-pads leave between his eyes, though that doesn't do much to make the redness go away.

Stan grimaces at the explanation. Or, you know, what his brother obviously thinks will pass as one. And the thing is, he's right. Stan isn't gonna' push it. They both know. Neither of them want to, he's sure, but they know. Is it 'unorthodox' to experiment on shit that ain't even there? Is that what all them science nerds with their lab coats and fancy degrees would call it?

Yeah. He guesses it must be.

But he's here anyway. He's here because this is his brother and the idea that Ford always knows best, knows more and better no matter what the rest of the world thinks, Stan wants that to be true. That's what he remembers being true back when he was a kid, back when things were good.

And even if it ain't, well. This is his brother, and the least he owes him is a chance.

Even if that means he's about to get his eyes sprayed by super special toxic acid, or whatever. He glances around the room, frowning, and the frown only gets bigger and deeper once he steps in. He's okay, though, he's cool. It's his brother leading him in here, okay, so it's fine to close the door behind him, he only hesitates a couple seconds before doing it and nevermind how stiff his whole posture gets when he hears the thing hiss shut.

"Couple minutes, huh?" he asks, shutting his eyes so the chemical whatever don't get in. And maybe, a little bit, because that feels like it ought to help. "You couldn't cut that wait down a little?"

Luckily for Stan, the room is pitch dark once the door shuts so Ford doesn't see the way he tenses up so much he goes as rigid as a post. He knows his brother is afraid of heights, but this strange discomfort in enclosed spaces is new, and something he'd question if he had noticed it.

It's probably better for them both that he doesn't.

"Nope!" He replies, ever-so-flatly, before reaching up to pull the switch without another word of warning.

The spray hits them immediately, first from the sides then from above. Ford hisses as the chemical mixture hits the back of is head, because holy hell the skin back there is tender, then swiftly moves his hand to shield it from further agitation. All the while, he silently curses himself for not thinking to do that before he pulled the switch.

The smell of a strong chemical solvent fills the room, and their sinuses, but soon enough it's rinsed away, leaving them both damp yet probably the cleanest either of them have been in a while.

Then the door hisses open, light pools in, and Ford takes in a deep breath. Alright. Alright, here they go.

"Well, here we are." How's that for a grand introductory speech?

He turns to slip around Ford as soon as the door opens, taking a slow breath and, incidentally, a big whiff of the place. And the two of them.

"Sheesh, I smell like a hospital now," he says, turning in a slow circle, taking the whole thing in, and trying to figure out what to make of it all. "You really need whatever's in here to stay that clean?"

"Hey, uh," Stan interrupts his own griping to nod at one of those freaky tubes. At the glass, really, the way it's all shattered. "Your 'unorthodox experiments' usually, um. Break out?"

Out, he says, because whatever did that did it from the inside. There's glass all over the metal platform leading up to it, none in the big tube. It coulda' been chemical shit that did that, sure. It coulda' been.

Did he think earlier that this was like being in a movie? Yeah. The problem with that, after a while, you start to figure out how the people in movies feel.

Ford doesn't need Stan to tell him that the cryo-pod has broken. He sees it the moment they step out of the decontamination room, and the sight stops him dead in his tracks. For a moment, his heart stops. All his thoughts come to a screeching halt. He doesn't blink, he doesn't breathe, he just stares.

Then stiffly, he reaches for his brother. He reaches for him with a shaky hand, grips tight to his sleeve like their very lives depended on it.

"Stan." His voice is hushed, as if he can hardly force out the word. "Stan we need to turn back. We need to turn back now."

He's already pulling at his brother's sleeve as he says this, taking a step backwards towards the door. He doesn't take his eyes off the shattered tube. He can't seem to look away from it.

"Okay," Stan says, and he knows he sounds worried but he tries to sound reassuring, too. "Okay, we'll go. We'll skip that chemical stuff too, huh?"

He walks with Ford, not fighting the grip on his sleeve and putting a hand on Ford's back, not quite pushing him but not quite not, either. "You got a way around that security room of yours? Somethin' quicker?"

Ford opens his mouth to respond, but before he can utter a single word, the lights abruptly cut out and they're plunged into complete and total darkness.

His grip on his brother's sleeve tightens, his knuckles turning white.

"Stanley, I am so sorry."

Beyond the quiet thrum of machinery, beyond the occasional drip drip drip of a leaky pipe, a skittering sound can be heard. It seems to come from the far wall, or maybe the ceiling.

"I never should have brought you here, I never should have--"

He never finishes the sentence. Something descends upon them before he can, dropping down upon them from above and knocking them apart despite the iron-grip Ford has--had--on his brother's sleeve.

And then the lights are back. Just like that, like nothing happened. Except for one itty bitty little detail. One little thing that leaves the room still, and silent, and empty. One screaming absence that Stanley is going to remember for a very long time, that he's going to dream about. When he does, he isn't going to be even a little bit surprised. A single room, perfectly still, perfectly peaceful, and no one but but Stanley in it.

"Ford! Ford! This isn't... funny..." But Ford never was a joker. Stanley knows that. He turns in a circle, like his brother's just gonna' be waiting somewhere behind him, and runs a hand over his hair. "Ford! Oh fuck, oh, oh jeez, I-"

Okay. Okay. There's not one single thing in this room that he could use as a weapon, just fucking equipment, stupid science bullshit, and he'd give his fucking left arm to be holding a baseball bat right about now and that might be kinda redundant, okay, but just never you fucking mind. There's a tunnel over there, okay. This room ain't just a dead end. So he don't think things like he was right, your brother was right and you didn't believe him, look what you drove him to, now he's dead and it's your-

"Fuck you!" His voice echoes through the room and good, fucking good, he hopes it does, he hopes everything in here fucking hears it because he's not thinking that shit, he's just going in this goddamn tunnel to rescue his goddamn brother. "Fuck you, you hear me, you shitty Exorcist reject! I'm going in here after you and you better not make me wait! You better be right there waiting for me!"

And in he goes. The only other way out of this room, other than that puzzle-blocks-of-doom bullshit, and the only way in. If Ford is any way he's that way, so that way Stan Pines goes.

Stan isn't met with silence for long - in fact, he doesn't get very far at all before a disembodied voice echoes out from God knows where.

"So this is what you look like all grown up."

The statement is followed by a sharp, rickety chuckle that is anything but kind.

"If you ask me, you look better in the photo."

Something skitters across the ceiling, moving rapidly from shadow to shadow, safe from view beneath a curtain of darkness.

"He still has that old thing, by the way. Or, well, had."

Something drops from the ceiling, flutters apart as it tumbles through the air before landing at Stan's feet. It's the photo - or rather, the pieces of it that are left. It has been mangled beyond repair; no amount of tape is going to fix something that looks like it was set upon by claws.

Edited 2016-01-17 04:01 (UTC)

Stan steps back, looking around with wide eyes and gritted teeth, and when whatever this is drops in front of him he actually raises a fist before realizing - hey. There's one thing about all this freaky bullshit that he knows, because Stan Pines knows a psych-out when it echoes in his ears and makes him jump back like his feet are on fire.

"Yeah, well, if I'd have known I got a secret admirer I'd a' prettied myself up a little." Stan's eyes dart back and forth over what he can see, and when he makes out the picture the pieces used to be he bares his teeth. He doesn't bend to pick the pieces up, though. He ain't that stupid. He looks up instead, trying to see over the ceiling, but there's nothing there. Or, at least, nothing he can see.

"You too scared to come down here and show your face like a man? Or, hey, you afraid your secret admirer will think you're ugly? That it? Come on, sweetheart, I'll just close my eyes and give that mug of yours a big old smooch."

There it is again, that ugly, unkind laughter.

"Well, if you insist!"

The lights go off for a second time, plunging the entire laboratory into darkness. It's hard to tell where the skittering sound is coming from - the noise seems to reverberate from every wall, each echo more distorted than the last. But then another sound pierces through the darkness, one far less difficult to pinpoint - there, a a dozen or so yards ahead of him, Stan will be able to hear the tell-tale signs of a struggle.

Something clatters to the ground, something hard and metal. It skids across the ground towards Stan, before skidding to a stop a few feet away.

Then, as soon as they shut off, the lights come back on with blinding force. A short ways away from Stan's feet, he'll see a handgun. Further than that, at six or so yards, he'll find something even more alarming -

His brother, two of him, both wearing matching expressions of distress.

"Stanley, I--"

"Stan, don't listen to it, that's not me!"