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Stanley Pines was well and truly fucked.
His feet pounded harshly against the pavement as he ran, hunched over. He knew he should straighten up, that his awkward stance was slowing him down, but he couldn’t force his muscles to move. The pain in his side was blinding, and instinct told him to protect the bullet wound at all costs.
Somehow, the worst part of it was that he was in fucking Texas. Stanley Pines was going to die in Texas at twenty-three years old, and he’d be lucky if anyone even identified his body. Lord knows the cops don’t care about some homeless man enough to search for his identity.
Distantly, he wondered if it would even matter if they did. His family sure as shit wasn’t going to mourn him, and he hadn’t exactly made very many friends recently.
Stan could hear his pursuer not far behind him. Honestly, going out this way was just fucking embarrassing. At least if it was one of Rico’s men he could tell himself that this was inevitable, that this was always going to play out this way. But no, instead he was going to get murdered by some fucking second-rate mugger whose only advantage was the fact that he had a gun, and that Stanley hadn’t eaten in nearly a week.
He forced himself to continue running, even as each movement caused the pain in his side to flare brightly, becoming less and less manageable. If he could just get out of the man’s line of sight, Stan knew he would give up. He wanted Stan’s nonexistent money, not his life- he wouldn’t bother to hunt him down. Hopefully.
It took longer than it probably should have for Stan to realize that the scenery around him had changed. When the mugger had shot him, cornered in some back alley, they had been in a grimey city. The kinda place where each tree looked like it was begging for death and the grass looked more yellow-gray than green. And yet, as Stan continued to run, he became increasingly aware of the fact that he was dodging trees instead of cars and drunk bums, and the ground was uneven with rock and dirt rather than the trash that Stan was expecting.
How the fuck he had run from the city to what seemed to be a forest, Stan had no clue. And, if he was being honest, he was a little fucking disturbed by it. He tried to think back, remember if he had taken something before he’d gotten shot, but the pain made everything hazy.
Regardless of where the fuck he was, he could still hear his pursuer, their heavy footsteps crashing through the greenery nearly as loudly as he was. He didn’t have the time to figure out what he was on, cause even if he couldn’t remember what, he had to be on something.
He continued to run, searching for somewhere to hide as he did so. He could hear the mugger catching up. (And why was a mugger still chasing after him? Even if the man had somehow missed the fact that he was clearly homeless, why wouldn’t he just find someone else? How was he even keeping the same pace as Stan- he had clearly been high out of his mind.)
“Stanley!”
The shout startled him enough that he missed a gnarled root of a tree poking out of the ground, tripping and nearly falling. Then he realized what had been shouted, and his breath caught in his throat.
So, not a mugger then. Had demanding his money been some kind of a cover? Why would he drop it now? Was this one of Rico’s men after all? Cause if so he took everything he’d ever thought in his life back-- at least a mugger might eventually give up, but Rico’s men? They’re a different breed altogether, a toxic mix of sick loyalty and genuine fear for their lives driving them. If this was one of Rico’s goons, Stan was dead. More dead than he had already been. Double dead.
Hysterical laughter bubbled in the back of his throat, but he was panting too harshly for it to escape, each breath precious. His stumbling had cost him, even if he had managed to stay on his feet- his pursuer was even closer now. Stan didn’t dare waste time looking behind him, but he wouldn’t be surprised if he was within a few yards of him, now.
“Stanley just-,” he panted, clearly just as tired as Stan. “Sweet Moses, just stop!”
Something in the man’s voice was familiar. Another point to this being one of Rico’s then. Stan couldn’t place where he had heard it before, but Rico had enough people under him that there was no way for Stan to know them all, even with how ‘friendly’ they had been before.
He wasn’t going to be able to outrun him. Stan was slowing with each second, exhaustion filling him as his side screamed. There was no possibility that Stan could get out of this encounter by running.
With one more burst of energy, Stan focused on pumping his legs as fast and hard as they could go. The man behind him shouted in frustration, Stan grinned desperately. Then, he stopped. He used his momentum to swing around, planting his feet firmly in the dirt.
Clearly not expecting to have to come to such a sudden stop, the man tried and failed to slow. He went crashing into Stan, colliding fast enough that even Stan, with his years of boxing experience, nearly went toppling over. But he didn’t- Stan stayed on his feet, just barely. He shoved the man away and stuck out with a punch before he could orient himself.
The punch landed, a harsh crack filling the quiet forest air as Stanley's fist collided with the side of the man's face. The glasses he had been wearing (when did he get glasses?) went flying, landing somewhere on the lush ground.
Stan went in for another punch, hoping to catch the man while disoriented, but was instead caught off guard when he threw himself at Stan, making them both topple over onto the forest floor.
“Stan! Stop!”
The man quickly had him pinned underneath his weight, even as Stan squirmed and struggled. Turning his head to the side, he braced himself for a punch. If the man still had a weapon he would have used it by now. He must have lost the gun at some point, or he didn't have any more bullets. Stan had taken plenty of beatings in his life. He knew how to make someone let their guard down, let them get a few good hits in before he takes them by surprise and flips their positions.
Instead, the man did nothing. Stan continued to wait. What the fuck was he playing at? Was he trying to make Stan drop his guard, take him by surprise? Fat chance of that happening when he’s literally pinned to the ground.
The man above him sighed, breath trembling. “Can you look at me?”
Stan debated his options. He could refuse to, but he had a feeling that would get him nowhere. If the man had the time and patience to follow him seemingly for miles, then he had enough patience to wait for Stan to do it out of pure boredom. If he did it, however, he would play right into his hand. Clearly, he had something up his sleeve and Stan had no interest in finding out what it was. There was always option three. Stupid, but so were half the things Stan did. And he wasn’t dead yet, so.
A moment passed, the silence between them thick as Stan refused to move his head. He waited until his pursuer took in a breath to speak, then swung all his weight to the side in a roll. The man hadn’t pinned his arms, likely needing his hands for whatever his plan was or to start punching when Stan refused to cooperate. It was a mistake- it allowed Stan to grab onto him as they rolled, keeping him in place just long enough even as he squirmed to get free.
When they stopped moving, Stan found himself practically laying on top of the man, his pursuer now being the one pinned to the ground. Stan couldn’t help his breathless shout of victory. Thinking quickly, he scrambled to grab the man’s wrists, pinning them firmly to the ground.
“Who the fuck are you?” Stan snarled.
Looking down at the man was Stan’s first opportunity to properly look him in the face. He almost reeled back in shock- it was Pa’s face, or very nearly his. His chin was different, and his nose bigger, but he had the same eyes, the same fucking bone structure. But even something in the nose and chin felt familiar too, like he was seeing two people’s faces mushed together.
His pursuer didn’t answer, staring up at Stan with wide eyes. Despite being the one on top, the one winning , he couldn’t fight down the fear that was growing within him every second that passed. Something was wrong here, and not just in the on drugs kinda way.
And now that he was staring down at him, Stan was confident that this was not the same man that had tried to mug him-- or pretended to try mugging him? Stan’s head was starting to hurt worse than his side. You know, the one with a bullet in it . Stan spared a moment to wonder at how little it hurt at that moment. He definitely had to be on something, and when he figured out what it was, he was never gonna touch it again.
“Lee,” the man whispered, sending a shock up Stan’s spine. “It’s okay.”
Stan pressed down on the man’s wrists harder, feeling the bones and ligaments shift in a way he knew was painful from experience. He tried to arrange his expression into something even close to anger instead of the dread he could feel steadily taking over him. “How do you know my name? Did Rico send you?”
Sweet Moses, looking at his face hurt. It made Stan’s brain feel like it was crawling around, trying to ooze out of his ears. He wanted to tear his eyes away, but found that he couldn’t.
The man beneath him didn’t answer, just kept staring up at him with big, sad eyes. Everything about this felt wrong , it was wrong in a way that hurt . Stan just wanted it to stop, he needed it to stop.
“I’ll kill you, do you understand me?” Stan’s voice shook. He was lying. “I’ll kill you if I have to if you don’t answer me. ” Why was he lying? Stan hadn’t actually killed anyone before, but he had been prepared to. He didn’t give two shits about his soul or whatever the fuck, if it came down to killing or dying, he would pick himself. He’d come to terms with that years ago. So why the hell did he know, deep in his bones, that he wouldn’t kill this man?
“No, you won’t.” His pursuer’s voice trembled similarly to Stan’s but there was no doubt there. He was afraid, but he wasn’t afraid that Stan would kill him.
“Yes, I will.” Stan wasn’t the one pinned to the ground, so why did he feel like he was the one backed into a corner?
The man flexed the muscles in his arms and wrists as if trying to break free. Stan knew within an instant that it wasn’t nearly enough to overpower him, but his head snapped up to where he was pinning them down on instinct.
Stan’s head felt like it was splitting in two before he even realized what he was seeing. When he did process it, the pain only grew worse. He was only vaguely aware of his body scrambling back, releasing the man. In any other situation that would be his primary concern, but at the moment Stan didn’t have control over his mind to feel concerned over anything. Just pain, white-hot. Like flames, licking at the inside of his head. And the image of hands, being pressed harshly into the ground, with too many fingers.
Then the memories come rushing in, and he couldn’t think about the pain anymore, either.
When Stan came back, he was curled into a small ball on the ground. There was dirt in his mouth and a familiar hand on his back, rubbing soothing circles into his skin. It took a while for him to register the sound of speaking.
“-el and Dipper are back at the shack. They’re probably starting to get concerned, but Soos is with them, and you know how easily he can distract them. Honestly, He and Melody would make good parents. I know their wedding isn’t for a few more months, but I wonder if it would be impolite of me to ask if they plan on having any children. Despite my efforts, I’m still not as close to Soos as you are, but he doesn’t come across as someone who would be too easily offended-”
“He’s not.” Stan interrupted. The hand on his back stopped. His throat hurt as if he’d been screaming. “He was my employee for ten years, can’t do that if you’re easily offended.”
Ford laughed carefully. “True.” Stan kept his eyes tightly shut, but he could hear by the shuffling that Ford was slowly moving. The hand on his back left- Stan immediately missed its warmth. When Ford next spoke it was in a quiet murmur, right in front of Stan’s face. He knew without looking that Ford had laid down next to him, so they were facing each other. He was reminded suddenly of them doing a similar thing as children when one of them would have a nightmare. The memory physically hurt as it slotted into place, like his mind was overstuffed. “Are you okay?”
Scoffing bitterly, Stan pressed his head harder into the dirt. The pressure didn’t help the pounding in his brain, but it didn’t hurt either. “Am I okay? You’re the one who got punched.”
“You were running strangely, like you were injured. I can’t see any blood, but I need to know if there's something that I cannot see.”
Stan paused. He cautiously focuses his attention to his side, where just a little while ago he was utterly convinced that he had been shot. There was no pain.
“Nope. Just my broken brain.” His voice was thick with disdain.
There was a small impact on his forehead. He flinched back lightly, surprised but not hurt. “The fuck?”
“I flicked you.”
“Why?!”
“Because if you say stupid things, you get stupid punishments. Your brain is not broken.”
“Sure it’s not.” Stan felt his lips turn up into a sardonic smile. He couldn’t be bothered to get control of his muscles to relax his face into a more neutral expression. “That’s why I just ran through the woods, convinced I was about to die, before punching my brother and pinning him to the ground.”
“To be fair, I pinned you first.”
“Really, that’s the part you’re going to focus on?”
There was a moment of silence. Stan could assume his brother was doing something, probably shrugging, because of course he was. “I’m just saying, if pinning me to the ground is an indicator that your brain is broken, then mine must be as well.”
“Ford.” Stan had meant to snap, but instead he just sounded tired.
“... Sorry. I’m not trying to make light of what happened, I apologize if it came across that way.”
Stan snorted. “Shit, you get that line from Therapist Mabel?”
“Perhaps.”
Tentatively, his eyes crept open. He was prepared to slam them shut again at the slightest increase in pain, but it seemed that the worst of it had faded into something manageable. “‘S a good line.”
“Of course it is.” Ford smiled tentatively at seeing his eyes open. “Doctor Mabel knows what she’s doing, after all.”
Stan’s eyes strayed down to his chin- a bruise was forming. Guilt curdled in his gut. “Sorry,” he forced out, voice strained.
“What, this?” Ford gestured to his face loosely. “Don’t worry about it. Consider us even.”
“Wha- oh.” Stan thought back to Ford punching him, only moments after seeing him for the first time in three decades. He laughed humorlessly. “Yeah, sure. Fair enough.”
They both fell silent. Now that the pain and fear weren’t blinding him to anything else, Stan could hear a faint trickle of water from somewhere nearby, the quiet birdsong in the trees. It was nice. Stan hadn’t realized how much he had missed the sounds of the forest while they’d been at sea, and they’d only been back on land for two days.
“Do you remember what happened?”
Stan opened his eyes again, only noticing then that they had slipped shut. These lapses always tired him out more than anything, and he’d bet money that running around hadn’t helped. “Eh,” he lifted his hand to wobble it back and forth in a ‘so-so’ gesture. “Kinda? But it’s still fuzzy.”
“Do you want me to tell you, or do you want to figure it out for yourself?”
He hummed consideringly. He knew Ford wasn’t a big fan of telling him things that had happened- claiming that they didn’t know enough about how the memories came back, that he was concerned telling Stan would affect the memories themselves. But the worry had dulled with time, with over a year of no ill effects from the help that either of them could see. Ford still preferred letting Stan figure it out for himself, but he accepted that it was ultimately Stan’s decision.
“Tell me. My head still hurts enough without strainin’ myself trying to remember shit you were there for anyway.”
“Okay. You likely should rest for a little while when we get back home, I’ll take care of the kids.” Ford reached toward Stan slowly, giving him the opportunity to stop him or flinch away. Stan very deliberately did neither.
Holding Ford’s hand always made Stan feel bizarrely safe, ever since they were kids. Ford was so insecure about his extra fingers, but Stan couldn’t help but selfishly like it. He enjoyed that each of his fingers were completely surrounded by Ford’s own, found comfort in the way their hands slotted together like puzzle pieces. Despite their old age, that feeling of reassurance and protection still washed over him as Ford tentatively interlocked their fingers together.
“You and the kids had been playing some game outside. I’m… not entirely sure what the rules were? I’m fairly certain they were being made up on the spot, but Mabel kept calling fouls so there had to have been some rules. Regardless, at some point water balloons got involved. Then a car had backfired at the same moment that a water balloon Dipper had thrown hit your side.”
The memory slowly came back to Stan as Ford spoke, bits and pieces falling into place before finally the entire thing slammed into his brain. He groaned, wiggling to free his arm from where it had been pinned to the ground by his side, just to slap his hand to his face. Probably would’ve been easier to use his other hand, but he wasn’t gonna stop holding hands with his twin just cause he felt the need to facepalm at his own embarrassment and creeping shame.
“Stan…?”
“I totally freaked the kids out, huh.”
The silence that followed was enough of an answer. He groaned again, completely covering his face with his hand and shoving the bits he couldn’t cover further into the dirt. It had taken months for the two of them to stop worrying about him constantly, and that was without them knowing about the worst of the relapses. Stan could still remember how they had looked the first time they had video called him in the middle of the night, Dipper's face streaked with tears and still shaking from a nightmare. A nightmare about him, as if the two of them didn’t have enough on their plates already.
“Stan.” No response. “Stanley. Stanleyyyyyyy. I will continue repeating your name until you respond, so it’s in your best interest to just give in now. Stanley. Stanley. Stanley. Sta-”
“ Oh my god, fine!” Stanley let his hand drop, lifting his face slightly to glare at his brother. Ford had a shit-eating grin on his face, clearly filled with smug satisfaction at his victory. Stan will never not go insane at the fact that just because Ford is a genius, everyone refuses to believe he’s also immature as hell . Ford’s never been able to keep up the pretentious act around him, a fact that while endlessly annoying, Stan found some pride in.
“Thank you. Now that you’re listening, yes the kids are concerned. But that is not necessarily a bad thing- if anything, it’s advantageous that they saw it now. We have the whole summer still to go. They would have witnessed a relapse or flashback at some point regardless, and now next it happens they will know what to do, rather than being caught off guard.”
Ford was right. Because of course he was, the bastard. But that didn’t mean Stan had to like it. If it were up to him, no one would know about his screwy memory.
“Whatever,” Stan sighed. Ford hummed, clearly displeased by the non-agreement, but didn’t push it.
“... Do you want to talk about it?”
Stan didn’t have to ask what ‘it’ is. He considered it- the memory, though terrifying to relive, was one of the least haunting ones. After a few moments, he shrugged, saying, “There isn’t much to tell. Some guy tried to mug me, wound up shooting me. Honestly, I don’t think he’d even meant to. He was clearly high out of his mind, just some kid fucking up. He’d been so shocked at the gun going off that I had time to start running.”
Sighing shakily, Ford nodded once. “Okay.”
Closing his eyes, again, Stan tried to relax his body. He knew he’d have to be getting up in a second, but he just-- he needed a second. He was glad that Ford didn’t press for any more information, or try to ‘comfort’ him. After the first few memories he’d shared, Ford had been nearly unbearable, trying to figure out how to help. It was nothing but a relief when he started to calm down, accepting that if Stan needed something he’d say so, instead of Ford playing a constant guessing game.
“Alright,” Stan mumbled finally. He rolled onto his back, slowly pushing himself up into a sitting position. Now that he was more aware of himself, he could feel the side of his suit still damp from the water balloon. With how the hot, muggy summer air had made the water within the balloons warmer than one would expect, he could understand how his panicked brain had interpreted the feeling as blood. There was some logic as to when and why he flashbacked. It was a little comforting, to know the reason. If there was a reason, then maybe his brain wasn't completely broken. Fucked up, yes- but not broken.
Still moving slowly, Stan forced himself into a standing position. He was not as spry as he used to be, and now that he didn’t have the mind of a twenty-something-year-old, he could feel the ache in his muscles from sprinting and fighting.
Beside him, Ford got up in less than half the time it had taken Stanley to. Not for the first time, he felt a pang of envy from how well his brother had aged. On top of that, though, was gratitude. Even if Stan faltered, Ford wouldn't.
“Come on, nerd-,” Stan slung an arm around Ford’s shoulders, “-time to get back before the kids come looking for us themselves.”
Chuckling, Ford nodded. “Let's.”
“But you’re helping me explain to the kids why we didn’t tell them about these until now.”
Stan’s laugh at Ford’s immediate grimace bounced off the trees, echoing through the forest as the two of them walked through the forest, together.
(They walked for twenty minutes before Ford stopped suddenly.
“What, poindexter.”
“I… I wear glasses.”
Stan gave Ford a confused look from the corner of his eye at the seemingly nonsensical sentence, before turning to fully face Ford. He opened his mouth, a quip nearly leaving his lips before he too stopped in his tracks. “We forgot your glasses.
They stared at each other for a long moment, before they simultaneously glanced back toward the way they had come.
“Shit.”)