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Stanford Pines was definitely not sleeping.
Fine, perhaps he had dozed off in his office chair while writing in his newly-returned Journal 3, but that was not sleep. It was simply closing his eyes for slightly longer than the typical amount of time while remaining perfectly awake. It was an entirely reasonable method of moistening one’s eyes more thoroughly than merely blinking. Why, it worked just fine for him back when-
Oh. It never really worked for him then, did it? He’d close his eyes for a moment, just a moment, then be overtaken by Bill, cruel cackling echoing in his mindscape as he was trapped in an otherwise dreamless sleep, bound by a promise so twisted that nothing short of death would release him.
Why he had ever thought it might work, he didn’t know. Then again, he had a penchant for ideas that were never as sound as he’d thought they would be, didn’t he?
Sitting up straight, Ford blinked the grit out of his eyes and pushed his glasses up his nose. In the back of his mind, a voice that sounded suspiciously like Stanley whispered Go to bed, genius, you can sleep. It’s alright to sleep. The stupid triangle is gone and it’s alright now.
Ford smiled a little, despite himself. Even after everything, his brother still tried to convince him to rest, to slow down, to take care of himself.
He didn’t deserve it. He didn’t think he ever would, not after everything he’d done, but Stanley was a protector first and foremost, and he would do everything he could to protect those he cared about, including Ford. He’d somehow forgotten about that along the way. Somewhere between being first lauded as a genius and the wretched science fair, he’d forgotten that Stan was the one bringing him sandwiches whilst he was in the throes of a research binge, that Stan was the one who enforced a ‘lights out’ time, grumbling that he couldn’t sleep while Ford studied late into the night.
Even after having his memories erased, even before he truly recalled who or where he was, Stan was asking whether the children had eaten recently, asking when the last time any of them had slept was, fussing over their injuries. It was less gruff than his usual care taking, the twins had said, and he seemed more open in his concern. Ford theorized that perhaps Stan’s memory loss might have been preventing him from putting up the walls that he used to, hiding how much he cared.
Even if Ford knew he would never deserve it, it felt… nice knowing that Stan cared, especially once he could recall who he was and why, exactly, he cared.
Ford closed his journal and stood up, stretching his neck, shoulders, upper back, and lower back in turn. Perhaps he could make an early night of it. A glance at his watch (a little something he brought with him from Dimension S12/nd, a dimension well-known for its timepieces) told him that it was just past one in the morning. Stanley had seen the children to bed a couple of hours prior, Ford recalled, having said goodnight to them just before he went down to the lab to ensure a few last loose ends were tied.
The past couple of nights, he and Stan had spent time together jogging his brother’s memory, looking at childhood pictures and movies, sharing stories as Stan’s recollections became more and more clear. It was slow going, especially the first night, when Stanley would stare, puzzled, at pictures that he was in, not recognizing himself or anyone he had known.
Ford wasn’t sure he would ever completely recover from his brother pointing at a picture of them as children, standing on the deck of the Stan o’ War, and innocently asking “Who’s that?”
But as time went on, Stan might stare at a picture with crinkled brows and a cocked head before blurting out a recollection of when the picture was taken, or asking a pointed question about some detail, like an article of clothing or a trinket in the background.
Ford had never been so grateful for his mother sending him as many childhood mementos as she had. She had stuffed some old pictures into his suitcase for Backupsmore, mailed him leaf pressings and drawings, both his and Stanley’s, while he was in school, sent him old videos and their baby blankets as a ‘housewarming’ gift when he’d moved to Gravity Falls. Even his father, once, voice gruff over the phone, asked if Ford wanted his and Stanley’s old boxing gloves. In his shock over his father barely being able to get out the question, he said yes.
When Ford had eventually called and asked his mother to stop sending him things, she insisted he would want to have them one day, that he might need them. At the time, he’d been irritated that she kept dragging up the past, in his mind trying to reinsert Stanley into his life after everything that had happened. Later, he thought that she was trying to get rid of them for her own sake, unable to look at the pictures of her far off children without guilt. Now, he vaguely wondered if she really had been psychic and knew how much he would come to rely on those little mementos to bring Stanley back.
Stanley’s recovery had been nothing short of miraculous. Frankly, Ford was a little afraid (not afraid, concerned, he was concerned) that he may be dreaming after Stan had finally turned to him with recognition in his eyes and a smile tugging on his lips, but a well-hidden pinch to his own wrist assured him that this was, in fact, reality. A reality where they- where he- had a happy ending. Who would have ever thought it would be possible?
Ford shook himself off and stepped into the blessed elevator Stan had installed. Yes, most certainly an early night would do him well.
The shack had been repaired rather quickly, all things considered. It had been utterly demolished, but between the family, Stanley’s employees, and various other townspeople pitching in, the majority of it was already back to the way it had been before. Several pieces of furniture had been moved, if not left completely missing, and there were still holes in the floorboards and the occasional pile of rubble, but it was truly livable again. It was a home again.
Stepping into the kitchen to set his mug in the sink, Ford heard the sound of the television in the other room. It was some kind of documentary, based on the even, low tones of the narrator, describing the end of Lyndon Baines Johnson’s time as president. Stan must’ve still been watching television.
“Are you still awake?” Ford asked as he stepped towards the living room. There was no response. Stanley must have fallen asleep, he thought, feeling rather fond. Documentaries had always bored his brother, leading him to either throw in his own colorful interpretations in response to the narration, or doze off whenever Ford had watched them as a child. He poked his head into the living room with the full intention of forcing his brother to go to bed rather than sleep in the armchair again, only to find the room void of life.
The room was quite still. The only sounds were that of the television and the occasional coughing of the air conditioner.
A pit of dread began to form in Ford’s stomach.
Rationally, he had no reason to feel pinpricks on the back of his neck, nor the hair on his sweater-covered arms raise. There was no reason for his heart rate to pick up, nor for his breathing to hasten. In all likelihood, Stanley went to the restroom, or he went to check on the children, or he went to bed and forgot to turn off the television.
Stanford was getting sloppy. Even with his amnesia, it was ingrained into Stan to not be willing to waste any money whatsoever, leading to him turning off every electronic device every time they left the room, proclaiming “money don’t grow on trees!” Ford was fairly certain that was a saying of their father’s, looking back. Regardless, if Stanley had gone to bed, he would have turned off the television. But perhaps not for a brief restroom stop or to check on the children.
As any good scientist would, Ford went to work by testing these hypotheses. First, he checked the restrooms. There were two in the shack- three if one included the small one in the lab downstairs, but considering Stanley hated the lab and he would have had to pass Ford to get there in the first place, it was immediately eliminated. There was a half bath on the first floor, altered to be a functional restroom for the business the Shack received, and a full bath upstairs.
Stanford checked the first floor restroom first, to no avail. The second floor restroom proved similarly unfruitful, leading to his next option- Stanley could have simply popped upstairs to check on the children.
Ford walked quietly up the attic stairs and cracked open the door to the children’s room.
He had only entered it once or twice, and only in the aftermath of Weirdmageddon. He had believed himself too busy, before, to trifle with the matters of child rearing, leaving it entirely to his brother to mind the children. He sorely regretted it now.
The room was peaceful, with the intermingled breathing of two small children and a pig being the only sound in the room. Dipper had fallen asleep with one of Ford’s journals open on his lap, Journal 2 by the look of the illustrations the book was open to. Ford could imagine him fighting sleep, trying to read in the dark room, illuminated only by softly glowing stars stickered across the walls and ceiling, only to fail and doze off. Ford had done that himself more times than he could count, both at Dipper’s age and beyond.
On the other side of the room, Mabel rolled over with a soft sigh, wrapping her arms around her pig. Even from across the room in the darkness, Ford could make out a soft smile at her lips. She let out a sleepy-sounding giggle, presumably in response to something she was dreaming of, and Ford was decently certain that his heart had been melted without his consent, much like the torture ‘information gathering’ methods of Dimension ASKFGLSISJSN. This felt far sweeter, however.
How had he lived so long without knowing these two? The answer to that question was the same as the answer to how he lived so long without his other half- he hadn't. Not really.
Speaking of, there was no sign of Stanley anywhere in the room.
Ford bit his lip to keep from speaking, from asking the children if they had seen him. The last thing Stan would want (the last thing Ford would want) would be to rouse them from their much-needed sleep, only to discover Stan had decided to smoke out on the porch for a few minutes and had missed Ford entirely. That wasn’t a half-bad thought, actually. Ford slowly closed the door with a soft click and retreated down the stairs.
The back porch had been left rather unscathed, despite it all. The children and Stan’s employees (Soos and Wendy, their names were Soos and Wendy and they admired and cared for Stanley) had told him that the porch was already typically in a state of disarray, with rotting wood floors and creaky furniture. Ford had rarely used the porch as more than a perch to stand and sketch things in the backyard. He seldom sat and soaked in the atmosphere, instead preferring productivity. Why had he spent so much time focusing on writing? Why had he always written like every sentence may be his last?
Once Fiddleford arrived, he had insisted on sitting on the porch in the evenings once they had completed their work for the day. Ford had to admit, there was a certain amount of peace to it. Some nights he would point out various flora and fauna to his friend, while other nights Fiddleford may bring out his banjo and strum absently whilst the sun set over the trees. Somehow, Ford hadn’t minded the banjo so much on those nights, nights where the air slowly chilled as the sky darkened above them, as crickets began to sing, as the entire woods seemed to breathe a collective sigh of contentment as diurnal creatures began their rest and nocturnal creatures began their activities. Peace seemed to reign.
Tonight was one such night. If Ford had found Stan standing at the edge of the porch with a cigar or cigarette in hand, staring out at the woods, he would have stood next to him. They may not have said much, but Stanley would have smiled at his brother, a quirk of lips that meant hello and nice to see you out of the lab and I’m glad we’re together again. And Ford would have smiled back, trying to convey hello and the weather is pleasant this evening and thank you and I’m sorry. He never seemed to be able to communicate at the level of Stan via facial expressions alone, nor did he find it easy to read the hidden messages of other’s faces. But Stan? Ford could read Stan like an algebra primer, each line on his face acting as a different value creating a simple equation. In turn, Stan always seemed to understand the things Ford’s face tried to tell him.
At least, they understood each other once. Ford still wasn’t certain when that had changed. Could they get to that point again?
It didn’t matter, really, not now. Not when Stanley was nowhere to be found on the porch, the air crisp and fresh and missing any trace of tobacco, the night silent save for the song of the crickets and Ford’s increasingly rapid breathing. He ran a hand through his hair and tugged at the edges of his gray curls. Think, think, think, he chided himself. Perhaps he had been wrong in his thinking earlier and Stan had gone to bed, forgetting to turn off the television?
He spun on his heel and sped to Stanley’s room.
It had been the guest room once, and later Fiddleford’s room. Ford hadn’t asked why Stan took such a small room when his own larger one was clearly available, but in his anger he likely would have forced Stan to move out of the room upon returning to this dimension. Soos called it his ‘break room’ and mentioned something about the children arguing over it, but Ford had been preoccupied with trying to readjust to sleeping in a real, stationary bed in a real, stationary house. He never got the chance to ask about it, and still hadn’t since Stan regained the majority of his memories.
Stan’s room was a wreck, but not from damage. Cardboard boxes and wooden trunks were heaped in all four corners of the room, cobwebs found their home on almost every surface, random cans of Pitt Cola littered the floor, and clothes were dropped haphazardly on top of the dresser. When they had first tried to get Stan to remember things, just as he was recalling his name and the children, Dipper had tugged him to the bedroom, hoping it may also bring something back to him. Ford had been shocked at the state of the room. The cramped disarray actually eerily reminded him of the shack thirty years before, when Ford had been at his lowest.
Stan had stared at the room, wide eyed. “Whoever lives here needs some serious help,” he said, completely unaware of the heartbreak every other member of the household felt. “I mean, what is this, a hoarder’s nest? What’s in those boxes? What’s the deal with those maps? Why are those things crossed off? Is that a knife?” He had picked it up off the floor and held it with surprising ease. “Geez, hope this ain’t your room, kids. I don’t think you oughta stay in here with it like this, ‘kay?”
Soos and Ford had quietly removed most of the boxes from the room and placed them in the lab for the time being while the children distracted Stanley with items from the gift shop, leaving the room feeling more open. They then cleaned every surface and removed the trash, and put away the clothes. Stan hardly seemed to notice the change, confusing Ford until Mabel mentioned offhandedly that he rarely slept in his own bed. He didn’t ask how she knew that. He also didn’t ask where his brother had been sleeping all this time, a sinking feeling in his gut telling him that he didn’t want to know.
Even still, perhaps he had decided to go to bed for once. Ford didn’t bother with knocking on the wooden door, instead throwing it open, hoping against hope that his brother was curled up in bed, snoring like a chainsaw and talking in his sleep like when they were children.
The bed was empty, and still made from the day before when Mabel insisted they clean all the sheets in the house and remake the beds. In fact, the entire room seemed undisturbed, a thin layer of dust beginning to cover the dressers again. Normally, Ford would wonder why the shack seemed to accumulate so much dust, and perhaps hypothesize that it was residual fairy dust after that infestation he’d had in 1980, but there was no time for such thoughts, not when Stanley was nowhere to be found.
Stanford’s throat felt tight as he ran through the shack, checking every room. The living room, kitchen, gift shop, bedrooms, bathrooms, hallways, closets, they were all empty. Stan avoided the lab in the basement like the plague, there was no way he would go down there. There was no sign of him on the back porch, nor in the backyard. Where could he have gone?
Stan may have had amnesia, but he still appeared to have common sense, chiding Dipper for reaching for the stove while it was on and mentioning that he wanted the children home by supper when they went out with friends. He likely would not have wandered off without some kind of reason.
Unless- unless he had been taken or lured away by someone- or something. Stanford knew better than anyone what dangers lurked in the woods outside their home, that the things that went bump in the night were more harrowing than anything one might be able to imagine.
Gnomes were crafty and could have lured him outside by going through the trash, but Stanley could have easily fought off the annoying little creatures. If Stanley had, for some reason, decided to eat honey this late at night, the bumblebeast could have come after him, but there were no signs of a struggle or property damage that typically coincided with its appearance. A cursed door could have appeared, but they always left behind a residual scent of wherever they had led to, and Ford could detect no unusual smells within the shack, despite his lifelong sensitivity towards various sensory inputs. There were no signs of ghostly activity in the shack, and Ford had already tested for them upon returning. Unless someone had died that night, there was no chance a ghost had appeared.
An icy chill spilled down Ford’s spine as he forced himself not to think about death whilst searching for his brother. Death was not part of this equation. Stanley was far too alive, had far too much to be alive for, to even remotely consider the possibility of death.
(He had looked so peaceful, as though he were asleep, just after being possessed. His face was upturned, his eyes were closed, his lips slightly parted as he knelt on the ground, waiting for Ford to kill him. And he did. His body may have been unscathed, and his mind may have begun to return, but for all intents and purposes, Stanford Filbrick Pines killed his brother to fix his greatest mistake.)
Stop it, stop it, stopitstopitstopit, Stanford screamed at himself as he ripped the ends of his hair. This is more important, Stanley is more important than your self pity. His breaths came short, cold bursts of air entering and exiting his lungs at a rate that would raise concern in anyone else. Ford didn’t need to worry about that. All he needed to worry about was his brother, his own breathing be damned. He bit his lip to keep from yelling out Stan’s name, knowing it would rouse the children and cause them to panic. The last thing they needed was Ford piling stress upon their small shoulders, especially after everything they had already been through thanks to him.
Stupid, stupid Stanford finally recalled that he wore a watch and checked the time. The children had gone to bed about 11:30, Ford had gone to the lab just past midnight, and it was now 1:47 AM. Stan was a 58 year old man with a history of smoking and alcohol usage (and homelessness and malnutrition and broken bones and-) who had not kept in good shape and complained of joint pain. If, for some ungodly reason, he had walked out of the house, he couldn’t have gone too far.
Ford had already checked the backyard, the front was all that was left.
The air was still just as crisp and quiet as it had been earlier, and it seemed like a cruel joke now. By all accounts, this would normally be a lovely evening. The stars shone and the moon was half-full, providing ample light for Ford to see the empty driveway.
He stared out at the gravel in front of the grass. Stanley’s car was gone.
Stanley’s car was gone.
He didn’t know whether to feel relief or panic at that, so instead he felt both. On the one hand, this was a clear indicator that Stan had, with certainty, left the house. He was not hidden somewhere inside, unable to communicate due to some kind of sudden incapacitation. He had left the house seemingly of his own accord, rather than being lured away by fairies or kidnapped by monsters. He had apparently remembered how to drive, something they hadn’t tested just yet. Soos had carted the family around in his pickup truck the past few days when they made trips into town, as Ford had yet to get reacquainted with this dimension’s motor vehicles.
But why on earth should Stan drive off in the middle of the night, leaving no note, sharing no reason for going off somewhere?
A sick feeling churned in Ford’s guts as he recalled the last time Stan drove off in the middle of the night, never to be seen again. He had closed the curtains by then, so he didn’t see him leave, but he heard Stan scream that he didn’t need anyone, followed by the screech of the car’s tires against the street in front of the pawn shop, smelled the exhaust through the open window, and felt himself being torn in half.
Ford couldn’t afford to waste any more time- he had to find Stanley immediately. All 7.2 trillion nerves in his body screamed at him to Find Stan And Bring Him Home, Now. He had to force himself into some semblance of calm rationality as he choked down a deep breath and remained on the front porch.
The children were inside, he had to lock up the house before he could leave. Should- should he bring them along? Six eyes were better than two, typically, but they needed sleep and he would lose too much time rousing them explaining everything, time he didn’t have. Stan could be hurt, he could be dying, he didn’t have time-
Ford swallowed down bile. He needed weapons. Who knew what could have taken Stan away? He needed to be prepared. He dashed into the house and down to the lab, grabbed his laser gun and a couple of small knives, then ran back upstairs and outside, locking the door behind him. What the children didn’t know wouldn’t hurt them- he would have Stan home before they awoke.
He had to.
He put the gun in the holster under his trench coat and shoved the knives in his pockets as he dashed to the driveway. The tires left shallow tracks in the gravel, leaving behind a thin trail. Ford followed it down the end of the driveway, but instead of leading to the road, the trail veered into the grass. The day after Weirdmageddon, it rained, leaving the ground slightly soft and prime for visible tracks. Ford followed them nearly an eighth of a mile to the edge of the woods, where they continued.
Why on Earth had Stanley driven into the woods at two in the morning?
Ford followed the tracks. They kept to the clearest sections of the woods, areas with plenty of room to maneuver a vehicle between the trees. It was a nearly twenty minute brisk walk following the tracks before he finally set upon a clearing. He breathed a bone-deep sigh of relief at the sight of the Stanley Mobile, seemingly completely unscathed, parked and turned off in the middle of the clearing. He could see Stan’s outline, still wearing that fez of their father’s, sitting in the diver’s seat, but with the dim lighting and distance he couldn’t make out much more inside the vehicle. The outline sat slightly hunched, but not in a way that would indicate an injury.
Ford’s first instinct was to run straight for the car, throw the door open, and interrogate Stanley about what he was thinking, was he trying to give his brother a heart attack thirty four years too soon, but he hesitated. Ford knew, knew better than anyone alive, he would wager, the dangers of something that seemed like exactly what one wanted, popping up while they felt desperate. He stayed at the tree line and waited.
The night was still. The only sounds seemed to come from crickets, owls, and the occasional soft “What?” or “Why?” from question quails. Ford felt no glowing eyes, taunting laughter, thinly-veiled threats, unwanted ruffles to the hair signs of any anomalous supernatural activity within the clearing. Ford took a step forward. Still nothing. Stan’s shadowy figure in the car didn’t seem to move as Ford strode towards him.
As he approached the car and could see inside, Ford was shocked to see Stan half curled in on himself, eyes so wide they took up half his face, one hand pressed against his mouth as he stared at the steering wheel, shuddering. Was he injured? Frightened? Ford hastened in his movements to the car, but Stan made no sign of noticing him.
Ford stood directly next to the driver’s side window, assessing the inside of the car. Stan still didn’t move, didn’t look up, but he didn’t seem injured. There were no signs of blood anywhere inside the car, and Stan’s suit seemed to be in the same condition as earlier that day, with no new tears or damage. Physically, he seemed fine.
But if he were fine, why would he have driven off in the dead of night and be sitting in his car like this? Why didn’t he come to Ford? Why would he just leave?
Ford hesitated for a moment before finally deciding to simply reach out and knock on the window to get Stanley’s attention. He would ask his questions, get his answers, and get his brother home where he belonged.
What was the worst that could happen?