Chapter Text
Thirty years of his life.
Thirty years, Stan repeated hysterically like a broken record, both surprised and proud of himself for retaining any capacity for rational thought, in which he had spent imagining, fantasizing, hoping against hope that his brother—
“Uhn!”
“Sh,” murmured that deep, smooth voice, breath warm like cigarette embers against his ear. So calm, so controlled, almost emotionless if not for the unmistakable triumphant note soaking his tone, remnant of the ferocious joy Stan had witnessed on his mirror face just a few moments earlier. It should be familiar, comforting. Like home.
It was anything but.
Arousing, against his morals, and intimidating, against his pride, but holy—
“Uh, uh! Hn!”
“Silence,” Ford—oh fuck, it was him, it really was Stanford, his twin brother Ford—hissed. “You told me there were—hah—children in this house, Stanley. Do you want them to find you like this?”
Find you, not find us. It was very telling which position was more embarrassing, to Ford. To both of them.
No, Stan didn’t.
Stan didn’t want twelve-year-old Dipper and Mabel finding the hidden passage behind the vending machine, running down the stairs with the energy only curious kids possess to find their grumpy grunkle—the same one who always bragged about his manliness and way with the ladies—bent in half like a foldable chair, in a position no man his age should ever be, being railed by the fabled Author of the Journals—who looked a lot, a lot like him—within an inch of his life. Right there, on the dirty floor, pathetic like one of wimps he had affectionately mocked Dipper for being.
(But that was just a personal preference. Some people had a humiliation kink and whatnot.)
He bit his lower lip, tried to keep quiet. To relax and be good for Ford.
It was just—he had never imagined it would be quite like this.
It sounded ridiculous now, even to his own mind, but Stan had been picturing a different Ford. Weak, emaciated, wrapped in a dirty blanket, recognizing him through blurry eyes and cataracts not unlike his own. Walking, no, stumbling forward to embrace him. This was his nerdy twin, after all. Good ol’ Poindexter.
He would just be… nerdier, perhaps? Nerdier and with a beard. An almost white, matted beard like McGucket’s. It made sense in his head.
Hah.
He should have had more faith in his brother. It didn’t matter if Ford had sucked at PE classes, it didn’t matter if Ford had possessed the impressive strength of a wet noodle for most of his life, hiding behind big, brawny Stan. Even though Stan had undeniably enjoyed it, being the rock in Ford’s tempest, the refuge Ford sought from his bullies (it was the only thing he was good for), of course it was meant to end, like all things did in their old relationship.
They were Pines men. Pines men were tough men, always.
But he shouldn’t be complaining, now, should he? He had gotten what he had wished for so long. To be in Ford’s arms, to be loved and forgiven. For Ford to finally recognize, after all those painful years, that he and Pa were wrong about Stan.
Hell, if Pa could see him now. He didn’t know what it said about Filbrick Pines that the incest element of it all would be the second thing he would care about, if it could be called caring. Nah, he would first focus on the fact that Stan was a disgusting homo, spread underneath Ford like a cheap whore. Not even man enough to be the one on top.
In his defense, Stan hadn’t known he was a homo either. Or bi, or whatever label Mabel would suggest (it’s never late for self-discovery, Grunkle Stan, she would say in that cheery tone of a child who knew nothing about life), since he was pretty sure he had liked Carla and Marilyn and other women, once. Perhaps even loved. He hadn’t known that about himself until Ford had oh so kindly shown him today that yes, he was very much a big, fat—
“None of that,” Ford growled. Actually fucking growled. “Look into my eyes. Focus on me.”
Humble as always, that Sixer of his. Sometimes he wondered what had become of that insecure little boy, if he had been crushed to death in the gigantic hands of Ford’s newfound ego.
So Stan did. Stan focused on Ford, thought about Ford, like he had done every single day of his miserable life, letting it consume him like wildfire spreading through dry woodland on a particularly hot day.
Thought about how his heartbeat had quickened, hummingbird fast, when a shape that could only be his brother—Stan was a coward, could not bear to entertain a different possibility—came out of the portal. Thought about the stark difference between this Ford and the Ford he had known; not only his age, no, that much was obvious, but the posture. The build. The syrupy thick I could fight a god and win brand of confidence permeating the air, stronger than its old, well-known cousin, I am the smartest person in the room. The fact he was shrouded in black from head to toe like a particularly frightening raven, all long coat and combat boots, straight out of an action movie.
Hell, he looked like some kind of scholarly Indiana Jones, and Stan had not been ready for that.
Then he had taken off the fabric obscuring his face, and Stan couldn’t breathe. Not because he had somehow managed to age better than Stan in whatever hellhole he had been in, with his darker gray hair and less prominent wrinkles, but because that man was really his brother.
Alive. Safe. Whole. After three decades.
Stan didn’t believe in a higher power, not anymore despite the way he had been raised, not after what life had subjected him to, and yet—he had wanted nothing more than to fall to his knees, praise whichever force of the universe had brought his brother back a thousand times over. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
“Brother,” he had mumbled like a starstruck idiot, waiting for his twin to step into his embrace.
Ford’s dark eyes zeroed in on him. And then he smiled.
It was not one of Ford’s reserved, awkward smiles Stan remembered from their boyhood. It was wild with joy, almost predatory in its crazed intensity, a glorious embodiment of triumph. Stan didn’t go there, he wasn’t normally this poetic, and an atheist at that, but damn. Ford looked like an avenging angel, one who had for all intents and purposes already finished the avenging part, and one whose existence Stan could actually believe in.
He opened his mouth, and for a short second Stan thought he would say something to the effect of, Be not afraid, but what came out of it instead was as quiet as the gentle humming of machinery in the lab.
“My faithful Queen Penelope,” he whispered, still loud enough so that Stan could hear, and oh, his voice, finally, finally, “you have waited for me.”
Stan’s heart almost broke then and there—he was no Penelope, of that much he was sure. Was Ford hallucinating? Did he not recognize Stan? Did he wish for someone else, a woman, in Stan’s place?
But his thoughts were cut by Ford actually stepping—no, marching into his embrace with a terrifying purposefulness. Ford’s arms were around him in seconds, pulling him tight against a strong, flat chest.
Seeing Ford and hearing Ford was different from feeling Ford, feeling the crumpled fabric escape through his greedy fat fingers as he clutched aimlessly at everything he could reach. A solid body encased safely in his protective hug, just as he had dreamed for so long. Nothing could hurt Ford now. Not on Stan’s watch, not ever. He would take care of his nerdy brother, would assume once more the role he had failed to fulfill.
Stan closed his eyes, breathing deeply in his scent. Ashes, sweat, blood (that he hoped to not belong to his brother despite knowing it did, human and so very much like Stan’s own), something he could not identify at all (alien slime or ectoplasm or whatever freaky shit Ford had encountered on the other side), and something that was distinctly Stanford Pines—that is, not the best of smells. His brother and proper hygiene had never walked hand in hand.
And oh fuck, that warmth. Ford’s fingers—six, all six of them—running through his hair. He was lightheaded with relief, and he was an old man. His weak knees gave out from under him.
“Ford, Ford, Ford…” he mumbled nonstop as his brother supported his weight in an iron grip, surprisingly strong as he was now.
He didn’t realize he was crying until Ford started to shush him, tilting his chin up with a single finger. Well, fuck. Men didn’t cry, or at least they shouldn’t. Normally Stan would make at least a half-decent effort to hide it, pretend he had been cutting onions or Mabel’s cursed glitter had fallen into his eye yet again (more believable than an errant little dust, considering her artistic hobbies). Anything but the embarrassing truth of his feelings.
He didn’t bother with pretending this time. Ford was more than worth his tears, and wasn’t that proof of his love? (He hoped it was. He hoped it wasn’t mere proof of his weakness.)
Now staring directly into Ford’s eyes, which even through the glasses looked severe, it occurred to him he probably looked pitiful. Like a man seeing the sun for the first time after decades, finding an oasis in the barren desert after days of thirst. He remembered reading about satellites in school, remembered thinking he was the moon to Ford’s Earth.
(It was undignified, but it didn’t matter.)
Ford’s eyes softened, the darkness of black coffee diluting into dark chocolate. Sweeter, still bitter. “I can’t believe I couldn’t see it before,” he murmured, feverishly kissing Stan’s forehead. Again and again and again. “Oh, Stan, I was so cruel with you.”
(Stan didn’t know what he was talking about, but it didn’t matter.)
He had expected, had hoped, but couldn’t make himself believe Ford was forgiving him that easily. It was a dream. Stan had to be dreaming, right?
Dream or not, he soaked the affection up like a sponge. He let himself be loved, surrendering to Ford’s manhandling with ease as he was gently pushed back, guided to the center of the room.
Stan keened as Ford attempted to separate them, put some distance between their bodies. Too soon, he hadn’t had enough—he could never have enough—
Ford chuckled in his ear, a low, rich sound. “Hush, I know. It’s just so I can take off my coat.”
And so he did, not throwing it on the ground like Stan had expected, but laying it down like a schoolgirl’s picnic blanket before turning back to Stan, pulling Stan into his arms, six-fingered hand firm on the small of his back, and dipping, dipping—as if they were dancing, Ford as the poised lead, Stan all soft and pliant from relief—
Suddenly Ford was on top of Stan—when did that happen? But it didn’t matter either, not with the weight of Ford’s body grounding him in the present moment, even better than those weighted blankets Wendy had recommended buying to help with his lack of sleep.
Ford’s hands were roaming Stan’s body, now, and Stan understood the desperation. Thirty years apart, forty years without touching each other. Truth be told, he had briefly felt self-conscious for wearing only a threadbare shirt and boxers in the face of Ford’s spartan black garments—should have worn the girdle and Pa’s old suit for such an important occasion—but if it offered his long lost brother easier access to his skin—
Ford’s fingers slipped inside his shirt for some unknown reason, and Stan definitely felt self-conscious now, in a way he never had with the kids or his employees. It was obvious, especially in comparison to Ford, that he wasn’t in a good shape. The last thing he wanted was for his brother to think he was a slob, even though he very much was, and his beer gut was still prominent even as he lay on his back. His skin burned with the forced exposition.
“Sixer…”
“I know, Stanley. I know.” Even Ford’s breath, foul as it was, felt like a balm. His true name, coming from those lips, felt like a miracle. Stanley. He had never thought he would get to hear it again, not with such tenderness. “I like it.”
Like it?
“Sixer, I don’t under—”
Ford silenced him with a kiss.
What.
He gasped against Ford’s lips, disoriented, providing an opportunity for Ford to insert his warm, wet tongue inside. Stan could feel it licking against his own palate, exploring, tasting his Pitt Cola-flavored saliva. He didn’t feel any instinct, to bite on the intruder or reciprocate or otherwise react with something more than just pathetic trembling. He was still far too shocked for that, frozen almost like a statue.
Ford had no technique. At least that hadn’t changed. In that aspect only he was still the same boy who had embarrassed himself in front of the whole class by kissing a literal robot with the finesse of a sink plunger. But he wasn’t trying to, Stan belatedly realized as Ford ran his tongue over his dentures. He wasn’t trying to kiss Stan. Because a kiss needed reciprocity, and there wasn’t any, and Ford didn’t seem to fucking care.
Ford was—to put it mildly—making love with Stan’s mouth.
This was his own brother.
This was wrong.
Normally Stan wouldn’t care about what was wrong or not, having broken so many laws, but limits were limits. This was different, somehow. More personal.
He pushed back against Ford’s chest, gentle at first and then more and more insistent, but his brother didn’t buckle. The only indication he had even felt Stan’s struggle was a dissatisfied grunt and an increase in his forcefulness, hand moving to grip Stan’s hair, keep his head in the right place for all the kissing and tonguing.
Perhaps Ford was confused. Perhaps he really was out of it and thought Stan was Penelope, some sort of alien girlfriend he had acquired, and perhaps he didn’t know this was his brother, his very manly, male brother, who very much didn’t want this.
Who very much was getting out of breath like the old man he fucking was, for Paul Bunyan’s sake—had Ford made a pact with the Devil—
Air, glorious air.
Stan took in gulps of it, greedy and wheezy like a drowning man. His pride stung at the fact his brother had likely stopped for his benefit, but at least now they could finally talk. He opened his mouth to ask—demand, angry as he should be—what the fuck was going on, but what came out, instead, was a moan.
Ford, deprived of his mouth for just a few seconds and already impatient, had descended to his neck. The bastard had latched onto a sensitive spot on his throat, was now sucking on it, and fuck. It was hard to maintain a single coherent thought. (He remembered kissing Carla’s neck as a boy, but it had never been like this. Nothing had ever been like this.)
An urge to just let go, then, let Ford do whatever he wanted with his old body. The animal kingdom came to mind, one of those documentaries he watched when he was drowsy with summer heat and too lazy to switch channels, no kids around to do it for him; something about animals showing dominance by reaching a weak spot, the throat or the forehead or the soft underbelly. Apex predators baring it willingly, trustingly, like a T-Rex in mating season. (Or like a loyal, devoted brother.) Stan only remembered thinking about Mabel, how much she would have loved it all, before falling asleep.
He would have liked to say the ridiculous mental image of Ford as the big alpha wolf snapped him out of it. His own high-pitched whine did the job, instead.
Ford hummed against his neck, whispering words that sounded like praise, moving his mouth upwards to nibble at Stan’s ear. His hands slipped under Stan’s shirt, to cup his man boobs and circle his peaked nipples, as if Stan were a woman, and it felt delicious, and no, no, enough was enough—
“Ford—stop—hng!” he panted. “I don’t—I don’t want you like—ah, ah—stop! Fucking! Damn it!”
“That’s it, that’s it, let it all out.” His breath made Stan shiver, warm and loud enough to be heard. “Just like that, Stan.”
Conflicting emotions battled within him. It was so good, too good for someone like him, to have Ford so close. And yet terrifying. Ford should never have been scary, but fuck. He was.
“I’m not—I don’t like m—uh—”
“Men? That’s not what your body is telling me,” he drawled, bringing one massive hand to cup Stan’s face. “And even if you didn’t, Stanley—” that hand was caressing, then gripping his hair, “even if you really didn’t—it wouldn’t matter.” He said it matter-of-factly, calmly. “You belong to me.”
“I—”
“Don’t you? You know you do. You know I deserve this, after all I have been through. After you pushed me into that portal, after I faced horrors you could never dream of and returned victorious.”
“Ford.” His throat was clogged. Forgive, Ford, he wanted to say. Please forgive me, I love you. I love you so much. Nothing came out.
His brother seemed to know what he meant, as he had always known when they were children. As if their twin connection had never been lost in the forty years they spent apart, dormant like a princess waiting for the kiss of true love in the fairytale books their mother had never read for them.
“I forgive you, Stan, of course I do. You didn’t know what you were doing. You didn’t think. And you don’t need to think now, as you lie back and I claim my prize.”
He pushed Stan’s boxers down fully at that, and Stan knew better than to try and resist. If his brother wanted to have an incestuous meltdown right there in the same room Stan had pushed him through a portal, it was—not fine, not exactly, but bearable—he loved Ford, he missed him so, so much, and he wanted—
“Good boy.”
—he wanted anything he could get. If Ford’s affection only came in the form of—of whatever this was—then Stan would take it. He reminded himself again and again that beggars couldn’t be choosers, even as Ford retrieved a small vial from his pocket, filled to the brim with a transparent, glowing liquid. Looked like some glittery shit Mabel would use in her arts and crafts, shifting colors against the low light of the portal.
“What is that?”
Ford didn’t answer, opening it with his fucking teeth—and okay, he certainly didn’t wear any dentures, why would he? A loud pop echoed as he coated his long fingers, and then—
Ah.
Had Ford ever given any indication where his inclinations lay?, Stan mused hysterically as his brain caught up with his body. He didn’t think so.
Sure, Ford had always had problems with the fairer sex. Much like Dipper, the man couldn’t even look a girl into the eyes. (Hah, when the kid discovered this, having something in common with his fabled hero. He’d be ecstatic.)
Ford and sex were like oil and water. His true love was science, he had said so himself when a teenage Stan dared to ask, and Ford didn’t lie because he didn’t know how to.
Or so was what Stan thought. Until now.
Looking back, perhaps his brother hadn’t been so much clueless as misdirected. He could achieve virtually anything he set his mind to, after all. His new muscles and scars proved so. What was the art of wooing women compared to surviving a dangerous multiverse?
Perhaps Ford had always been gay and Stan hadn’t noticed. Neither had their father, obviously, or else Ford would also have been kicked out faster than he could say parallelepiped. He resented Pa’s favoritism, but not that Ford had been safe. Adult Ford was one thing, young, feeble Ford was something else entirely, and Stan loved his brother far too much to wish him any ill.
Enough, it seemed, to take it in the ass for him. To let himself be taken, even if he wasn’t gay.
His thoughts were interrupted, once again, by the sight of Ford opening his black pants with a nonchalant attitude, as if it the concept of incest had been erased in his brain somehow. Perhaps things truly were different beyond the portal. (If Ford found the courage to be gay, perhaps he found it to be incestuous, too.)
Stan would like to say he was horrified, or at the very least shocked by the direction things were going really, really fast—watching the proverbial trainwreck, being unable to do anything. His hands weren’t tied, no, but Ford was now using his remaining hand to pin both of his wrists to the floor, and damn. In truth he was mesmerized, and he had made a habit of lying to himself through the years but not—not about this.
Not about Ford staring at him ravenously, like a starved man would at a big buffet, or something wilder, worse still. Salivating over his prey’s pliant flesh, his breathing, heart-beating dinner. Eager for the too sexy sight of an old man with his beer gut exposed.
It made a lot of sense, really, when he stopped to think about it. Ford had never been normal, and it was only fitting he wouldn’t be attracted to normal things. That much was clear with his obsessive study of so-called anomalies, but it had never occurred to Stan it would extend to sexual deviations.
A lot of things had never occurred to Stan.
Stan didn’t do well with intimacy. That was partly Pa’s fault and partly due to his life in the streets, which was still Pa’s fault anyway, in a more roundabout manner.
Both he and Ford had been raised with light shoulder punches and noogies as a form of utmost physical affection, high sixes as an added bonus. Hugs were rare, kept away for special occasions, and kisses between men were out of the question entirely. They got away with a few cheek or forehead kisses alone in their room when they were kids, but even those were few and far between, reserved for when one of them was crying after a rough bullying session or Pa being Pa. Crying was also suppressed, because men didn’t cry, so it was a certain way to know your twin was really, truly, deeply upset and in need of some sweet comfort.
Stan enjoyed those moments, perhaps more than he should. He suspected he had always been more touch starved than Ford, but his brother didn’t seem to mind as Stan placed his thick arm around his shoulders, even leaning into the half-embrace sometimes. It was a pity Ford gave up on boxing entirely—Stan liked the excuse to touch his brother in the midst of their friendly roughhousing, too. It was all innocent back then, nothing beyond that.
But this?
This was more than intimate.
This was his brother literally inside him.
The brother he had grown up with, wild and free as all children were, earnest toothy grins and easy laughter.
Their innocence was long gone, but not the purity. No, not the purity, Stan mused, faintly aware he was beginning to dissociate, nor the strength of their connection.
As society’s tandards of masculinity started to dissolve in his brain, only the raw vulnerability remained. There was no Pa there with them. There was no one else, no external judgment.
Only he and Ford. Ford and him. Just as they were in their mother’s womb. Just as they were brought into the world.
They were the same cell once, if biology class was to be believed, and Stan’s body could have been Ford’s. They were one once again. Now united, together as they should be. Stan welcomed Ford inside his body, as he had inside his mind and his heart.
(He had nothing else left to give.)
Was this true love? To have someone you trusted deep inside you? To allow yourself to experience the intimacy you ran away from for decades?
It didn’t need to be a battle for dominance. He could surrender to Ford’s love, if that was how Ford decided to express it. He could let himself be taken. He could let himself be—
“Am I being too rough?” Ford asked, now, bringing him back to the tension in his own muscles, their involuntary contraction. It felt like an intimate embrace. It felt like his body’s way of pulling and not letting go. Of wanting Ford inside him forever, greedy for his brother as he had always been for money. “Are you enjoying this?”
“Y-yeah.”
It was surreal, even, how he could feel everything—Ford’s fast heartbeat, whose fast thump thump rhythm indicated arousal or perhaps excitement or perhaps both, once a comfort to him in the womb and a comfort to him as a child as he put his small head on Ford’s chest to sleep peacefully when it rained heavily and thunders were scary. A comfort to him as an adult, even now, because his brother wanted him.
He knew what the joke was. Lie back and think of England. He pitied any girl who ever received that advice. It was not something easy to ignore. It was not something you could easily put away in some drawer of a messy desk in your head, the fact that something (someone) was invading your body.
Stan didn’t feel invaded, not when he trusted Ford so much, but he did feel different. He thought of the way society applied virginity concepts exclusively to girls for such a long time, for most of history, really, and how perhaps they had been right all along. Perhaps it wasn’t such an archaic notion, and perhaps it had nothing to do with female body parts, but with the feeling itself. Stan was experiencing something meant to women, an ancient secret of nature being uncovered to reveal the before and after of being penetrated.
Because, as Ford around and inside him shuddered with need, Stan had never felt quite so complete. Ford’s love opened him up, filled all the space and stretched him even further than that, breaching and taking and making itself impossible to ignore. He didn’t think of himself as empty before, but now that he had Ford inside him, it seemed strange not to. Perhaps he was just like a puzzle, one defective puzzle missing the final piece his entire life, and while he didn’t think the piece was, necessarily, his twin’s—
“Uh!”
Ford started moving faster, easily, so easily, even though Stan had never been touched there, in his body’s very insides.
Stan realized he had been given time to get used to Ford, even though it didn’t hurt at all, even though Ford must have known it didn’t hurt. Maybe his twin understood exactly the overwhelming sensation of having someone inside you. Maybe he was just being kind. Both options made Stan want to tear up.
He managed to resist the urge.
“Stan,” Ford whispered against his ear, voice strained with the effort of lovemaking, “I never thought I’d have this.”
That was all the warning Stan got before Ford pushed his legs back, back, almost folding him in half, and changed his pace entirely. “He is dead, you know,” the man whispered, his aged, handsome face assuming that same triumphant expression as before. “He is dead and gone and I am not, and I am inside you, and I won—” He breathed. “I won against Bill. I won you. Mine, all mine.”
It was too much, really.
Stan couldn’t concentrate on whether or not he had heard that name, Bill, before—it kind of sounded familiar, in a strange sort of way, but the venomous hatred with which Ford spat it was something entirely new. It was personal.
His brain was also shutting down like an old computer unplugged from the outlet, and he guessed this was just the effect Stanford Pines had on him in general. Today, of course, that effect seemed amplified with a force of a thousand suns, or at least enough energy to make that damn portal work again.
And that brought him to the present moment. Ford didn’t feel experienced, no—not for Stan who was somewhat experienced, not when he was jackhammering in and out of Stan’s body like an animal in mating season—but man, did he have stamina. Stan didn’t think he could make his own thighs keep up with that frantic rhythm, so perhaps it was a good thing he was the one taking it.
He expected his inferiority complex to return at that, but it didn’t. Perhaps he was already accepting the nature of unchangeable things deep down.
“Yes, that’s it,” Ford panted. Stan was beginning to discover he was talkative during sex, as he was in all other things in life. “You’re being so good for me, Stanley.”
Stan wasn’t being good, not really, not when his good behavior could easily be attributed to the fact he was frozen with the brain-melting explosion of sensations Ford himself was responsible for bringing.
Ford didn’t seem to care, however. He brought Stan’s legs down in a smooth motion, draping his body over Stan’s, and it was better, somehow. Better because Stan could feel his grounding weight once more, the warmth radiating off Ford’s entire being instead of just—ahem. He wanted to embrace his brother, pull him closer, scratch his back with his short, blunt nails to express his passion and acceptance, but his wrists were still bound by one of Ford’s hands, and while he could have freed himself—his brother was one-handed, really, he couldn’t be that strong—Stan didn’t want to.
That was the summary of his whole life, wasn’t it? Submitting to Ford’s whims.
He soon realized why, exactly, Ford was so close. His twin started sucking on his neck, drawing the delicate flesh between his teeth, as if he hadn’t just lectured Stan on making noises. Nothing would alert the kids more than big, dark purple hickeys on their grunkle’s throat. Knowing Dipper, the anxious boy would think it had been a bloodsucking vampire or something worse, unless Stan started a habit of wearing turtlenecks. In the summer. Perhaps Ford would offer his own clothes like a possessive lover, and Stan would be forced to pretend he was annoyed, as if the idea of visibly belonging to his twin didn’t get him all warm in the gut.
He knew what a climax felt like. He knew it because he had slept with a few women, and above all he knew it because his hand had been a good, faithful companion on lonely nights, even if he sometimes caught himself wishing it had more fingers.
This particular one was not like the others. For one thing, he didn’t think he made Ford moan so loudly before. For another, he made the mistake of reaching out for Ford as the burst of affection overtook his body, breaking free from his brother’s tight hold to cup his cheek.
(He really should have known better. This was very much the same man who had pointed a crossbow to his face, all those years ago.)
Ford snarled, wrapping both hands around Stan’s neck in a swift and abrupt move. Stan gasped, coughed, but Ford didn’t relent, squeezing and squeezing until Stan’s vision blurred, as if Stan was some dangerous creature needing to be forcibly held down, conquered through brute force. He was no pacifist himself, but the mere idea hurt more than he expected, way more than the physical pain. What traumas had his Ford gone through on the other side?
It’s me, Ford, he wanted to say. Your brother. Not a threat…!
The growling finally, and fortunately to Stan, gave way to moaning. The hold in his throat loosened, allowing him to gulp in mouthfuls of air as Ford’s voice got a little high-pitched, so different from his usual smooth baritone, breaking a little like a boy in puberty—another thing he had in common with Dipper, it seemed, and a small chink in his new armor of badassery.
Good. Stan would take what he could get.