Work Text:
Ford walked into the study while fidgeting with his unicorn hair bracelet
"Good morning Stanley. Sorry I'm a bit later than usual, I overslept"
As to be expected, Stan did not reply. He continued to sleep on the table. Ford continued with their discussion as always, even if he was aware that the likelihood Stan could hear him was close to zero.
"Although I'm not the only one who's been sleeping a bit more than I should, am I?" Ford looked over to his brother's unconscious form and felt a wave of shame. "Sorry, that's not funny..."
"Now then, let's get on with it".
Ford walked over to the desk and grabbed the gardening shears and sample bags. When he came back he began the usual procedure of trimming down the vines coming out of his brother's palm.
Ford was careful not to take too much, as the plant (while seemingly the root of the curse) was keeping his brother alive. Putting most of his bodily needs and functions on pause while he slept. But Stan seemed to rest easier when it was trimmed down and Ford wanted him to be as comfortable as possible until he found a cure. Plus the thorns tended to pierce his skin if left unchecked and Ford couldn't have that.
Ford hissed when he moved his brother's arm to check on the rose bud that was growing.
The flower had bloomed, a large blood-red specimen that Ford might considered beautiful if he found it naturally occurring in the woods and not growing out of his brother.
What upset him was the thorns cutting into his brother's skin.
"I'm sorry Stanley, that must hurt"
He removes the flower and thorned section and placed in the bag for later study before grabbing supplies to patch his brother up. He gently cleaned the cuts and bandaged him up.
"I shouldn't have waited for that flower to bloom, I should've just trimmed down the whole section" Ford muttered. He had wanted to analyze it, see if it would help him find a cure. But he should've known to cut it down before more thorns grew.
How many of Ford's mistakes would Stanley pay for?
Luckily healing was not one of the processes halted by the curse, in fact it seemed to be accelerated. So at least there was that.
Once Ford removed the flower, Stan seemed to relax more. His face no longer looked like he was bracing for a punch, his eyebrows lost the little furrow in the middle that said something was wrong.
"I need some more samples from the spinning wheel, but it'll only take a second"
Ford went to the other side of the room and removed the tarp covering the artfact. An old spinning wheel, elegant and seemlingly strait out of a fairytale.
He knelt down and shaved off bits of the wood, trying to ignore the memories flooding back at the sight of the cursed thing,
"You left me behind you jerk! It was supposed to be us forever, you ruined my life!"
"You ruined your own life!" Ford shouted as he kicked Stanley in the chest.
Stan fell back and tried to catch himself on the edge of an old enchanted spinning wheel, but only succeeded in grabbing onto the spindle and spearing it through his hand, breaking it off. He cried out in pain as he crashed into a shelve and specimens rained down on him
"Stanley! Oh my gosh I'm so sorry! Are you- Augh!" Ford was cut off by Stan punching him with his uninjured hand.
Stanley pulled himself up and ripped the spindle out. "Some brother you turned out to... to..."
Stan's eyes became unfocused and he started to sway before completely loosing his balance and fainting.
"Stanley!" Ford shouted as he rushed over to his brother.
Stan was unconscious and completely unresponsive to Ford's pleas and shaking.
"Come on Stanley, wake up!" Ford searched the floor for whatever could've knocked his brother out (he had to just be knocked out, it couldn't be anything else) until his eyes landed on the bloody spindle.
And looked up at the spinning wheel it was a piece of.
"no. no no no not that one" he whispered.
He grabbed his brother's had and searched the wound for any sign of green.
"Please. Please be there, please let him be ok"
Ford's notes on the cursed object were in Journal 2 but from what he remembered there was about a five minute window for the curse to complete. There was only a 40-70% chance of success, depending on the wound's placement. Fingers were documented to be the most successful area but anywhere above the wrist was at least a 60%.
Three agonizing minuets passed before the wound glowed green and a thorn poked through.
Ford sighed in relief at the sight. Stan was alive.
Asleep, but alive.
Ford could fix this.
Ford finished collecting the samples and went back to the center of the room.
"I'm going to see if fairy dust had any effect on the vines or wood, since the myths often include them. The ones I talked too didn't know anything but this is old magic. Many of its secrets have been lost to time". If Stan was awake Ford imagined that he would question resorted to using children's tales for leads. In that scenario he would reply that he had to explore every avenue and that he was wearing and in a house surrounded by unicorn hair, how far fetched was it really that fairies could help?
But Stan was sleeping so Ford kept it to himself.
He walked over to the table and grabbed Stan's uninjured hand, five fingers slotting perfectly into six. Stan squeezed back. Ford had leaned by now it was not a sign of waking up, most likely only mussel memory, but it still gave him hope. Stan was still in there, somewhere.
"I'm getting closer. It shouldn't take much longer"
Ford brushed some hair from Stanley's face with his free hand.
"I promise to take care of you this time. I'll fix my mistakes. Just hold on a bit longer for me, ok Stanley?"
He let go and returned to his work.
Ford would fix this.
Stan really hated the smell of roses.
Not that he had always hated them, but the monster made of thorns and flowers had sort of ruined it by now.
It was the size of a small house, walked on all fours, and was made of thorny vines. It had a face that kind of looked like the tree monster from a Marvel comic he read as a kid, but much more threatening and with two roses for eyes. A recent addition however, was the new roses on it's back. They created a sickeningly sweet perfume that made Stan feel tired and dizzy of he got close.
He never passed out from them. In fact he hadn't slept once since he got here, although the how, why, and when he got "here" was a mystery. Also what here was too.
It was a giant, medieval, evil witch/queen lookin thing in ruins. Stan had no idea how to get out, only what way to avoid if he didn't want to go deeper. Unfortunately, that was exactly where the monster wanted him to go.
Any time it caught Stan, its thorns would cut him up as it dragged him deeper into the halls.
It was about to grab Stan when the thing that stopped it from ever reaching the center happened.
As if some invisible gardener was trimming down the weed, large chunks of its legs were cut of along with its claws. Stan didn't have time to see the job finished as he was running for his life, but he did catch the monster's scratches and the roses being removed.
Thank whoever's up there, those things sucked.
After Stan had a quick head start, he hid behind some furniture to catch his breath and let the rose stuff wear off. He didn't have much time to waste, but he relished these moments. These small batches of relief.
Stan felt the hand a few seconds later. He didn't look at it because whenever he tried the feeling went away. He instead squeezed back, focusing on the feeling of six fingers around his.
They felt like Ford's
He closed his eyes and felt another hand brush the hair out of his face. His bangs were getting long, he should trim them once he got out.
He would get out.
Stan just had to keep holding on.
If you're reading this anywhere other than Ao3 it was stolen