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It's strange how different the most basic of things feel now that he's back home. Home. That word still doesn't feel real.
An act as simple as washing dishes makes his chest tighten, if he thinks about what he's doing too hard (which he usually is). The mundanity of it makes a pit well in him. An ache for something that could have been, but wasn't. He could have spent thirty years on Earth with only dishes to worry about. Would he have appreciated the safe monotony of it as much then? The gentle clink of ceramic, his hands rubbing raw under hot water? Hot water. Clean water.
Clean water had been a luxury. As was any dimension where he could exist without looking over his shoulder at every moment. It's one thing to have a real roof over his head, but another to know it'll stay there. He could almost close his eyes and imagine no time has passed at all: that it's Fiddleford sitting at the kitchen table, sipping coffee, that the song playing on the radio is one with which he's familiar.
But rifling instead through the newspaper is his twin brother. Who, miraculously, Ford has made peace with, three decades after a fight that was never worth the time it took from him.
The children had gone out for the night, leaving Ford and Stan to do "grunkle stuff", as Mabel put it. Which, tonight, was drinking and catching up on the time they lost over dinner. Stan won't admit it, but he's become quite the cook. Something about looking after their great niece and nephew has brought out a paternal side of him that Ford knows he would get punched for pointing out. At one point in time, they had tried to commit to a dinner schedule out of "fairness" (and as a resolution to a heated argument) but it quickly fell apart when Ford's own cooking proved to be... lacking. In his defense, living across the multiverse had greatly expanded his palette for what he considered "edible".
Stan slurps his mug (filled with cheap wine, not coffee) behind him. At one point, it would have driven Ford nuts. He doesn't mind it so much now.
"I swear," Stan begins, "If those kids come home at midnight with some crazy monster in tow and wake me up again, I'll ground them for real."
"No you won't," Ford says simply, smiling to himself. "They're 13. They won't listen. And I've not known you to ever ground them."
"I'm telling ya. It's no more Mister Nice Grunkle."
"This is 'Mister Nice Grunkle'?" Ford turns to face Stan, smiling lopsidedly, soapy water dripping off his hands. "I wasn't aware that's who I was speaking to."
"Oh, can it, Sixer," Stan says, but he isn't frowning. Ford sticks his hands back in the sink.
"And I think you're being a bit of a hypocrite, Stanley. How late did we stay out when we were their age?"
"Later. And we still didn't wake dad up, because if we did, he would have whooped both of our asses," Stan slurps on his mug, "Golden child or not."
Ford will let the 'golden child' comment slide - hearing Stan accurately recall things like this on his own eases a nervous thread that's been lingering in him. He simply hums in response, glancing out the kitchen window. The sun's set, and the dim lights of the Shack don't stretch very far into the dark. Moths flutter around the light that leaks from the window.
Suddenly, and for no reason he can immediately discern, Ford feels his heart seize.
He recognizes the song on the radio.
"Sweet dreams are made of this,"
His stomach drops below his feet. His muscles tense in a terrible wave, from his gut, to his chest, into his shoulders and his arms. The pot in his hand slips in his grip, and then clatters to the bottom of the sink.
"Hey, watch the kitchenware, Ford. That stuff ain't cheap, y'know."
Ford's chest is tight. His throat is full; of what, he can't tell. Air won't come. He doesn't respond. He can't. It's as if he's stopped thinking entirely.
"Who am I to disagree?"
Ford grabs the front of his sweater, digging his wet fingers into the wool. Willing himself to function. The fabric scratches uncomfortably into his damp palm.
"Ford?"
Stanley sounds like he's underwater. The light from outside flickers, like the screen of a television. The warmth from the stove feels like a sickness crawling on his back. He's sweating.
"Travel the world, and the seven seas,"
His hand is grabbing the edge of the sink, looking for an anchor. As tight as he grips it, it still slips under the wetness of his fingers. His other hand crawls to his collar, pushing hard at the soft skin of his neck, just above his collarbone. Just to feel something. Just to try and push out whatever's become lodged there.
"Everybody's lookin' for something."
He's going to throw up. His heart is beating in his throat. He barely hears the scrape of Stanley's chair.
"Some of them want to use you,"
Ford flings himself away from the sink. The radio - there. Across the kitchen, sitting on the counter. He all but lunges towards it - he feels half drunk - causing Stanley to flinch out of the way.
"Hey!"
"Some of them want to be used by you,"
In his haste to grab it, he knocks the radio over. Cursing, he sets it right side up again, wet hands sliding desperately across the plastic. The song's volume increases momentarily as he brushes against the volume knob.
"Some of them want to abuse you,"
Ford yells - or more so cries - his voice strangled. Animal frustration bursts out of him, and he slams his fist against the counter, pain lancing up the side of his palm. He barely hears the bang it makes.
"Some of them want to be abu - "
The sultry sound of Annie Lennox’s voice is cut short with a click. Stanley is standing at his side, finger depressing the radio's "off" button.
Ford can suddenly hear just how hard his heart is beating. He can feel the sweat under his collar. The lead weight in his gut is far too heavy. He wobbles, and braces his hands against the counter.
"...Sixer?" Stan's voice is uncharacteristically soft. Ford winces.
"Don't... please don't call me that. Right now."
He can see Stan's frown out of the corner of his eye.
"Stanford," Stanley restarts. "You alright?"
"I'm..." Ford does his best to stand a little straighter, reaching up to adjust his glasses. As he turns to see his brother's expression in full, he can't help but feel guilty about how worryingly furrowed Stan's brow has become.
"...I'll be alright. Thank you, Stanley." Ford wipes his hands against his sweater. Stan doesn't speak quite yet, but Ford knows he wants to say something, because he's just standing there with that look on his face. Stan may resemble their father at times, especially wearing that fez, but standing here with his face crinkled in a hesitant, gentle concern, his expression is uniquely his own.
He's become dangerously perceptive in his old age. He'd attribute it to their being twins, but there's a painful forty year chasm that keeps that explanation from sufficing. The truth is, Stan has always been better at reading people. Or maybe Ford is just easy to read.
When Stan continues to be silent, Ford heads back to the sink, if only to ignore the feeling of Stan's eyes on him. He turns the knob, shutting the water off, and hears Stan follow him to lean against the table.
"...You wanna tell me what that was?"
"Not particularly," Ford says, and he winces at how harshly it comes out. He hears Stan sigh through his nose - likely tamping down whatever biting response just threatened to leap out of him. They've made some progress.
"...I just - didn't want to hear that song," Ford concedes. Stan was kind enough to turn the damn thing off for him. It's a stupid excuse, but he can't think of a better one. Even he's not sure what that was.
"...I thought Eurythmics was like, your favorite band." Ford can hear how weirdly quiet Stan's voice has gotten and it makes something twist in him. He doesn't need to be treated this gently. Not by Stan, of all people.
"They were," Ford says, ready to leave it at that. Then, something nags at him. “...How would you even know that?”
“You wrote it in your stupid journal.” He wrote it and Stan remembered? A mundane detail like that? Something in his brain stutters.
"...Well?" Stan probes.
Ford groans more than he sighs, playing it up, trying to make his exasperation evident. But Stan isn't going to leave it alone. He knows this by now. That, and... there's a desperate little piece of him that wants to understand what just happened, too. It's only just beginning to come back to him. Like a thirty second fugue.
"I don't - " Ford begins, turning from the sink. He nearly regrets it, seeing how Stan has crossed his arms and carefully set his brow. It's at moments like these when he sees his own face in Stan the most, rather than their father’s. Whatever he wanted to say dies in his throat.
"...you don't have to tell me if you really don't want to, Poindexter." Despite the nickname, Stan's tone is measured. Like he's talking to a scared animal. Or one of the children, after they've gotten hurt. Ford feels spite well inside him against all odds.
"It was - " Ford can't help himself. Can't stop his mouth from running. From trying to explain himself, no matter how poorly. "...I didn't think it would affect me that badly. Hearing it again."
This is stupid. Stan doesn't care about this. Doesn't care how Ford can't do something as simple as listening to a song without acting out. He's making a fool of himself all over again.
When Stan doesn't speak, Ford nervously fills the silence. He needs to have it make sense. He needs to stop hearing the song’s backing track in his head.
"I'm sorry," he says, and Stan's already shaking his head. "For acting so strangely."
"Don't apologize," Stan says gruffly. He says that a lot, lately. Ford needs him to understand. “Just be honest with me.”
"It - " Heart in his throat again. Choking him. How can he push it down? "It was Bill. Something Bill did to me. A long time ago." Even though it doesn't feel that way, and never has.
"...of course it was. That son of a bitch," Stan hisses, lips twisting in a snarl. He's glaring daggers into the floor. "I'll kill him again. I swear to god."
"...I appreciate that." Ford feels the lingering adrenaline just beginning to leak out of his body. The knot in his chest uncurls, if only a little. He takes a shuddering breath. His eyes are growing warm, and it's getting hard to control his own tongue. "...Stanley, have I told you - what happened between us? Before you arrived? Back then?" His hands find the rim of the sink behind him and grip it, hard.
Stan frowns. "I know it was bad," he says carefully. For all the catching up they've done, Ford has been purposely vague about the ways that Bill had tortured him. It's not Stan's responsibility. And there's no sense in reliving it. Only now, it seems, he doesn't have a choice. "You don't gotta tell me.”
"No, I - I should." Ford folds his arms, tucking his hands away. Curling into himself. "I want to." He had been mad at Stan back then, for not knowing, even though there was no way he could have. And now, here he is again. The details of the last minute or so run over and over in his head. How his mind had washed with panic and he'd punched the counter like a teenager.
"Nobody else ever..." he trails off, glancing out the window. "Nobody else would even know about it." That part surprises him as he says it, even though it really shouldn't. He's simply never thought about it before now. That moment in time - so many of them - are frozen between him and Bill. A horror story caught in amber. And as long as it's something only they share, there's a part of him that's stuck back there, all alone in that freezing cabin, staring at the television, wishing for someone, anyone, to come and save him.
God help him, he wants Stanley to run in there and drag him out.
He startles when Stan closes the distance between them, a hand brushing his shoulder. It flinches away when he starts, Stan blinking owlishly at him.
"Sorry - "
"No, it's alright, I - "
Ford laughs as they speak over each other, a nervous, tittering thing. And then his chest keeps spasming, but there's no sound coming out. His own hand fists into the fabric of his sweater, knuckles rubbing into his collarbone as he presses down, like he's trying to push a hole into himself.
"Oh," he manages, throat wet. "Oh, goddamnit." He can't believe it. He hasn't cried since - he can barely remember. Since Stanley lost his memory, surely. Why now? Over something so stupid? It's ridiculous. His shoulders shudder as he tries to will the building lump in his chest away.
"Hey," Stan says. "Look at me."
Ford doesn't want to. He looks at Stan.
"He's dead."
"I know."
"We killed him."
"I know."
Ford can feel the phantom puncture wound straight through his hand, right where the round scar still sits. It's raw with infection. His tendons twinge. His lower back itches. The tattoo, freshly inked and covered in gauze. He wants to take a knife and carve it off. Maybe Bill chose that location so that it would be difficult to do, and not for any other reason.
Ford's chest heaves. His skin burns with hypothermia. The fire in his furnace doesn't offer any comfort. The record player skips, and he rises from the couch to turn it off.
And then it's now, and not then, and he's in his own house with his own brother looking at him with far too much concern. Where was Stan then? Did he hate Ford? Did he think Ford hated him? Could he have saved him? Both of them? What if he'd gotten that call? He can't bear to think about that song.
Ford blinks hot tears out of his eyes, still refusing to sob. He does a weird little shudder-breath as he hugs himself, wishing he could see anything but the vague suggestion of Stanley’s torso.
"This is ridiculous," Ford says, and his voice is a mess, too. This time, he doesn't flinch when Stan circles an arm around his shoulders, and leads him gently out of the kitchen and into the living room. He feels like a damn child. Ford takes a seat without being asked. It's Stanley's chair, but his brother doesn't complain. Stan simply takes up a spot on the loveseat next to it - one that had been dragged in after Ford had complained about his using the skull as furniture. He half-smiles at the memory, but for some reason, that just worsens the pressure in his chest.
Stan's gnarled old hand touches his arm. He tangles his own gnarled old hands together. It's ridiculous. To be his age and having a breakdown like a child. Stan sits in silent vigil while Ford works up the nerve to speak.
"I was - " he starts, "I woke up on the roof one night. After our - after I realized what he was. In the middle of winter. I don't know how long I was standing there, but it was as if - as if he was going to - to throw me off of it."
He doesn't need to look to see Stanley's scowl.
"But he didn't." Because Ford was his toy. Because Ford belonged to him, and he would decide when and where and how Ford would be broken. "When I got back inside, I found - a tape. A video." The words are tumbling out of him now. "With 'Play Me' written on the front. And - photos. Polaroids. And that song, playing on the damn record player."
"Ford - "
"He fucking - he knew," Ford laughs, high and reedy and strange. "I played him his favorite song, and he - he played me mine. And isn't it funny that that's what it was! It really was perfect!"
Ford nearly swallows air, gasping for breath. "I watched it. I don't know why I didn't turn the record player off. Maybe I did. I don't remember," he admits. It all blends together. "I watched him take my body on a joyride. Puppet Hour, he called it."
He can hear Stanley swear under his breath. He ignores it. Admittance after admittance flow from his lips. A litany of stolen-body crimes. The dam is broken. If Stanley doesn't want to hear this (why should he?) it's too late. It's been thirty years, but he remembers every frame of that recording. And he'd only ever watched it once.
"He picked up the receiver and told me - you - he was going to take a swim in the frozen lake. And that I - " Ford's breath comes out hot. "That I never loved you."
"Stanford," Ford can't parse his brother's tone but it seems - urgent.
"And somehow through all my horror I saw that - the telephone cord was cut. He didn't actually call you. He couldn't. Do you think he even knew? Was it on purpose , to show me what could happen or, god, did I - " His chest hurts. "Did I just get lucky?"
Lucky. That's certainly a way to describe him.
"I'm sorry," he says again. "I can't believe I'm crying, over a song, of all things." He laughs joylessly. “And one I liked!” He had cried that night, too. Wept. Until he couldn't anymore, and could only lay in exhausted silence. But there hadn't been anyone to lead him gently to the couch. He had to peel himself from the floor and clean the mess Bill left him on his own.
"Stop that. I don't want to hear it." Stan seems to startle just as he says it. "The apology. Not the crying. That's - it's fine. You can cry."
Ford can't help it. He laughs, for real this time. Whose children are they? Certainly not their father's. He wipes at his face, sniffling wetly.
"It's alright. I know what you meant," Ford allows his chest to spasm. It's too tiring to fight it. At least it's beginning to slow. Stan's hand grips his arm a little tighter.
"Moses," Ford says, "I'm glad the children aren't here to see this."
"Heh. Yeah..." Stan offers an awkward smile, but it quickly fades. "I never - " He swallows, seeming to choose his words carefully. "...I would have driven right up here, you know. If I got a call like that. I wouldn't have stopped driving."
Ford frowns, turning fully towards Stanley. His twin’s face is set in a strange determination.
"I would have marched right up to your stupid murder hut and busted the door down."
Ford smiles, despite himself. "I might have shot you."
“I would’a lived. And then I would’a punched your lights out.”
“Well, I would have deserved it.”
"You deserve a lotta things," Stan says, and Ford thinks he might genuinely be talking about punching his lights out, "But none of what that asshole did to you."
Ford sags a little into the armchair. It should fit him as perfectly as it does Stan, but in truth, he doesn't find it that comfortable. Just another way their bodies have grown apart.
"...I threw the tape in the fire. After that. And then he..." His throat closes again, but not with tears. This is a part he can't bear to retread even now, it seems.
"You don't have to tell me," Stan repeats, and this time, Ford remains silent.
While Ford was locked in a hell of his own making, Stan had suffered, too. He's heard enough prison stories to make his stomach turn. His brother is the last person he should be turning to for sympathy. His own weakness makes him sick. Hiding behind him like a kid again, fifty years later. Stanley's bunk was always warmer than his own.
"You would have seen him for what he was," Ford says, a statement he's made before. "...I needed you, back then. I was a fool not to know it." How long has he waited to admit that? Too long.
"Yeah, well, I shoulda called." Stan squeezes his arm. "I chickened out every time, and I've always regretted it - "
"I never hated you, Stanley."
Ford's interruption stops Stanley in his tracks. His mouth is hanging open a little, like a confused dog.
"I was angry - angry for too damn long - but I could never hate you."
He had tricked himself into believing he hated Stanley, back then. When his memories of his brother were confused with anger and grief. But that doesn't feel productive to mention right at this moment.
"...Hah," Stanley breathes, and now his eyes are the ones darting away. "Well, that's a relief."
Not the response he expected. Ford feels some of his tension return. "Stanley," he says.
Stan avoids his gaze.
"Stanley, did you think - I hated you back then?" Ford feels a little ill. "Is that why you never called - ?"
"What was I supposed to think, Ford?" Stanley says, a little bitterly. "And I didn't - didn't wanna give you any more reason to. If you did. That's all."
"I'm - "
"I swear to god, if you're gonna say you're sorry one more time - "
"Well, what am I supposed to say?" Ford's unoccupied arm gestures widely. Stan - and Fiddleford - have grown tired of endless apologies, but he doesn't know what else to do.
"You say 'I love you', genius," Stan says.
Ford's jaw clicks shut.
"You say 'I love you'," Stan repeats. "Here, I'll say it now: you're my goddamn twin brother, and for all the headaches you cause me, I love you, you knucklehead." Stan's grip on his arm is iron. His voice cracks a little - despite the confidence in his words, it seems he's having trouble getting them out.
"...I love you too, Stanley." The words feel far too delicate as he says them, like a prayer carefully rehearsed. Something relaxes in his brother at that, and Ford feels a taut string inside himself go loose. When had he said that last? Stan's thumb rubs into his arm.
"I didn't call because I wanted to be better than that. Than needing my brother to bail me out again. I wanted to prove I could make it on my own and I didn't wanna… bother you. But I guess I needed you, too,” he sighs. “Shoulda been here with you. Wish I was. Wish I’d’ve known."
"It isn't your fault you didn't."
"I know. But I shoulda been here anyway."
Stan's hand begins to remove itself, and Ford's own darts out to catch it. After a moment, Stan mirrors his careful smile. The chair creaks under his weight and the chandelier paints the stone walls yellow and he feels that ache again.
From across the Shack, the door swings open with a bang.
"Mabel, be quiet, they're probably asleep - " Dipper's voice, half-yelled, half-whispered, follows it.
"Yeah right, like that would wake them up - "
Ford hurriedly scrubs at his face with the sleeves of his sweater, and darts back into the kitchen to put dishes away. After a moment, he hears the electric clunk of Stan turning the TV on.
"Grunkle Stan, you're still awake?" Mabel's voice travels easily through the quiet hall.
"What am I, 80? It's not that late!"
"Well, we're going to bed," Dipper replies. "Chasing ghosts is exhausting. Especially when they turn out to be teenagers in stupid costumes."
Ford can hear them exit the living room and trundle up the stairs. "I mean, really. Those guys are almost 20 now. Shouldn't they act more... I don't know, mature?" Dipper's voice fades, until him and his sister are only quiet murmurs in the Shack's attic. Ford hears Mabel’s laugh echo down the stairs.
There's a creak from the armchair, and then the wooden floor, as Stan makes his way back to him.
"You going to bed, Sixer?"
Ford shrugs, turning to see Stan leaning in the doorway. "I've got some work I need to finish up, but after that, I can..." He trails off, wilting under Stan's gaze. Ford coughs into his fist. There's still phlegm in his throat.
"Maybe I could turn in early for tonight."
That seems to appease Stan, who steps out of the doorway, allowing Ford's passage. He gets halfway down the hallway before he stops. Another memory comes unbidden, but this time, a different kind. Some childish part of him is struck with the urge to sleep in Stanley's bed like he's twelve.
"What's up?"
"I - " Ford turns to face him. Don't say you're sorry. "...Thank you. For tonight." For listening.
Stan rolls his eyes, but his face is crinkled with fondness. "Yeah, yeah."
He used to be able to feel the heat of Stanley's back two inches away from his own. Hear his breath slow in sleep. Not touching, but close enough to grab him if he needed to. To hide in him, if he needed to.
"Y'know, I - " His throat closes. It's gone. “I should get a real bed. For the study. Or, well - I suppose it's my room, now.” He's given up on restoring the Shack to any semblance of its former state, but that pull-out’s been hell on his back. He really is getting old.
“Stanford Pines, thinking about his health? Who the hell am I talking to again?” Stan’s grinning.
“Oh, shut up, Stanley.”
I love you.
“There's the Ford I know.”
I love you too.