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Back when you were a kid and life was supposed to be fair, you were taught about give and take. Well, it was yelled at you more than it was taught to you because you were the kinda idiot that never learned from his mistakes the first time around, but eventually the lesson managed to get through your thick skull.
You had to be worth what people invested in you, because otherwise you’d be a waste of time and money and it wouldn’t be fair to the folks you owed.
The glasses you kept on breaking cost the gas it took to go to the glasses store, the time spent on the trip, and the stuff you had to pay upfront. And the prices piled up every time you got into another fight and snapped another pair until everyone did the math and figured out that burning a dollar a day would’ve been less of a waste.
The crappy grades you got cost the money spent for your schooling, hours wasted everyday because you were too lazy and stupid to learn anything by yourself. No matter how hard you tried to focus, boredom would sink in until the only thing you remembered from lessons were the daydreams you had during them. No matter how much work you tried to get done, your mind would wander until hours somehow passed and you still haven’t moved from the first page.
But you could make up for all that and more because you were worth something to Stanford, who spent so much time with you and you with him, who was worth years of companionship and potentially a world filled with adventure, treasure, and the endless horizons of the sea.
So here’s a question: How much
are you
is a hope for your childhood dream worth compared to a bright future promising wealth and recognition to the twin that could actually make it happen?
The answer: Less than a having home, a family, and said twin. If you had to give an exact number, it’d be -$1,000,000.
So like always, you don’t think. You shouted that you didn’t need anyone like an idiot, because everyone would’ve heard it and now you had to be okay, otherwise you’d never be able to face them. You spend the rest of night driving away from your mistakes
and past the point of no return
.
You spend the next few years in a cycle that goes a little something like this:
-You get a bright idea that fills you with enough enthusiasm that you convince yourself into thinking it could actually work.
-You invest way too much into making said idea happen, until you go through with it and it doesn’t go the way you fantasized.
-You end up getting overwhelmed by the consequences that you should’ve considered more in hindsight but never do.
-You run away, because at the end of the day, the only thing your time and effort was ever worth was a few hundred more broken promises and the disappointment that comes with them.
Eventually you give up, taking what you can get and numbly accepting whenever that goes to shit too.
But then you get a postcard from your twin. A chance to fix the biggest mistake of your life .
You CAN’T let this opportunity slip by. You HAD to fix things with Sixer. So you could finally be okay again. So you can finally prove to him, to everyone,
to yourself
that you can do at least one thing right in your life.
So here’s a joke: An estranged screw up visits his brother and gets pissed when he’s told to leave. A fistfight later, his brother’s estranged and the screw up has to stay to get him back.
It’s funny, how you stared at Sixer’s journal until the words blur together from your tears and you can understand them just as much as when you could see.
It’s funny, how you took Ford’s name and house without even trying to act like him and nobody bats an eye.
It’s funny, how you watched the flames licking the sides of a crumpled car and wished that you were actually in it.
It’s funny, how thirty years pass and you still go down the portal every night like it makes a damn difference.
It’s funny, how the pair of bright eyed twins that are so painfully similar to Ford manage to find one of his journals in less than a month. How a little shit of a (not even ten-years-old) rival has had one the entire time.
It’s funny, how you convinced your grand niece to trust you to the point of letting go of the shutdown button. How your heart jumped to your throat as you prayed to deities you stopped believing a lifetime ago, ‘Please, not again. I can’t lose her too’.
I did it. I actually did it.
It’s funny, how spending thirty years fixing one of the biggest mistakes you’ve made in your life was only worth a punch to the face. You’re still worth less than a home. Still worth less than a family.
Still worth less than a twin.
So here’s an observation: Anything going remotely right for Stanley Pines is clearly a sign of the apocalypse.
The entire town’s turned into a horrifying drug trip, you don’t know where the rest of your family is, and you’ve got a shit ton of refugees squatting in
your
Ford’s house.
In all fairness (hahAHA), you’re handling this pretty well.
You almost break down into tears when you see that the kids are alive. Then you learn that Ford’s been capture and you want to fucking scream .
The twins tell you their plans to save Ford, and you barely stop a slew of curses from peppering every sentence of your rant because these two kids are amazing and brave and absolutely going to DIE out there. Then they get everyone else to agree to save your twin and there isn’t a single damn thing you can do to stop them.
Things were actually going as planned.
So of course you had to fuck it up. And now the kids are going to die and it’s all your fault, all because you couldn’t hold Stanford’s stupid fucking hand.
You have an idea.
You couldn’t convince yourself it would work even if you tried, but no way was Bill just going to let them be when he got into Ford’s mind, and there wasn’t any time left for better options. For once in your life, Sixer doesn’t argue.
So here’s a question: How much is a screw up’s mind worth?
The answer: Enough to save your family.
Guess I was good for something after all.
.
.
.
“So, uh, Ford? Can I ask you a question?”
The man looks up from his book. “Yes? What is it?”
You take a moment to consider your words. “Why are you all still here?”
He blinks and looks around, before turning back to you. “Oh, um, would you like us to give you some space?”
“No, s’not that. Just,” You shrug. “Feel like there’s bigger things worth worrying about than some old guy with amnesia.”
Oh shit that was not the right thing to say. Before you can apologize for almost driving (another) person to tears, the man rushes over and wraps you in a tight hug.
“You were always worthwhile.” A faint echo of a memory clearly states otherwise, but the man sounded so reverent when he says this that you decide not to argue.
You do let out a nervous chuckle. “Because I saved the world?” It’s what everyone’s been telling you, not that you believe a single word of it.
The man squeezes you tighter. “Because you’re you, and that's always enough.”