Work Text:
With big intention, still posted at your station
always on about the day it should have flown
You say too late to start
with your heart in a headlock
No, I don’t believe any of it
You’re walking, you’ve been hiding (so what?)
and you look half dead half the time (don’t care)
monitoring you like machines do (will not)
you’ve still got it, I’m just keeping an eye (the end)
Headlock - Imogen Heap
******************************
Ford finds the recordings by accident.
He’s in the middle of dismantling the portal and he’s spent the last four hours doing manual work. His hands hurt and his back is killing him and he decides that it’s too early to stop but he can do something a little less strenuous for a while. It’s really too bad that earth still has the same gravitational pull it had 30 years ago. He fondly thinks back to dimension 14-XP-340 where nothing weighed more than a wet paper tissue and physical work was so much easier. Maybe he should take the time to invent some kind of gravity inverter or something.
The thought of asking for help briefly crosses his mind but he pushes it away with an impatient huff. That didn’t exactly work out well for him the last time he tried that. Building something to completely alter gravity would be much easier.
Ford leans back in his chair and mindlessly deletes files off the main hard drive. It hurts to erase all his research and hard work with nothing but the click of a mouse, but despite what a certain twin might like to tell you, he is capable of learning from his mistakes. He should have just destroyed the journals back then. Then none of this would have happened.
“Or Stanley could have just done as he was told for once,” he mutters under his breath and the old familiar resentment raises its ugly head.
Ford clicks delete with a lot more force than necessary.
His throat feels tight, the way it always does when he remembers what happened all those years ago.
He’d had nightmares about that night for a very long time, all of them different but similarly horrifying. Sometimes he would dream about his brother lying on the floor, clutching his burned shoulder, his agonized screams echoing all around them in an endless loop while dream Ford desperately tries to reach him. Sometimes he’d dream about opening his front door and watching, helpless and frozen, as the crossbow moves on its own and his brother falls to the ground with an arrow through his eye. He’d dream of kneeling on top of Stanley, Bill’s insane laughter ripping his throat apart, strangling his own brother to death.
And then there are the dreams where Stanley takes the journal and just leaves. He takes a boat and sails to the ends of the world and Ford never sees him again.
Which is exactly what Ford had wanted, the best case scenario, and still those are the worst dreams, the ones that leave him gasping for breath, a sob caught in his throat upon waking up.
How peculiar.
Ford shakes his head. He needs to stop reminiscing on the past and instead concentrate on what he is doing right now. Maybe some of the files can still be of use today.
A folder with a nondescript name catches his eyes. It’s nothing but a sequence of numbers and Ford stares at it for a long moment, trying to figure out if there is a pattern, a hidden message, before he decides to just open it with a swift double click.
It takes the outdated computer a significant amount of time to load the contents, and when it finally does, Ford can see why.
There are dozens of video files.
He blinks at them, confused by their sheer number and the dates he can see in the file descriptions. Apparently these are recordings that start the day he went into the portal and end about two weeks after. There are so many, it’s kind of ridiculous and Ford immediately sets out to delete all of them because, Dear Multidimensional Gods, these recordings must be responsible for all the lagging he’s been experiencing ever since he started working on the computers. How did Stanley even work like this? Why didn’t he already delete them or put them on an external disc?
“Because Stanley doesn’t know about them,” Ford says out loud, his finger pausing over the delete button.
He suddenly remembers what this is.
When Bill had started taking over his unconscious body, the worst feeling had been not knowing what the triangle had done with it, or how much damage he'd been able to do to Ford's work. He'd taken precautions, of course, but Ford had constantly worried whether they were enough. What if Bill found a way to break into his lab and mess with the portal? It's not like the demon would have let him know. At least not until it would have already been too late.
So he’d taken the time to tear apart an old video camera and completely rebuild it with a direct link to his computer. Looking back, he'd probably invented the first digital camera, a thought that briefly gives Ford pause before he dismisses it as unimportant. It’s not like he can capitalize on that anymore.
The truly tricky part had been programming a motion sensor so that the camera would start recording every time something was moving in his lab. Fiddleford had been the tech savvy guy out of the two of them and he'd been long gone by then but somehow Ford had managed with what little knowledge he had gathered over the years from listening to Fidds.
Then it had just been a matter of religiously deleting the footage he knew only showed him during the day and checking every morning for any disturbances during the night. It had been necessary to regularly delete everything because the little space on his server that he’d linked up to the camera had only had a limited memory.
But it seems with no one around to delete them after he was gone, the recordings kept getting archived, only stopping when the memory space ran out.
Ford stares at the files. There are… surprisingly many in a surprisingly short amount of time. There is merely two weeks worth of footage and the camera was supposed to be triggered by motion only. Judging by the dates and times, Stanley must have been in and out of the lab constantly in the two weeks after the portal incident.
Ford moves the little cursor over the files, up and down, up and down. He should just delete them. Who cares what his brother did down here in the weeks after the accident? It’s been thirty years, that hardly matters anymore. It can only make him angry again. The mere thought of watching Stanley bumble his way through his lab like an idiot will only reignite the fury Ford has finally (sort of) gotten under control. Does he really want to know all the ways Stanley messed up in the initial aftermath?
Deleting them would be the only sensible thing to do.
But Ford’s greatest weakness has always been his curiosity and so he opens the first video.
He watches, strangely spellbound, as a young Stanley and Ford enter the lab on the screen. Ford flinches at the sound of his own voice as the disheveled scientist in the video explains about the portal. He forgot that these things came with audio.
His brows furrow. This is harder to watch than he anticipated. His eyes keep bouncing between his brother and himself, hardly recognizing the two men anymore. They look like strangers. Have they ever been so young?
“I’m giving you the chance to do the first worthwhile thing in your life and you won’t even listen!”
Ford rears back. Did he really say that? He doesn’t even remember that. Sure, he’d been under a lot of pressure at the time, half mad with lack of sleep, but he’d remember saying something like that, wouldn’t he? No, wait! He would have never said that in the first place, right?
But there is Stanley, his unshaven face crumbling in pain and misery, physically recoiling from his own brother.
Ford doesn’t remember that either.
He watches the fight break out, such a stupid and preventable chain of events that he cringes away in embarrassment. His younger self pushes Stanley into the console and present Ford listens to his brother scream. It sounds just like in his nightmares and Ford quickly leans over to press the forward button on the video. He watches them continue to fight at double speed and then switches back to normal just in time to watch himself float up and through the portal.
There is a lump in his throat.
That… looked scary. It felt really scary too, he remembers that, even though he did his best to forget about it. The way the energy had pulled at his molecules and swallowed him up and spit him out on the other side, still the same, and yet, irrevocably changed.
He’d tried very hard to forget about that.
Ford unconsciously lowers the volume as the Stanley on the screen screams his name over and over. Just as he predicted, the young man mindlessly messes with the machinery in an attempt to get the portal back online. The sight is almost enough to make Ford forget all about regrets and younger brothers.
Typical Stanley, messing with things he doesn’t understand. No wonder the portal malfunctioned the way it did.
With the glow of the portal gone, the lab grows dark. The shadows are deep and long but it's a good camera and so Ford has an unhindered view of his brother’s face twisting up in terror. He can make out every detail as his brother falls to his knees, presses his forehead against the floor and holds unnaturally still.
Ford clenches his fists.
Unfortunately, the audio is great too.
The video cuts off in the middle of a wretched sob. His brother must have been immobile on that floor for a long time for the camera to stop recording even though someone was still in the room.
Ford stares at the screen, his mouse hovering over the next video.
He doesn’t want to but he must .
The next video shows his brother getting back to his feet. The timestamp reads two hours later and the implications make something twist in Ford's chest. Stanley staggers as soon as he is standing and then stares at the portal as if he is trying to turn it back on with his mind alone. He is facing away from the camera and for the first time Ford has a clear view of the burn on his shoulder.
Not a burn, he realizes with a start.
A brand.
The jacket around it is destroyed, the scraps almost melding with the skin underneath. It looks inflamed and infected, an angry red all around. Blood is still lazily tickling down and disappearing beneath a ruined shirt. It must itch like crazy.
It must hurt even worse.
Ford leans forward, his nose almost pressing against the screen. “Get help, you idiot,” he whispers. “Clean that up. Get some medicine.”
Past Stanley doesn’t listen to him.
Not like any Stanley ever did.
His brother stumbles from corner to corner, the book pressed tight against his chest. He is looking for something, maybe the other books, maybe a handy instruction manual.
He won’t find it.
Finally, finally, after what feels like hours, he staggers towards the elevator and leaves the lab. Seconds later the video cuts off.
There are so many more still. Stanford shouldn’t watch them. Nothing they show him will change anything. Nothing they show him will help him with his current mission. All he’s doing is invading his brother’s privacy. Stanley clearly doesn’t know about these or he would have already found the files and deleted them. They show too much vulnerability.
They show way too much.
But Ford can’t help but click the next video.
And the one after that.
And the one after that.
He watches as his brother returns to the lab several times every day following the accident. Sometimes he is manic. Storming in and tearing the place apart. Sometimes he is silent, with his hands crammed into his pockets and his shoulders pulled up as if waiting for a beating, just standing there and staring at all the machinery. Sometimes he stops in the doorway, the camera barely catching half of his body, and immediately runs out again.
The videos range from seconds to hours.
Ford tries to stop watching but he finds himself clicking the next video almost simultaneously with the one before that ending. He can’t keep his eyes off of Stanley who looks worse and worse the more time passes. Days after the accident he is still in his ratty clothes, that destroyed jacket that had already seen better days by the time Stanley stood in front of his door. He has not taken care of the brand and his hair looks like he hasn’t washed it in weeks. He looks hollow and more than once Ford thinks he can hear his stomach making gurgling noises.
The audio is unfortunately really, really good.
It is obvious that Stanley is having a fever. The more time passes, the more sluggish his movements become. His gait grows even more uneven and sometimes he has to lean against one of the machines or against a table because it looks like he is about to fall over. He hasn’t really said a lot since Ford disappeared but in some of the videos he is muttering under his breath and it sounds like his words are slurring together, the sentences short and nonsensical.
Ford feels a tightness in his chest he hasn’t felt in a long time. It is immediately familiar. He associates this feeling with his brother. It’s the same tightness he’s always felt when Stanley was sick or in danger and which his brother has always claimed to experience as well whenever Ford was in trouble. Their mother had called it ‘their special connection’, their father ‘a way play hooky together’.
Feeling it right now, thirty years later, is highly illogical. Ford knows that Stanley is alright. He’s upstairs doing Arts and Crafts with the girl and watching Ducktective with the boy. He obviously pulled through, despite running himself ragged back then.
He is fine!
But Ford can’t help but swallow back the nausea as he watches young Stanley run to a corner of the lab and barely grab one of the buckets in time to vomit into it.
It is painful to watch this slow decline of his brother. What probably makes it even worse is that Ford doesn’t understand the reason for it. Why is Stanley coming down here all the time, searching the lab? What is he even searching for? Did he forget that Ford hid the other books? Is he looking for a manual to the portal? Some other clue how to turn it back on?
Ford opens another video from around one week after he disappeared. Stanley looks worse than ever. He is pale and obviously dehydrated with fever. Even through the screen Ford can see how dry his skin is, how it stretches around his eyes, which are hollow and glazed over with a manic energy he hasn’t shown since the day of the accident.
The video starts with his brother storming into the lab, stumbling over his own feet and shouting. It’s the first time that his voice is loud enough to make out the words. He sounds drunk but Ford knows he’s anything but.
“Okay, haha! Very funny!” Stanley shouts and Ford frowns.
What?
Stan turns in a circle and his eyes are blazing with fury and something else. Something painful.
“That was fucking hilarious!” His words are slurring so bad now, he’s almost incomprehensible. “You got me good! You got your revenge, Ford! Now come out!”
A chill travels down Ford’s spine. He wants to turn the video off but he is frozen in place, helpless to watch his brother completely unravel.
Stanley screams and upturns a table. Ford would be impressed with the kind of strength he still has if all of this wasn’t so heartbreaking. “Come the fuck out now! I’m not messing around. I will kick your ass, Ford! Come out! Come out, you bastard!”
He keeps screaming and throwing things and his voice grows hoarse and it takes Ford a moment to realize his brother is crying, big fat tears running down his overheated cheeks, sobs and wordless screams replacing the accusations.
Stanley tries to throw something else but his fever must have finally caught up with him. He loses his balance and falls to the ground. He hits the floor without a sound, like a puppet whose strings have been cut, and then he just lies there, heaving wheezing breaths through an abused throat.
“Come back,” he slurs, his voice small and plaintive. He sounds the way he did when they were children and he asked Ford if he could join him in his bunk because he had a bad dream. “Come back. I’m sorry. I’m sorry Ford, just come back! I’ll go and take the book. Just please, come back. I’m sorry. Ford, come back. I’m sorry.”
His words blend into each other, losing all meaning, his eyes staring at nothing, his cheek still pressed to the cold floor, his limbs twisted underneath him and Ford-
Ford cuts the video. His fingers are shaking and he feels sick. There are still thirty minutes left in this video and the number pushes him over the edge. He runs to the other side of the lab and grabs a bucket and heaves into it. Distantly he is aware that it’s the same one Stanley used all those years ago and the mental image makes it worse, makes him expel everything he’s eaten in the last 24 hours.
He never wondered about the immediate aftermath. Never wondered what his brother was doing or feeling after their fight. It would have hurt too much to think about it because a part of him thought that maybe his brother had been feeling nothing at all. Maybe his brother had just shrugged it off and gone on with his life, forgetting Ford. He’d banked on it, honestly. Because it would have catastrophic consequences if Stanley tried to reactivate his portal. Ford had convinced himself that Stanley would never do it, never even try. The universe was safe because his brother didn’t care about him.
How foolish he’d been.
Ford rubs his sleeve over his mouth and wishes he’d never watched those videos.
But Ford always has to know, doesn’t he? That's the cardinal rule, the root of everything. He read the warnings and summoned Bill anyway because he simply had to, like an itch at the back of his head.
He’d watched the first video and he had to watch the rest of them, despite the deep void growing bigger and bigger in his chest at every additional minute.
He just had to know.
Ford staggers back to the computer where the damned folder waits and mocks him.
There is only one video left. Its timestamp tells him that it was recorded a week after the last one and it is only 53 seconds long. Maybe cut off because the memory space ran out. Probably not enough footage to reveal anything of importance.
But… what if?
53 seconds.
What if?
Ford stares at the file for what feels like hours. He’s probably not that far off with his estimation because the sound of the elevator doors opening an undetermined time later scares him half to death. Without conscious thought he minimizes the folder and turns around. He’s expecting to see Dipper, the only one who ever comes down here to visit him.
It’s Stanley.
Ford blinks, barely daring to breathe. His brother almost never comes down here and even now he stops just shy of the elevator doors, keeping one hand on the sliding doors to keep them open. He looks annoyed and concerned and apprehensive.
Ford's eyes involuntarily go to Stanley’s shoulder and the scar he has caught a glimpse of only once, a few days ago. It is currently covered by a shirt but just knowing that it’s there and that it almost killed his brother is enough.
Ford feels sick again.
If Stanley notices his paling complexion, he doesn’t show. “You’ve been down here forever. Not that I care but Dipper refuses to eat unless you get something to eat as well and the kid is scrawny enough as it is.”
Ford swallows and nods his head. “Okay.”
Stanley raises an eyebrow. It looks like he wants to come closer, the expression on his face is almost something akin to concern. But before he can take a single step he visibly reigns himself in. “Just okay? Kinda expected you to bite my head off for coming down here. Has all the radiation down here finally fried your brains?”
“Not more than yours, knucklehead.”
The barb comes fast and easy and without any real bite. Playful, almost. Familiar. It reminds Ford of the times when they were kids and they would heckle and annoy each other on the way home or while working on their boat.
Just for the fun of it.
Just because they knew none of it was meant to truly hurt.
Stanley actually snorts and then looks as if the sound surprises him more than it does Ford. He clears his throat and tries to look annoyed but there is a reluctant smirk tugging at his lips. “Nerd.”
“You never come down here,” Ford finds himself saying. He watches a million emotions cross Stanley’s face. “I never told you that you couldn’t come down here, you know?”
Whatever camaraderie they had for a short moment is gone. Stanley scowls at him and crosses his arms over his chest. “As if you could tell me what to do in my own… in this house.” He winches and looks away. His eyes roam the room, the destroyed portal, the dark corners, and Ford can see his shoulders tense, can see his expression growing dark with disgust. “Why would I want to come down here anymore? Did what I had to, it's all yours again. Not like this room holds many good memories.”
The remark wouldn’t have meant anything to Ford just a few hours ago. Would have probably annoyed him, made him snap back that, if anyone had bad memories of this place, it would be him and not Stan.
But the screen behind him burns a hole into his back, the video files scream his name and squeeze his throat.
“Come back.” Stanley had pleaded in this room. Over and over. “Come back, come back, come back.”
And then Ford had come back and punched him in the face and berated him and told him to get out of his home.
‘I’m sorry’, Ford wants to say. ‘ I’m sorry. I came back and I think maybe I shouldn’t have and I’m so sorry.’
What he says is: “I’ll be right up.”
Stanley stares at him with that look Ford hasn’t seen in over 30 years. Like he is staring right into his soul and unearthing all of his secrets. His brother knows that something happened, something changed, and Ford prays to every deity of the multiverse except Bill that he won’t ask. That he won’t come closer and demand an explanation. Ford doesn’t know what he would do, if he would be strong enough to not shoot a guilty look at the monitor.
But then it’s like a door slams shut in Stanley’s eyes. He sighs and turns away, his shoulders slumping in defeat.
“Don’t keep us waiting too long.”
“I won’t. I promise.”
The pause as Stanley reaches for the button for the main floor is almost unnoticeable but Ford knows that his brother heard more in his voice than he meant to reveal. The desperation. The apology.
Ford watches the doors close on Stanley’s scarred back and stares at the closed elevator for a long time before he turns back to the monitor. He pulls the folder back up again.
One last video waits for him.
53 seconds.
What if…
Ford selects all the files and hits delete. He watches them disappear one by one and only breathes easier when they are all gone.
He doesn’t need to know.
Not this time.