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Stanford Pines knows why people make deals with demons now.
Has he made a deal with a demon before? Sure. But at the time, Ford thought of Bill more as a mystical force of inspiration than an otherworldly terror bent on global destruction. Anyway, that’s splitting hairs. The deal he struck was intended to accelerate progress of the entire human race — it’s the stories of people making bargains to save their loved ones that Ford’s always considered to be foolish and short-sighted. Why agree to some marginal personal good when the consequences are always, always, so clearly and unabashedly severe?
But in this awful room on this awful day, Ford’s not so sure he’d turn down an offer.
Dimly, Ford’s pulled from his thoughts by a growing awareness of a wetness on his pants. He looks down to find he’s squeezed a long-forgotten styrofoam cup of coffee so hard that it’s cracked open, leaking cold liquid onto his leg. How long has he been holding the cup? How long has it been dripping?
He stands up, legs creaking in both relief and protest. That metal bench isn’t exactly to ‘living room armchair’ standards – Ford doubts it was made for anyone to sit on for longer than a couple minutes, much less a couple hours. Cradling the cup to avoid spilling anything on the linoleum floor, Ford makes his way to a trash can. A few folks sit scattered across the room, each looking up at the sound of movement. They each eye Ford for only a second before looking away, their faces dragged down by the same weight that has Ford in its grasp.
Would they make a deal with a demon?
It’s odd how far away Ford feels from real life right now. Maybe it’s the hazy glow of the fluorescents and the liminal nature of an ever-shifting waiting room, but the divide between “Now” and “Before” feels like a chasm nearly impossible to bridge, even though it’s only been a matter of hours. Just yesterday, Stan was a normal guy with a normal cold. Just this morning, Ford was just an ordinary man, having an ordinary disagreement with his ordinary brother. Since then, Stan’s vanished and Ford’s become a husk, shuffling along with limited brain functionality like a zombie at an office job. He stares into the abyss of the garbage can, watching coffee trickle from the dent in the cup.
“Did you lose something?” a voice behind Ford asks.
Unexpected tears well. Did he lose something? Is he going to lose something? Ford doesn’t know. He lifts his glasses, swiping a rough hand across his face to compose himself.
“No,” Ford’s voice feels foreign in his ears. Too high, too casual. “Sorry. Got lost in thought.”
He turns, keeping his chin dipped to avoid looking the stranger in the eye as he makes his way to the small snack counter. There’s a half-filled box of donuts, a basket of battered fruit, and a few beverage options. As Ford considers whether or not to get a refill of the coffee he did not drink, he’s struck with an overwhelming sensation of guilt. This feels entirely too mundane. There should be low strings humming, thunder rumbling – the universe is meant to acknowledge this moment with the gravitas it deserves. Ford should not be deliberating over a drink right now.
Horrified by his own inability to accurately reflect the tragedy, Ford retreats to the Terrible Bench, sitting down with such accuracy that the spot is still warm from his prior body heat. He tries to think about the argument from this morning, but the details melt like butter on a hot pan, sizzling away to only a loose, swirling recollection. Stan had been teasing him, maybe? Or they’d disagreed on Ford’s latest theorem? Did it matter? Does it matter?
Will it matter?
The horror of this realization is visceral, slamming into Ford like a stray wave. He wants to scream. Wants to sob. Wants to track down Bill and shake that little shit’s hand and promise everything he has so long as this morning is erased forever. Anything to take away how powerless Ford felt this morning. How powerless he still feels. It doesn’t matter in the slightest that he knows just how much Bill can take, a part of Ford would still give it willingly right now.
It’s funny, really. Ford always thought of himself as someone good under pressure, cool in the face of impossible odds, a bastion of stability in an ocean of chaos. But he was rendered useless in a blink of an eye – the moment he saw the body (no! NO! The moment he saw Stan!) he’d abandoned all of his higher faculties in exchange for pure, unadulterated panic.
Stan’s always loomed larger than life, his broad shoulders and booming voice demanding to take up space in the world. Finding him crumpled on the floor like a discarded sock felt like a betrayal of his very essence. Brothers aren’t supposed to do that. It’s against some immutable law of nature for his brother to do that.
Ford tries to banish the image from his mind, but it’s quickly replaced with the glimpse of Stanley on the hospital gurney, shockingly frail, chest barely moving as they whisked him into the ambulance. That won’t do. Ford closes teary eyes, searching the recesses of his fear-soaked memory for a single, comforting memory, but anxiety only dredges up the worst moments. Stan, a teenager, sprawled out on the sidewalk outside of their home. Stan, bedraggled, screaming for Ford to come back. Stan, Ford’s glasses crooked on his nose, staring up without a flicker of recognition in his warm brown eyes.
It’s a startling reminder of how much time they’ve lost. They could have had years – no, decades – together were it not for their stubborn pride. (Were it not for Ford’s stubborn pride.) Instead, they’re wrenched apart again, Stan deep in the bowels of the hospital, Ford trapped in the purgatory of the waiting room.
They were fighting about bacon.
He’d been trying to figure out what they were arguing over and Ford just remembers it’s about something as stupid, as pointless, as inane as bacon. Stan had tried to make some to sneak into their omelets, accidentally burning it terribly in the process, and how did Ford react in some of the final moments they’d share together? He’d gotten annoyed, wasting some of their precious time to lecture Stan on the health benefits of foregoing bacon and the irony is it doesn’t even matter.
A nurse walks in and all heads shoot up like prairie dogs surveying the danger beyond their burrows. This treatment must not be unusual for her, because she doesn’t react beyond a quick glance at her clipboard. “Stanford Pines?” she calls out, voice calm and clear.
For the second time today, Ford freezes in place as the enormity of the situation floods through him. He’s going to have to tend to his brother’s dead body. He’ll have to call the family. He’ll have to tell the kids. They’re supposed to come for Thanksgiving in just under a month — the twins were ecstatic and instead. Instead, oh gods, instead he’ll have to see Dipper and Mabel say goodbye. And after they just got Stan back! After he just got Stan back!
“Stanford Pines?” the nurse asks again.
He’s faced dimensions beyond comprehension. He’s faced an intergalactic demon. He’s faced the end of the world. He can face this. He must face this.
Ford takes a long gulp of air, then pushes up from the bench, which squeaks so loudly it actually manages to pull everyones’ attention. Great. Now all eyes are on him. Arm trembling, Ford raises a hand, as though he’s a school boy with the right answer and not a man whose answers have abandoned him.
“Stanford Pines?” the nurse watches Ford carefully. Ford, not trusting his own voice, simply nods. “You can come with me,” she says, beckoning for Ford to follow. The nurse, whose nametag reads Tabitha, guides him down a maze of sterile hallways. They walk in silence, serenaded only by hospital babble. Ford’s grateful that she seems to reserve the bad news for an area with more privacy.
Finally, they reach a door. The nurse twists the handle, opening it slightly. “I’ll give you a moment.”
Ford nods, resolute. He can do this. He has to do this. Even if this might just be the hardest thing he’s ever done. Heart hammering, legs shaking, Ford forces himself to walk over the threshold, pushing the door open ever so slowly, bracing for the awful sight of a still, silent, Stanley—
“Geez, Poindexter. You ever opened a door before?”
Ford freezes mid-push, door swinging open to reveal his brother. Stan lays in a hospital bed, propped up to not-quite sitting. Several monitors beep and whir nearby, and he has a thin tube in his nose, but he’s alive. He’s sitting and talking and alive.
“Dude are you crying?” Stan croaks. His voice is weak, but the laughter in it is still unmistakable.
For the record, Ford is crying. And not even cool, manly tears. No. It’s hot, fat droplets splashing down his cheeks, dribbling off his chin, splattering onto collar, jacket, and floor. All the stress of the last several hours coalescing into the stupidest display of emotion Ford’s ever expressed to more than his bathroom mirror.
“You…you asshole! ” Ford chokes out, somewhere between accusation and sob. “I thought you were dead!”
“Woah!” Worry’s replaced humor now. Stan tries to sit up, though a deep, wracking cough stops his ascent. He reaches out a hand instead, looking up at Ford. “Hey. I’m alright, Stanford. See?” Stan gestures to himself with a weak - albeit dramatic - flourish, “Still here.”
Ford makes it the few steps it takes to reach Stan’s bedside before his legs give out. It hurts – his knees sure as hell aren’t what they used to be – but Ford barely notices, instead scrabbling for an awkward, splayed attempt at a hug. They aren’t really the hugging type (though Stan certainly seems to try more often thanks to an entire summer with Mabel), and Stan sits at an odd angle, so it turns out to be half hug, half feeble body slam as Ford presses his head against his stupid brother’s stupid chest, relishing how it rises and falls.
He assumes Stan’s going to make fun of him – and it’s true that Ford is acting absolutely ridiculous in the face of this minor emergency – but instead, Ford just feels a hand on his head. Another haphazard attempt at physical comfort.
“I think I might be overreacting,” Ford admits, voice muffled by Stan’s blanket. After all, a part of him had always known Stan was still breathing when he made it into the ambulance. It was just that Stan had collapsed, and the breaths were so scary, Ford didn’t realize breathing could be so frightening until it happened, and before he knew it, his thoughts had raced ahead to a horrifying future.
“Heh,” Stan’s voice is a low rumble, “Didn’t know you cared, Sixer.”
Ford’s head shoots up.Grief and guilt clash in his stomach, which is empty save for the few sips of tepid coffee he’s managed to consume today. His heart is hammering at the horror of knowing Stan could have died without believing Ford loved him. He’s stopped crying, but the tracks still glisten on his cheeks, snot bubbling along his nostril.
He must look a sight, because Stan, who’s nursing a bruise along his cheekbone and deep bags under his eyes, is eyeing Ford like he’s an explosive that may detonate at any moment. “Sorry, now’s not the time to joke, huh?” Stan reaches up to ruffle Ford’s hair like he’d do when they were kids, “I know you love me.”
Stan looks away as he says it, a quiet admission that perhaps he hadn’t been so solid on that particular fact until this very moment.
They hold this odd formation – Ford crushed against Stan in an approximation of an embrace – until Stan coughs again, a deep, nasty hacking thing that sends Ford scrambling upright.
“What is it, anyway?” Ford asks hesitantly once Stanley’s fit subsides. “Do we know yet? Do they think it’s…”
Cancer. The word floats unsaid but understood between them.
“Nah,” Stan shakes a head, “They think it’s some restitory–”
“ –respiratory,” Ford corrects without thinking. Bad force of habit.
“Nerd,” Stan takes it in stride, “Respiratory thing.”
“It’s a respiratory infection. Likely a bad case of bronchitis,” Tabitha, the nurse, interjects from the doorway. “But we want to keep him overnight to rule out chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.”
“Who’s the nerd now?” Ford mutters.
“Still you, Poindexter,” Stan replies with a grin. “Anyway, Tabitha said I’ll be fine, but they’re gonna prescribe me a treatment of at least two slices of bacon a day for the foreseeable future.”
“Actually, we prescribed him antibiotics, oxygen, and plenty of bed rest,” Tabitha says firmly, though she offers Stan a guilty shrug.
“Et tu, Tabitha?” Stan cries, as Ford, renewed by the reintroduction of responsibilities, says, “Thank you, Tabitha.”
A ping from her watch catches Tabitha’s attention, and she glances up at the pair apologetically. “I gotta check on another patient. You good until the next check up?”
Stan gives two thumbs up in response.
Tabitha nods briskly, then whisks down the hallway, leaving the Pines twins to their own devices.
“Soooo, you were sad when you thought I was gonna die?” the teasing lilt is back in Stan’s voice now, “Did you cry?”
“Did I–” Ford flushes, embarrassed by his previous outburst. “Stanley, you saw me cry!”
“Oooo, I’m Mr. Cool Guy,” Stan waves his hands, “and I’m sad when I think my brother’s died.”
“True on both fronts!” Ford says, half exasperated, half amused. He rubs his arm, looking at a point just past Stanley’s head as he adds, “I’ve lost enough time with you as is.”
“And I’m not–” Stan’s cut off by another set of hoarse coughs. Once the fit subsides, he closes his eyes, leaning a tired head against the wall. “I’m not goin’ anywhere. Though I guess you should, huh?”
“What do you mean?”
“They’re keepin’ me overnight,” Stan sighs, eyes still closed, “No point in both of us staying here, right?”
Stan may be feigning nonchalance, but to Ford, it’s not even a question. Ford tugs a small armchair from the corner of the room up to Stan’s bed and plops down. “I don’t have anywhere better to be than right here.”
Stan opens one eye, squinting up at Ford. “What are you playing at, old man?”
“I like hospitals,” Ford lies.
“Fine. But I want it on the record I didn’t hope you’d stay,” Stan lies.
When Tabitha comes back for the next check-up, she finds Stan and Ford, heads leaned against each others’ as they snore in strange, brotherly unison.