Chương 156: -Anything your sick mind desires- Part 1
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Ford frowned down at the papers he was holding in his lap -- this 'transcript' of Bill's -- as he finally calmed down enough to finally be able to really begin to focus on them enough to read through them properly, tensing and grimacing every so often as he worked his way through reading them.
He only had half an inkling of why Stan might have wanted him to have a copy. If he'd had to make an educated guess, it was likely in part a sort of checking of where the lines currently stood with Cipher -- how far Bill would let Stan 'push' him, for something that was clearly meant to benefit Ford in some way -- (which was not something Ford would consider to be a good idea to try and check outright), and in other part a sort of… well, as far as Ford could tell, with the way Stan had tried to hand it to him, it was probably meant as...
...It hadn't been meant as a peace offering, but rather more of a datapoint. Stan had requested transcripts from Bill before, but Stan hadn't let anyone else see or read them before. Giving Ford one for the sole purpose of being able to read it himself presumably gave him the opportunity to see exactly what sort of information Bill had been giving Stan, and in exactly the form and format in which it was being presented to his brother.
Oddly enough, the pages were color-coded by the person that was speaking. It didn't make sense, until Ford realized that reading the lines of words meandering themselves up and down across the page was more like reading a music sheet than a transcript, with the way the overlapping conversations were being displayed at the same time...
And it truly was a straightforward transcript. There was no information inside it that related tone, facial expression, gesturing, relative-placement between the individuals, or any of their general behaviors. There was also enough overlap with what he had heard outside of the door for Ford to be able to note that it was missing general actions as well, such as the girls setting up their sleeping bags and similar.
It also had nothing about whatever thoughts they might have had inside their heads. This was all just the things said aloud during the various conversations. There was no context at all to be seen.
And while that was frustrating enough on its own Ford didn't quite understand the point of the inclusion of the rather pointless-looking 'bar' notation surrounding the various lines of text, either. It seemed to be just an odd set of nonsense lines added in as framing surrounding them top and bottom, in a weird sort of stylized--
Then Ford's brain caught up to him and he stopped for a moment and blinked. Because he'd thought 'weird'.
Ford glanced up at Stan.
"This is what Bill thinks is 'accurate to the very-best of his ability'?" It wasn't quite a rhetorical question; Ford knew Bill could do better than this, because Bill read people better than this. ...Which meant that he was missing something here.
Stan shrugged. "Kid wasn't lying. What's the problem?"
Ford grimaced as he flicked at the open pages in front of him in annoyance. "This is devoid of anything visual," he noted. And quite frankly, for something from Bill Cipher, Master of the Mind with an All-Seeing Eye, that was rather disturbing in and of itself.
Stan eyed him for a moment. "It's a transcript," he said neutrally. Stan didn't get what his brother's problem was there. Whole thing was written down on paper. How was that not 'visual'?
"Does Bill really only have the ability to record audio of all words and actions taken inside the Shack?" Ford said, looking up at Stan. (Ford already knew the answer to this, though: Bill did have the ability to pick up cross-spectrum visuals of all types, in the form of that suit that he was wearing. What Ford wanted to know right now was, was his own brother going to continue to keep stonewalling him over this, or--)
Stan shrugged. "Hey, you've seen a couple those crystal-listening things. We both know the kid's got audio around the place. Kid can't use his Seeing-eye or whatever with the barrier thing you've got around the Shack, even if I let him do his whole Weirdness-thing again, no strings attached. Pretty sure he can get visual one way or another though," Stan told him noncommittally, scratching his cheek. (He didn't want to put the idea out there that the kid could probably read the signal from whatever cameras Ford had up, even if the kid's suit wasn't picking up and recording whatever for him. Ford hadn't told him out on deck what the kid could grab with that suit of his, and the kid hadn't told him either, but it was clear that the kid had gotten what he and Miz had been saying to each other from that, at least.)
Ford gave his brother a long look.
Stan sighed. "Ford, what are you thinkin' is supposed to be in there that ain't there?" he tried next.
"Gestures?" Ford tried, feeling frustrated. "Tone, pitch, facial expressions, emotions -- something," Ford noted with no small exasperation. It felt largely and frustratingly incomplete -- something that was not least of which offset by the way the words were… drawn out across the page, as it were. In the same way that the 'measures' seemed to show who was talking over, or at the same time as, whom, the words and letters themselves were spaced out and drawn out, almost as if stretched across the page, in places. The 'beat' and rhythm of the words were there, but the tone of the words was--
He looked up at Stan in frustration for confirmation of this, because Stan understood theatricality, of the sort that Bill himself would and did like to use, and… Stan was looking at him almost puzzled for a moment.
And then Stan's face cleared and he leaned back in his chair and said, "Ford, flip to the last couple pages of that thing for a moment, willya?"
Ford frowned at his brother -- not particularly liking the idea of skipping ahead in his reading at this stage -- but he did so, and when he did...
...he had to stop and blink.
And Ford flipped back a few pages to the beginning of what looked like...
There was an appendix to the transcript. A very, very long appendix.
...Two appendices. It was almost something of a dictionary and a grammar-guide for how to read the document appropriately. It gave the color-codings and explicitly matched them to the person. It explained the horizontal spacing of the text in the context of timing in relation to syllable length of the words as-given. ...It also gave an explanation of the vertical spacing within the stylized 'bars' -- which apparently included an indication of who was talking to whom by the spacing and groupings there, and also who was paying attention to whom during those conversations, with the thin lines of color that flickered up and down between the actual text when the individuals weren't talking.
And when he flipped to the next page and began to read the section on how to decode what he'd originally thought to be simply 'stylized bars', of the sort of over-the-top theatricality on the page distracting in the way it was offsetting what was truly important on the page for no apparent reason, of the same and rather usual sort of madness that Ford generally expected to see out of Bill visually as he talked...
"...This is…" It left Ford blinking slightly in shock. Because those bars… Bill had created a method for displaying effectively, via a written and almost music-score-like medium, something that would otherwise require a single good audio feed and a multitude of video feeds from several angles, to capture and display everything later to someone what was going on in a single room setting between a group of more than four people -- since Bill had included himself, Dipper, and Ford in that transcript, along with the three girls and one demon. Those 'stylized bars' were an exact encoding of what Ford had thought was missing entirely from the 'score': the tone and pitch and 'expression' information were represented by the markings making up the top 'bar' above each grouping of text, while the physical actions and 'gestures' were given as part of the bottom 'bar' of the score. Ford hadn't quite picked up on any correlation with the text, because the bars had been written in greyscale, not color-coded themselves -- but with the 'grammar' of the way the information was being shown in those top and bottom 'bars', it would have resulted in mixed shades of color (in potentially some rather awful color combinations) to try and track everything in that respect. There was a partial overlap of the greyscale markings between individuals due to said 'grammar' of the 'bar' structure, and…
...the arrangement on the page as a whole was far better than any purely static representation that Ford himself ever could have thought of.
But Ford did not say that aloud. Frankly, he didn't want to admit that. The fact that he was still being schooled by Bill on things at this late date…
But that didn't mean that Ford would refuse to read or use it, or that he was otherwise incapable of understanding it and doing so.
He worked his way through the grammar and vocabulary in the appendix that was describing the bars, as it became more and more dense to understand, and… Ford shook his head, and gave up a bit. He removed the appendix out of the back of the stack and spread out several of the pages out to his side, across the bed, for easy reference. (He knew he wasn't going to be able to memorize all aspects of this new 'language' in the span of only a few minutes; it only seemed to become more and more intricate and nuanced as it went. --There seemed to be base 'reactions' with modifiers on them, akin to describing 'anger' and then refining the explanation to 'annoyance' or 'rage' and describing the target as inward or outwardly defined; similar modifiers seemed to describe physical gestures and motions in terms of emphasis, negation, stress level, or some other 'subtext'ual 'flavor' of some sort -- such as 'nervousness' or 'casual reflection'.)
Ford pulled up a leg onto the bed and shifted sideways, to turn towards the pages in front of him, to make it as easy as possible on himself -- to be able to glance up to see his reference point, as it were, rather quickly as he read the rest of the transcript pages that he held in his lap -- for as smooth and short of an interruption to his reading as possible.
Frankly, Ford didn't know why Bill had put this 'key' in the end-matter, rather than at the start of everything like he should have if he'd wanted anyone to understand what they were reading, but…
...well, it was just like Bill, though, wasn't it? Leaving the most-important things you needed know about everything until the very, very end when it was already far too late by far to…
Ford let out a huff, as he got down to his reading again -- his re-reading, really. And as he did, this time as he read the transcript, he glanced up and back to double-check his understanding of what he was reading, for that potentially critical little bit more detail that he might need to truly assess the situation properly, as he went.
(It occurred to Ford absently as he went, to wonder if this was a representation that Bill actually used for himself, to try and characterize and understand all other people in the world around him, or if it was simply a method that Bill thought was most accurate when trying to write things in a human-readable format. Because if it was the former… well, Ford could potentially learn quite a lot if it was the former. But if it was the latter...)
(...well, it would still say quite a lot about what Bill thought of humans and how they communicated with each other; how Bill thought he needed to communicate to humans, when he was trying to be accurate about things, 'to the very-best of his ability'.)
(Bill had been oddly musical at times, long ago -- and over the years, over and over again -- and, admittedly, sometimes still, even now. Ford had commented on it absently at times before... the portal incident... and Bill had never really given him a straight answer on his own preferences, when it came to music. He'd always seemed to talk around the subject a bit, talking about other human composers, other human works, and generally otherwise being a good bit distracting on the subject. He always put it in human context; he had dropped the barest of hints and little factoids at times about what music was like in other dimensions. But Bill never really talked about it in great detail, and he'd never really talked about it in relationship to himself. Not really. Not as anything more than a throwaway comment.)
(But Bill could play the piano. Bill talked about singing sometimes. Bill had once said that music had come before language for humans -- in what Ford thought of as language, anyway. Bill had, during one conversation that had ended up, in Ford's opinion, going quite literally nowhere, insisted that music was language, and human language was music, and that Ford should stop being such a stick-in-the-mud about something-or-another that they'd been discussing in detail at the time.)
(...And if this representation was any indication of it, Bill certainly had found a way to represent human language as something almost music-like at some point. He was clearly trying to make a point, his point, all over again, about human language being always and nothing more than another kind of music, Sixer, get with the program here and sing a few bars with me, yeah? Don't be shy! Just try and BELT OUT a few notes with me here, and MAYBE you'll understand--!!)
(...But Bill was just finding another way to lie by leaving things out here, too. Wasn't he? Because in all his thirty years out there in the multiverse, on the other side of that portal, the amount of music that Ford had encountered had been all and almost nothing but... flat. --Ford had, once upon a time, looked up several studies at Bill's urging, on the impact of music on brainwave function, among other things, and Ford could admit that there were some oddities there. But the idea that humans largely thought in music still felt almost foreign to him, even as he couldn't explain why the rest of the multiverse was so very unmusical itself. Why what little rhythm and beat that he'd heard out there just didn't seem to be very catchy. Why the species that seemed to do even that much seemed to be the ones he'd always found easiest to talk to, and the others that were the most logical -- who should have been easiest to carry a conversation with, by comparison, had always seemed to be the hardest to communicate with instead. Why humming to himself sometimes as he worked, or waited, or drew a picture in his latest journal, just made whatever species that was nearby him turn and look at him oddly, like they were trying to parse what he must be trying to say. And Ford had never quite figured out if his universal translator had just not been working during those moments, or if it had been malfunctioning somehow, but...)
(...Ford frowned to himself. Because he was going to have to bring this up with Bill eventually, and… he wasn't particularly looking forward to that.)
Stan watched his brother frown, and read, and frown some more for awhile, then Stan let out a soft sigh that was almost a grunt and looked down at his crossword puzzle. Page was almost swimming on him at this point; he flipped it closed and stowed it away, just crossing his arms and sitting back in his chair where he was sitting at Ford's desk, facing him.
(If he closed his eyes and fell asleep, that probably wouldn't be so bad. He'd slept in worse places, in chairs a lot less comfortable than this wooden one.)
Ford continued reading, and checking the appendices that had been included, and reading some more as he went, until he finally caught up to where he'd been reading again, and moved beyond and past it.
Ford grimaced as he read about the man-eater's mention of her powers 'just doing things outside her control' whenever she lost control. --He'd never really understood why some demons seemed to insist on pushing themselves to a point where their 'powers' outstripped their ability to control said 'powers' and abilities -- or why some of them seemed to actively pursue chaotic powers that were almost random in effect, almost as likely to make things worse for them than better. As far as he'd been able to determine, those sorts of demons were either incredibly stupid, or simply wanted to make things more difficult for themselves (and for others) almost deliberately, as they played innocent about all the problems they were causing all the while. ...Clearly the man-eater must be one of the latter of these two; Bill had little to no patience for the former.
Ford frowned to himself over this, though. Miz didn't seem the standard type of the latter set, despite this; most of the time, what the man-eater tried to do with her powers was what she wanted to have actually happen and was actually able to enact upon the world around her, largely with impunity, as far as he'd been able to tell. He continued on, brushing that matter aside for the moment -- whatever it was, she clearly had to be fooling Bill in some aspect over it. Asking after Bill's help for more control was bad enough; the idea of the man-eater potentially actually getting Bill's help on things beyond what she'd needed for her 'empathetic' emotion-'hearing' issue was the stuff of nightmares. Whatever else she might say that she was wanting 'help' from Bill on, was likely just the start of a long line of false plays for sympathy. ...And yet Ford couldn't imagine anyone, demon or person, putting themselves in that sort of danger -- leaving themselves at the whims of an uncontrolled emotion-sensing ability -- just to try and get themselves an 'in' with Bill Cipher. Bill could have just as likely turned the man-eater down, laughing at the man-eater for her stupidity all the while, or otherwise exploited it--
...except…
Even Bill knew, and had known, and had reacted with horror at the very thought of her being in those dire-straits himself…
...and Ford had felt absolutely certain that Bill would react that negatively upon hearing that, even though he'd had no evidence of that before. He'd known Bill would not be happy about that, and would at the very least not stop anyone from trying to fix it. Even though Bill was… Bill, and Bill...
Ford shook his head, and forced himself to continue, deciding that he would at least get himself to the point at which the transcript began to cover that which had come up at the kitchen table earlier that night before he tried to go to sleep, what had been discussed between the man-eater and Mabel that had supposedly led to Mabel telling the man-eater what to say to him next. Ford was tired, and he wanted to get through this transcript enough that he could finish this conversation with Stanley, and then finally go to sleep...
Axolotl help him, he actually wanted to fall asleep right now, he was dead tired...
So Ford continued to read. And read. And read.
And when Ford finally got to the part of Mabel and Miz's conversation that they'd all been referring to at the dinner table earlier…
...Ford simply shook his head, as he turned to the next page and read onwards. --It meant nothing, the man-eater was still just as bad, no matter what she had said.
And, having gotten this far and having become more used to how to read this 'musical score' of text finally, he decided he might as well continue on with his reading until the end. He was nearly at the end of it as it was. And he'd have to read it all sooner or later anyway, wouldn't he? And for all he knew, the subject might have come up between Mabel and the man-eater multiple times over the course of that night. The man-eater had certainly repeated herself on multiple occasions before this point. So it would be better if he read the rest of it now, before handing it back to Stanley.
Ford turned another page, and upon reading the man-eater's apparent claim that 'he liked her lies more', he shook his head and grimaced again. The utter audacity of her to suggest that was--!! And the fact that she'd done it right in front of Bill Cipher, no less!...
But that wasn't enough to stop Ford from reading any further in absolute disgust, and so Ford continued to read on.
And then… Ford read something and froze in place, his heart beating a mile a minute with a feeling of dread as he had to stop, take a shallow breath, and reread it, because...
--that couldn't be right. That had to be a lie. It couldn't--
Stan heard a sharp intake of breath, and he grimaced grumpily and raised his head (hell, he'd nearly dozed off for a second there…). And when Stan looked over, he saw that Ford went really damn pale at something he was reading, and--
Stan pulled in a slow breath himself. He'd moved over to the chair at the desk a bit farther away from Ford a good while ago to give him (them both) some space as he read, instead of sittin' at his shoulder, breathing down his neck. But now he was startin' to wish that he hadn't, because bein' halfway across the room from him meant he didn't know why his brother was actin' that way from what he'd been reading, and…
"...Ford?" Stan tried, sitting up a bit, as his brother kept not getting any less pale on him, just kept on starin' down at those pages. And Stan didn't get what was goin' that wrong over there. He hadn't thought that there was anythin' in there that would be a problem for Ford to go off reading. (...So what had he missed and gotten all wrong this time? Had the kid known? Was that why he'd looked at Ford like that when Stan had said--?? No. No. Like hell. The demon didn't know his own brother better than he did. Hell no.)
"Ford, what's the problem," Stan asked of him directly, in his usual tones of gravel, and this time...
"...Would the anchor burn you if we tried the circle?" Ford asked of him quietly, not looking up from the pages in front of him. He didn't want to believe it; it was clearly another of the man-eater's lies -- one that would make any one of them not want to even contemplate the apparent risk of performing the circle -- but…
The idea, the very possibility, of Stanley potentially getting hurt or killed by the use of the circle in the process of destroying the demon for good, was not something that Ford could just let go of. He would not, could not, simply ignore something like that. Ford simply could not discount, ignore, or refuse to think about such a possibility once-voiced, in the hopes that he could leave the reality of the whole thing to chance. Because that would be what it would be at this point; blind chance. Because the idea of wagering Stan's life on the blind hope (and unconfirmed fact) that the demon simply must have lied to Mabel about this…
(...and then further tricked Bill(?!) into thinking that she hadn't been lying when she'd said that, sight and evidence of the truth of any of that yet-still unseen…?)
Ford shook himself, trying to make sense of his own racing thoughts, of the roiling mix of feelings that were slowly turning into a hard knot just under his breastbone, making it a bit difficult for him to breathe; it felt like there was a mess of strings tangling and pulling themselves harder and closer and harder together inside his chest, as they rolled and jerked themselves around uncontrollably this way and that, as they went.
--And it didn't help that Ford had no idea how the anchor worked, or why or how Stan had it in the first place, or what it even looked like -- because Stanley still wouldn't let him look at whatever the thing looked like on Bill Cipher's back, wouldn't force Bill to expose it, and--
...Except he couldn't say that he didn't know how Stan had gotten that anchor the man-eater had been talking about anymore, now, could he. Not if the man-eater wasn't lying about...
'--his twin burned that anchor into him during a fight--' -- '--if that Stanford attempts to brand the anchor onto any of you--'
He didn't want to ask. He really didn't want to ask.
He'd already asked, and Stan wasn't answering him.
The paper in Ford's lap began to crinkle under the pressure being exerted by his hands...
He really, truly, did not want to ask. But...
...This was important, critical, crucial information to know. And Ford could not leave this to chance.
Which meant…
"Stan, how did you get the anchor you have…" oh, it hurt to say it, "in common with Bill?" he asked of his brother quite quietly. And he very carefully left off the 'do you know?' that should have gone at the end of it. He didn't want to give his brother the out. Because if Stan didn't know...
--if Stan didn't remember, because of that damn memory gun--
...Except he did know. Of course he knew. Of course Stan did know about it; Dipper had talked about that tattoo on Stan's back, and Stan could have shown it to him, to any of them, at any time -- no matter how reticent Bill himself was being on the matter -- but Stan hadn't done that. Stan hadn't. He just hadn't. Stan had never even offered, not once, to show it to him, and--
"It's not important," Stan said to him gruffly, finally. Except that it was important. It was. It was, and...
--His brother didn't sound confused about it, what they both were talking about here, and he wasn't trying to play dumb with him, on this, now. Stan hadn't been surprised about it, either; when Dipper had first brought it up, when Bill Cipher had first started yelling at them all about all of it, Stan hadn't been surprised. Not when Stan had heard about it out on that porch from Dipper, after all that come before; not when Bill had started yelling about how Ford himself didn't know what he was talking about; no, Stan hadn't been surprised at all about any of it, no, not really.
'--Kid, I don't really wanna know, but I gotta ask: is that thing you've got all down your back screwing with your brain anywhere near as badly as that deal you had with Ford?--'
Stan hadn't been surprised. He hadn't even been shocked, when Dipper had brought it all up, right then and there, out on the porch there that day. No, Stan had just taken it all in stride; he'd been calm about it. Dipper had seen it before; he'd told Ford much later when he'd seen it -- during some apparent seizure Bill had been having in the bathtub -- and when Stan had apparently gone upstairs and retrieved Bill-- ...Stan had seen it all before, weeks ago, too, and that meant that...
--Ford wasn't stupid. He dropped the 'transcript' onto the bed, scattering loose papers at his side, and stood up.
"Show me your shoulder, Stan," he said quietly, and with the way Stan immediately stood up and bristled, the way Stan's hands clenched into fists that weren't even staying completely at his sides, with the way his brother's shoulders came up--
"You've never let me see your back," Ford added, just as quietly as before, looking at him straight-on. "Not on the boat; not even in the Fearamid, when we were both changing our clothes." Stan had even -- instinctively -- not turned his back on him or the niblings, when they'd been helping him change back into his own clothes after they'd found him again after everything was over and done with, in the woods… "You've never let me see your back, not even once, since I've been back home again in this dimension." And yes, Ford was already feeling the warning of the coming storm between them, but he couldn't just let--
"--You never let me see your neck when you're changin' clothes, or putting on a new turtleneck," Stan tossed out there right back -- which was a bit of a low blow, but Ford took the hit -- and moved with it -- and then Ford went even lower. Because now...
"Dipper told me once that you claim that you don't have a tattoo on your back, but that's incorrect." And now Ford knew "He misspoke, didn't he," Ford asked of his brother, and you weren't lying. And Ford was barely able to pull in his next breath, before he said, and had to say -- it was hard, trying to plough right through it all, saying, "It's not a tattoo, and it's not on your back; it's on your shoul--"
Ford was flat on his back on the bed within the span of a second -- less than a breath -- less than the space of a thought -- papers fluttering all around him, half-forgotten in the rush and reaction of it all, and--
Ford was looking up at Stan who was in-turn looming down over him from above. Stan's hands were shoving down on him at his shoulders from above with most of Stan's weight, and-- Ford didn't even let himself fight it, hands at and away slightly from his sides. He could have fought it; Stan just wasn't as fast as him anymore, by comparison, and while they were likely at equal-odds when it came to strength, Stan was nowhere close to him when it came to leverage and technique. But Ford didn't do that. He didn't fight it.
He didn't deserve to fight it.
He somewhat expected Stan to toss a punch at his face next, to yell something or another out at him angrily for bringing it up to begin with, when he so clearly did not want to talk about any of it, to… Ford expected Stan to do something like that, to get in a fight with him over it, for bringing that up, how Ford had hurt him when it hadn't been the least bit deserved in any way...
That was exactly what Ford expected to have happen next. And then maybe they could begin to talk about it, once all that old poisonous and rightly-deserved anger was spewed out at him, after.
What Ford hadn't expected was what actually happened next. Not what happened instead. Because Ford hadn't expected to see the look he was now seeing on Stan's face -- as it finally registered with him, and Ford grew quiet as it did so. As he realized that…
Ford never could, never would have expected to see that look on his brother's face next, in response to his words, nor to hear him say--
"--Don't act like you're sorry about it," Stan ground out at him, quietly, in low tones that weren't just made of gravel, they were so very much worse.
And Ford opened his mouth to say just that. To say that, and to protest. To say, 'but I am sorry, it was an accident--'
But he didn't say that before he stopped himself from saying it; Ford stopped right at the edge of the cliff-face of doing so, at the feeling of ash that spread over his tongue as the thought of saying that, just that, had him realizing…
Ford stopped, as he realized what he'd just been about to say to his brother. What he'd just been about to call what he had done to him. To him. What he had been just about to say to his brother, to him, after forty years of--
"I didn't mean to--" do it, was what Ford started to say instead, as he stared up at his brother above him almost helplessly -- because what else could he say, really? It was all he could say without making himself into the very-worst of hypocrites left alive to still be drawing breath--
--but even that was apparently wrong, too.
Because Ford felt himself lifted and slammed back down into the mattress and loose papers scattered and scattering under his back in short order, and it left him almost breathless in shock. Because Stan's hands were in fists in the front of his shirt, now, and his grip was almost punishing, and the way he was looking at him now was--
"--Don't lie about it, damn you!" his brother told him in shaky and angry, oh so very angry, tones. Stan's eyes were blazing with it, as he-- "You heard me scream, and you shoved me into it even harder!!"
And at his brother's words, screamed down at him under his breath because Stan didn't want to risk waking the niblings, oh god, he didn't want them to know that-- that he'd-- everything inside of Ford's head zeroed out to a white-noise sort of static null, as he stared up at his brother's angry, terrified, twisted and hurt face. Because he couldn't-- he didn't--
"I-- I didn't--" Ford stammered out, barely able to hear himself over the pounding of his own heartbeat in his own ears, and he felt the fists caught up in his shirt tighten even further. "I-- I didn't mean to do it, I-- I--" Ford stammered out as he stared up at his brother. And Ford felt his breath going thready on him, felt like reality was slipping sideways underneath and around him, as the look his brother was giving him only got angrier still. "I-- I didn't actually do that, did I? I-- I-- couldn't have," Ford stammered out next, in nothing but shock and a terrible confusion, but the look on Stan's face wasn't changing any, only growing more and more angrier as he talked if it was changing at all, and--
No. No. --No.
"I-- I didn't, did I?" Ford was starting to feel both anxious and scared if not utterly terrified outright, because he couldn't have, could he? He couldn't have-- because-- because-- "I--"
(He had been sleep-deprived for weeks.)
"--I didn't--"
(He barely remembered half of what he'd said to Stan in the portal room, before they'd fought.)
"--I didn't do that to you, did I?!?" Ford said, voice rising at the end there, in panic (and his eyes began to tear up).
"You shoved me into that panel," Stan said to him in tones of terrible anger, voice shaking as he-- "--and you held me there with your foot until I couldn't--" Stan told him, and then had to stop telling him, in those same, horrible, shaking and terribly-angry tones, fists in his shirt shaking -- Stan was shuddering at the memory of it, even now -- and Ford-- no-- he couldn't-- he couldn't--
--he couldn't have done that--
"I-- I can't remember doing that--" Ford told him, blurted out at him, as he racked his brain, trying to-- (no, he hadn't meant to) trying to at least remember-- (he couldn't have, could he?) to do Stanley at least the courtesy of remembering-- (but he couldn't) because he couldn't remember-- and (oh, please, Stan, he had to believe him) he hadn't meant to-- (he truly hadn't meant to) because he'd thought-- he hadn't-- but Ford-- he-- "I-- I hadn't slept for-- weeks…?"
(But Ford couldn't remember how long he'd been without sleep anymore, if he'd even known it himself at the time; all he really remembered was everything just… starting to blur together into one long frantic terror-filled stream of panic and paranoia, and a loss of almost all sense of the passage of time, despite all his efforts to the contrary, in order to make sure that he knew he could stay awake, he'd had to stay awake, and--)
"I-- I remember we were fighting, and--" Ford couldn't help but flinch as he had to admit, "I-- I remember kicking you up against… against the side of-- of... the… p-p--" and he ran out of breath, and he shuddered. "B-but I remember you screaming and… I remember letting go," Ford told him in sheer desperation, "I-- I thought I pulled back and let go--" he told his brother, begging, pleading with him, because he-- he couldn't have pushed him into it instead, could he? He-- He couldn't have--!! --No. No. Please, no--
(And it was only later, much later, the next morning, that it would occur to Ford Pines to wonder, if this was part of the reason why his brother seemed to have thought that Ford didn't love him.)
And Stan stared down at his brother in confused and angry disbelief, as Ford shook his head from side to side at him, looking him right in the eye as he said -- as he choked out at him -- "I didn't mean to, Stan, I'm sorry--" as tears overflowed and dripped out of Ford's eyes, cascading down the sides of his face, as his brother looked up at him, both sorry and scared, halfway to sobbing, and...
And Stan didn't get it. He just didn't get it. Because he remembered what he remembered, and… and Ford remembered what he remembered, too. Because Stan could tell that Ford wasn't lying...
Stan remembered that fight. (How could he not?) He remembered nearly getting Ford in a headlock at one point. ...He remembered Ford cheating, even though you never can cheat in a brawl -- because in a knock-down drag-out fight like that one had been, anything goes.
He remembered Ford managing to trip him the fuck up, like the fuck up that he was (and still-is, really). Stan remembered getting that boot heel to his shoulder, and his shoulder to that burning hot panel behind him. Oh, how he remembered that one. ...And he remembered Ford's face, too, as he'd held -- pushed and held, and held, AND HELD -- him up against that white-hot thing of nothing but pain behind him -- not a rictus grin of 'I've got you, I've won' writ large across his face, but simply a dagger-eyed and grimacing thin-lipped smile that said the exact same thing, only worse -- as Ford had pushed and held him up against that white-hot panel, until Stan had run out of breath screaming. Until Stan just couldn't scream anymore. Until he couldn't even pull in another breath past the pain--
"Oh Axolotl, that panel was over 300 degrees, the portal was on fully," he heard his brother whisper out next, in tones of absolute and completely-shocked horror, pale as anything…
...and it was official, Stan felt like he was in the fucking twilight zone, here. He could only stare down at Ford, the anger slowly draining out of him (whether he wanted it to or not...) as he saw his brother's eyes go slightly unfocused, sliding away from his face, staring sightlessly at a point over his shoulder, lost in his own head again, and…
...Stan lost the last of the anger he'd held onto completely, as he heard Ford say next, in tones that only got more and more horrified as he went, "That would have gone and-- and burned straight through your jacket, y-you--" and when Ford started clutching at his lower arms and wrists almost frantically, seeming to finally start to come out of it, coming back to himself, looking up at Stan again and saying, "Stan, you--" and then reaching up for him, for his face, looking all concerned and all scared for him like he just hadn't before, not even a little bit then, only now.
Now, after all of thirty years later and forty years gone, and everything else in-between, his own brother was lookin' up at him now, right here and now, like that--
--Stan couldn't do this. He just… couldn't do this. (He was an old man now, and he just didn't have the energy for any of this. Not all of this. No. Not anymore.)
So Stan twisted himself sideways and let gravity take him. He dropped himself down onto the bed at Ford's side, and rolled himself over onto his back right there from sideways, ignoring the papers he was crumpling under him as he went, ignoring Ford's stupid too-late concern for anything at all to do with him, and just ignoring everything stupid old broken shoulder with its 'not a tattoo' on it be damned for everything, should just keep on staying hidden like the damn stupid thing should have from the start and end of things, really, forever.
Last thing Stan had ever wanted to risk was Ford getting one good look at it sometime, and then getting a good look at Ford doing it. Because Stan hadn't wanted to know… he hadn't wanted to see, to risk seeing Ford maybe, just maybe, looking on at it and recognizing it and then looking at it smugly. Because Stan had been afraid that Ford would look on at that thing, that Stan had gotten -- that he'd had branded onto him by Ford himself -- on the very worst day of his life... and Stan had been afraid that Ford would've maybe looked at it, and then him, and Stan would've seen him looking all proud at how he'd finally gotten one over on his brother for once in a fight, if only for a little while that one day. Until Stan had pushed him all unthinking and not realizing into that portal, and then...
If Ford had ever looked at him like that again, over that of all things...
But now… Stan couldn't even think of his brother ever going off and doing… that… not when he was reacting like this to the thought of him… getting hurt like that, way back when -- when they'd been mad and fighting with each other, even -- and...
The damn demon couldn't know his own brother better than he did, he just couldn't--
There was somethin' really wrong here, but Stan couldn't… he just couldn't...
(But Stan did eventually. He did. And once Stan had realized what it was that was wrong, much later, he'd cursed up a storm about it all.)
(Not in front of the kids or his brother or his twin, but he did it. Because Ford had been right, and the kid was--)
(He hated that he hadn't caught it sooner. He hated that he'd let it go, when Ford had thought it was important, known that it was so important. He should have listened to his brother. ...He should have said 'damn it all' and forced it out of the damn dragon-lady while she'd been there; she'd almost spilled the beans on the demon-kid more times than Stan could count in retrospect, damn it...)
"...Stan?" he heard come from his left quietly, almost wetly, because his brother was still crying about something he'd done to him over thirty years ago, and Stan had been the one to push him into the damn portal, not… this… this…
--This was just so goddamn wrong.
"I don't want to talk about this anymore," Stan told his brother rather bleakly, raising his hands to cover over his own face, under his stupid old-man glasses, ignoring the crinkling sounds coming from the papers beneath him all the while.
"I'm sorry," Ford whispered out at him again, and to this, all Stan could do was breathe; all Stan could give him back was silence. Not because he didn't know how to forgive, but because… Stan had been angry. So angry. And he'd gotten into a fight with his brother. And he'd gotten hurt, yeah, but his brother had gotten pushed into a freaking portal and lost thirty years of his life for no damn good reason because of him next.
And Ford hadn't deserved that at all. No matter what.
'Sorry' wasn't even on the fucking table here. Stan wasn't the one who deserved an apology here -- when it came to what had happened with the portal, the stupid shoulder-burn shit didn't even rate. The only reason he'd even thought of it now, was because of this whole stupid mess with the demon-kid, and Ford bringing it up with him now, forcing him to talk about it now, when he was so freaking tired he couldn't even think straight anymore, let alone see straight with his glasses on, and Ford--
"...I'm sorry, too," Stan tried out, because what the fuck else was he supposed to say to him, anyway? Making his brother cry all over again, damnit. Some brother he was, making his own brother cry.
And Stan felt Ford reaching for him, felt his brother's fingers slowly, gently, tentatively, barely take hold of the smallest bit of his left shirtsleeve, up near the shoulder -- tentatively, like Ford was almost afraid to touch him. Like Ford was expecting to take a hit for even attempting, for it. But that wasn't what Stan did, that was--
And Stan could still hear him crying, the way Ford's breaths were going, all uneven and hitched and all shaky and junk like that.
And Stan sighed out almost a groan, face still covered by his hands. --This, this was why he hadn't wanted to talk about it, ever. This. This right here.
Though… now Stan wasn't even sure anymore about what was happening with Ford. About what was happening right now. About what had happened back then. About any of it. ...Was he misremembering? Or was Ford… Stan didn't even know what to think anymore. All he knew was that he wanted to... what he wanted to do right now was...
...he wanted to comfort his brother. If his brother would even let him do it. So Stan let out a breath, rolled back over onto his side to face him, and before Ford could pull away from him or do anything else about it, Stan brought his right hand up, grabbed up the hand that Ford had been using to hold onto him, and entwined his fingers in Ford's. And they fit.
Ford blinked at him a little, still wet-eyed and looking more than a little miserable, and he pulled inward on himself a bit, curling up into a little more of a ball. ...Ford also pulled in a little closer to Stan as he did it.
Stan let his brother get resituated on the bed first. He waited. And then Stan shifted himself in a little closer next, putting his forehead next to Ford's. Closed his eyes and touched his brother, forehead to forehead, hand-in-hand.
They'd done stuff like this when Ford was really little, after a bad day when Ford had just gotten too upset to even speak about anything through his hiccuping breaths. But they'd stopped doing this sort of thing ages ago; Ford had grown out of it. He'd hated it when Stan had tried to, still… He'd acted like Stan was coddling him, babying him or making fun of him or something -- said-so and gotten mad at him for it, told him to stop doing that, to stop treating like he was being so weak -- smacked his hands away from him, turned his back on him, tried to kick out, to kick him out of his part of the bunk-bed, to just 'get away' from him, to 'leave him alone', and just...
He heard Ford's breath hitch when their foreheads touched, but instead of Ford jerking away or slapping at him like Stan had thought he definitely would might? Ford just shoved himself in a little closer instead, almost butting heads with him doing it, tucking his head under Stan's own as he practically curled up against Stan's chest, in his arms.
Stan let out a breath he hadn't known he'd been holding. Because… Ford should've slapped him right there for doing it. Pushed him away, turned away, yelled at him for it; all the rest of it for doing this, what he was doin' right here and now. But Ford didn't. This wasn't just a thing Ford was letting him do because Ford felt so bad he wasn't gonna say 'no' to him, anymore, was it. This was… something else. Because, with the way Ford was acting now about burning him, which shouldn't even rate… Something had drastically changed with his brother at some point on the other side of that portal, and...
He heard Ford's voice, muffled into his neck almost, from under his chin, say, "I-- I didn't mean to hurt you, Stan. I didn't mean to-- to--" He felt his brother shudder. "I--"
"Ford, it ain't about that," Stan told him tiredly. "I ain't mad at you about that." Well, he had been, kinda. But not anymore. And it had been more about what he'd thought Ford would think about the burn still being there, anyway. Not--
"It's just that…" Stan began next, roughly, but then he trailed off as he realized something was up with his brother again. Because he felt his brother stop, literally go completely still for a moment, not even breathing. And then Stan heard his brother say something that confused him for a long freaking moment (because what the hell?), in absolute tones of a very different sort of horror as Ford said...
"I'd never do anything to the kids like that, you have to know that--" Stan heard his brother say next, and what… oh. Oh. ...Oh hell, it got even worse, and--
Stan just shoved his other arm up and slid his left hand under his brother's head. Ruffling his hair a little bit after he did that. (He had no idea how or where Ford had gotten the idea that…)
"--I know that, Ford. Hell," he told his scared, hurt, teary, and all too-tired brother, and weren't they just a pair of stupid old men laying right here, on a bed that was supposed to be meant for sleepin' on, not cryin' on, right now? "I know. Shh," he told his brother, who was starting to shake, starting to cry again, face screwed up in a terrified grimace of purely emotional pain. "I know you'd never do that to them, Ford. I know."
And as Stan said that, and kept on stroking his brother's head, trying to calm him down again and get him up off of that ledge (what the hell, why would Ford think any of them would ever think that he would do that?), Stan kept his sigh to himself. Because yeah, Stan had read that part of the dragon-lady's rant from the transcript earlier, too. And Stan was slowly remembering it now. That 'making more of them' anchors thing, and all that. But Ford had to know better by now, right? The demon-kid had said he'd thought Ford would hurt the kids if he knew that they knew about Miz being a 'Bill Cipher' and getting along with her, kinda -- just like the kid had thought, and kept on thinking, that Ford was liable to hurt the niblings at one point or another, with the whole agreement that Stan was trying to balance out between them all just then. But Stan and the niblings -- and Ford himself -- had proved the kid wrong twice on that already, and Stan and the kids had backed him up. None of them had ever really thought Ford capable of even doing that. They'd talked that all out before; Ford had to know that now, right?
Hell, did Ford really think that when she'd said that she thought Ford would try and make more, that any of them would actually fall for that baloney, and believe it? (Damnit. With the way Ford was actin' all upset and scared over it still, it kind of looked like maybe his brother did. Damnit, Ford...)
...Hell, now that he was thinkin' about it, did the dragon-lady demon actually think that Ford would try to make more? Or had she just been screwing with Ford again on purpose by proxy, by telling Mabel that, trying to convince their niece that… Stan clenched his jaw a little.
The demon-kid getting it wrong was one thing, but Miz knew humans better than that. Miz had to know better. Which meant Miz had brought it up on purpose to Mabel for some reason, and Mabel... Had Miz been setting them all up for this whole mess, and another Ford breakdown? Or trying to make that happen? ...Because it would've come up eventually, after Miz had told Mabel; Mabel would've brought it up with all of them at some point -- to Dipper or Stan if nobody else, and maybe Ford wouldn't've heard it, but…
Had Miz been trying to make Stan and his brother fight over this thing? By bringing it up? By talking about the anchor, talking about his 'tattoo', to put the thought out there for someone else to pick up? ...Stan didn't think so, because if he'd read that thing right, Miz hadn't started that one off; the Northwest girl had been the one to first bring it all up, during that whole conversation there. And when the dragon-lady got angry about stuff -- and she'd been angry about this, about his burn -- she almost never thought things through; Stan was pretty sure about that...
...so this was probably some kinda drive-by making a fight happen on the dragon-lady's part, probably not something that Miz had sneakily planned out in advance to make sure it happened somehow.
As Stan let out a breath, and kept trying to calm down his brother, he felt frustrated in general. He didn't get why Ford was acting this way about him getting hurt now, and he didn't really get why Miz had gotten angry about what had happened to him, either, getting burned like that. Ford was a freaking mystery, right here and now, and Miz… was actually easier to figure out than his own brother was, right now. Because yeah, Miz seemed to think that siblings shouldn't… what, fight with each other? But that wasn't how stuff actually worked, and she should've known that; she had to know that. --She'd had sisters, she must've fought with 'em sometimes... And if she was mad about them fighting, she should've been more mad about Ford ending up through the portal, out of everything, not him -- because that was way worse.
---
please read the author's notes
SUY NGHĨ CỦA NGƯỜI SÁNG TẠO 
Mlzuum4
Mlzuum4 I think I made a mistake somewhere in the past 50 or 100 chapters where I put the part 2 after the part 1, but named the part 2 part 1 and vice versa, god I hope that's not the case, can someone tell me if I did that at any point