#Stan does not use very sensitive language to describe mental illness

[apathetic-revenant]

by the skin of your teeth (part 3)

in this gripping installment, Stan walks to the bathroom, thinks about comic books, and walks back. 

“...unfh...what…?”

  So this was it.

Stan sat down in one of the kitchen chairs, feeling…empty. Somewhere very far away, some part of his brain was still working, buzzing with urgent thoughts- what was that, what just happened, is Ford okay, am I okay, there's blood all over me, he's not moving, get up, see if he's alright, do something- but it was all distant, disconnected, like someone else's thoughts entirely, nothing to do with him.

He couldn't seem to think anything. His head was filled with white noise.

“...Stan?...oh...oh, God!”

Ford hated him.

Ford​ had tried to kill him.

“Oh God, oh God, Stan, I'm so sorry-”

A fight would have been one thing. He'd come prepared for a fight. A shouting match, hurled insults, even a full-on brawl- he could have dealt with that. He could have understood that. He'd wanted things to be better, he'd hoped...but it had been ten years, and there was a lot of anger between them. He knew that.

He hadn't known there was this between them.

“Stan, your face...I...oh, God, I didn't even realize he'd gotten a knife…”

He'd always clung to the hope that maybe, somehow, he could make everything up. He could make things better. If he just worked hard enough, tried hard enough, if the latest plan worked, if he made enough money... he'd buried it, hidden it under I don't need him anyway and I'm doing just fine on my own. But it had always been there, somewhere, keeping him going.

But now-

“Stan? Stan, can you hear me?”

What was the point now?

He couldn't fix this. He couldn't fix this, and he knew he should be feeling something else-anger, fear, he had just nearly died, he should care about that- but all he could think was there's nothing left, there's nothing left, there's nothing left-

“Stan? Stan!”

Click.

Light hit him like a punch to the face, blinding after so long in the dark. There was a moment of even greater confusion than before as he squinted, trying to make sense of the blur of color before him. The small grimy kitchen suddenly felt almost painfully real, as if the world were making up for its temporary absence by pressing closer than ever.

Ford was standing on the other side of the kitchen by the light switch, holding himself up with one hand against the old stove. He had fumbled his glasses on, leaving smears of blood on his face and smudged across the lenses. He was shaking hard and looked like he was about to cry or throw up or maybe both at once, but somehow he also looked so much more like Ford that for a moment Stan felt a tiny bloom of hope in his chest.

He instantly hated himself for it. How stupid did a man have to be, to believe there could still be hope of reconciliation with someone who only moments before had gleefully taken a knife to his face?

“Stan,” Ford said, his voice sounding thick and strangled, “I-I know you don't have any reason to-to trust me right now, but I...I just need...I need to know you're, you're still here. Please? Can you hear me, Stan? Can you say something?”

Stan couldn't process any of this.

“Why?” he said, his own voice sounding strange to him.

Ford stared back at him. “W...why?”

“You were trying to kill me a minute ago,” Stan said, slowly since Ford seemed to be having trouble keeping up. “Now you're concerned for me?” To his own surprise he started to laugh, because really-what else was he supposed to do? “Pick one, Ford.”

Ford’s face crumpled, and for a moment Stan thought he actually had started crying. Then he realized, with a distant jolt, that the fluid leaking from Ford's eye was a lot darker than tears.

“What- what did he do?” Ford whispered.

None of this was making any sense. “What do you mean, he? You were the only one here, Ford.”

For a moment Ford looked blank, as though Stan were the one talking weird nonsense. Then his eyes widened even further in some kind of remembrance and he swallowed hard several times. “I... I...Stan, I-I know you, you don't have much reason to trust me right now but-but I don't remember the last few minutes. I...I need you to tell me what happened. Please.”

Stan stared at him.

He should have been angry. He should have been. Not too long ago he had been furious beyond belief over dashed hopes and flippant remarks. What was that, what was anything he had ever been angry at Ford for, compared to this?

But it was...too much. Too big. He couldn't be angry, he couldn't​ be anything, blood was dripping down his face and he couldn't feel anything about it because it was all too much to fit into his head.

“You came in here acting all...funny,” he said slowly. “Talking funny. You...wanted me to make a deal with you.”

He wouldn't have thought Ford could get any paler, but somehow he managed it. He was almost starting to look blue around the edges.  “A deal?” his brother croaked. “Wh- what kind of deal? Oh God, you didn't agree, did you?”

“No, I didn't agree. It was weird. You...just said you wanted me to help you with a project. Be your muscle. And that if I did, you would...forgive me.”

Ford really looked like he was about to be sick. “Forgive you?”

Stan looked down. “Yeah. That...that everything would be alright between us.”

He watched distantly as a drop of blood hit the tiled floor, leaving a tiny crimson dot.

“Oh. Stan…” Ford whispered.

“And you were right, you know.” Drip. Drip. It almost looked pretty, like one of those modern art paintings. Red on white. “That is what I want. Wanted. I dunno.”

“But you didn't agree?”

“No. I know that's not how it works. I'm not that stupid.”

There was silence for a moment. Then Ford said, “You're not stupid at all. You're smarter than I was.”

For a moment, the words didn’t even make sense. Stan, smarter than Ford? No one had ever said that. No one would ever say that. It was ridiculous to suggest even in a situation as surreal as this.

“What happened when you...refused?” Ford asked before Stan could figure that one out.

“You...you said if I wouldn't​ agree you'd just have to get rid of me. That I was a loose end. And you took the knife out and…” He made a vague, uncertain gesture.

And then, because he had to say it, because it was stuck in his throat, because he could feel it hot and painful and bitter like rising bile and if he didn’t say it he was going to choke, “You said you hated me. And that you...you thought it would have been better if I’d...if I’d offed myself before I could ruin things for everyone.”

Ford drew in a sharp breath. “No. No, Stan, I-I didn’t. I don’t. I would never-”

“Hate to break it to you, bro, but you did,” Stan said. “You were very definite about it while you were swinging a knife in my face.” He drew in a breath of his own, shaky, trying to get some air past whatever seemed to be blocking his throat. “And...and I’m not saying that, you know, that you don’t...that I haven’t...that you might not have, have a point there, but-”

“NO!”

The exclamation was so unexpectedly loud and clear in the midst of the fog that seemed to still be circling around Stan that he jerked his head up in surprise. Ford was staring at him, fingers shaking on the wall he was holding, and that was definitely blood trickling down his nose from the corner of one eye. Had Stan hit him that hard? Had he topped off a long list of sins by half-blinding his brother?

“Stan, listen to me,” Ford said urgently, heedless of the blood that was now starting to drip off his chin. “I-I don’t hate you. I do not...think...those things. That wasn’t me.”

“Uh, yeah it was,” Stan said in abject confusion. “What, are you saying that it was some guy who happened to look exactly like you? That can’t be it, cause I can account for his whereabouts.”

Ford didn’t seem to find that funny. “No. I...listen, I know this is going to sound unbelievable-”

“That’s the third time you’ve said something like that,” Stan said.

“The...situation remains...improbable.” Ford swayed a little bit and steadied himself against the wall. “It...it was a demon.”

Stan stared at him.

Ford stared back. “Stan-”

“Your eye is bleeding.”

Ford swiped at the blood irritably. “It’s not important. Stan-”

“A demon, Ford? Really? That’s the best you can come up with? I mean I’ve spun some pretty damn tall tales, but I’ve never gone that far.”

“I know-”

“Don’t say you know it’s unbelievable, that’s not helping. It doesn’t make it any more believable.”

Ford opened his mouth, shut it, and finally just stared at him helplessly.

Stan sighed and wiped a hand across his face, annoyed at the oozing blood. The gash was finally starting to hurt, but it felt like the thoughts buzzing in the background of his head: distant, like something that wasn’t really a part of him.

He supposed he should do something about it.

The image arose, unbidden, of a sink and mirror smeared with bloody fingerprints. He had the sudden feeling that he should have pushed that issue a lot earlier.

“Okay,” he said, slowly. “So...what? You’re saying a demon...impersonated you?”

Ford made a strange little choking sound, almost a sob.

“N-no,” he said. “Or...that is...yes, but…”

“Any time you want to make sense, that would be great,” Stan said.

“He can take control of me,” Ford said. “When I'm asleep, he can possess me. That's why I can't, I have to stay awake. I have to...but it's getting harder and harder... that's why you have to leave, Stan, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, but he could hurt you again, and it could be worse…I have to get the journal away from here, you see, before he can finish what he's planning-”

“This have to do with the doomsday device in your basement?”

“It's not a-” Ford began defensively, then stopped and slumped. “Yes. It does.”

“And the fact that your bathroom's covered in blood?”

Ford slumped a little further. “You noticed that, did you?”

“Kinda hard to miss.”

Ford rubbed a hand along along his arm defensively, but didn’t say anything.

Stan sighed heavily and stood up. Everything swayed around him for a moment, but it settled back down quickly enough.

“Where-where are you going?” Ford said as Stan stomped past him.

For a moment Stan was really, honestly tempted to say, “Well, you told me to leave,” just to see the look on Ford’s face; but now was probably not the time. Heh. Never let it be said that Stan Pines didn’t have any tact.

“Gonna clean up,” he muttered instead, and hurried away before Ford could say anything else. Probably he shouldn’t have just left Ford there, ashen and still oozing blood from his eye and looking ready to collapse any second, but he had to, he had to get away, just for a second, just to think, and anyway he figured that being slashed across the face by somebody earned you the right to a bit of distance from them.

Not that the actual slashing, specifically, was really why he wanted to get away from his brother at the moment.

I’ll just have to get rid of you…

Why so surprised? It wouldn’t be the first time he threw you aside because you weren’t useful to him.

Shut up, Stan told the voice, even though that never worked. Shut up, shut up, shut up.

He wasn’t exactly eager to patch himself up in Ford’s horror-show bathroom, which currently looked like an image from a PSA about Where Not To Perform First Aid, but it was where the bandages and disinfectant were and he needed a mirror and really it wasn’t that bad compared to that one time in New Orleans, so.

He flicked on the light and almost did a double take at the sight of himself in the dirty glass. The blood had run down all over the lower half of his face and dripped onto his neck and the collar of his t-shirt. It made him look downright gruesome.

“I look like a Batman villain,” he muttered to his reflection.

The casual words brought up a strange surge of memories: a childhood bedroom full of comic books bought or pilfered from the nearby newstand; sitting in Fort Stan on a rainy day, surrounded by cheaply colored paper and companionable silence; a shared case of the chickenpox spent in bed scratching at spots and arguing about which characters would win in a fight.

Ford had always preferred Marvel. He loved the science: the radiation that did this or that, the strange chemicals and lab equipment used to save the day, the adventures through space or different dimensions to encounter strange new worlds and lifeforms. He gushed over Reed Richards and Bruce Banner and Tony Stark, scientists who used their smarts to save the day. But most of all he adored the X-Men. The mutants, the outcasts, taunted and rejected by society for nothing more than being born different, but heroes all the same. Stan liked to tease Ford about his ‘nerdy science heroes’, but he never made fun of the X-Men, not when he saw the way his brother turned to them when the bullying got too much to bear.

Stan himself had favored DC. He liked the silliness of the stories, the over-the-top covers promising ridiculous exploits within, the glorious fist-fights in the name of truth, justice, and the American way. But most of all he liked Batman. Bruce Wayne was an ordinary person-relatively speaking-in a world full of extraordinary people. He didn’t have superpowers or gadgets bestowed by aliens or gods; he was smart, but in a cool, cunning way, not in that powerful, untouchable way like Ford’s heroes. Not like, well, Ford. But Batman didn’t let not being special stop him. He was still a hero, still won the day, still triumphed over the villains, was still respected and looked up to and important.

Stan had always liked that.

There had been, of course, no comic books in the duffel bag thrown at him one early summer night. What was once a collection shared between Stan and Ford became, in an instant, only Ford’s. Just like everything else.

He wondered sometimes what Ford had done with Stan’s comics. Thrown them out, he assumed. Maybe burned them in anger, or gleefully ripped them to shreds in joy of finally being rid of his brother.

Stan caught his own eye in the mirror and grimaced. “You’re a grown man and you’ve got a knife wound to treat and you’re standing here thinking about comic books,” he told himself. “Get it together, Stan.”

He washed away the gore and finally got a good look at the damage-as good a look as he could in the flickering light of the bathroom. It wasn’t as gruesome as it had first seemed, actually. The knife must have been pretty sharp; it had cut a neat, clean line, and the gash was long but shallow. It ran diagonally from temple to cheek, slicing across his nose on the way, and seeing how close it had come to his eye made his stomach twist a little. Still, he'd had worse. New Orleans came to mind again.

He cleaned it out with the peroxide as best he could, wincing as it stung terribly but also, in a strange way, feeling relieved that he could feel the pain, that the fog finally seemed to be lifting somewhat.

The angle made bandaging it difficult, but he managed by tying the strip behind his head, resulting in something that looked like an off-kilter eyepatch. He doused the bandage in peroxide first; he didn’t trust anything that had been sitting on that sink. And to think Ford had always accused him of being the gross one.

He looked ridiculous, but then, he thought as he scrubbed down his hands with as much soap as was left, what else was new?

Finally he took a deep breath, squared his shoulders, and stepped back out into the hallway. In the blur of the confrontation and its aftermath he’d forgotten just how creepy Ford’s house was. It was even worse now that full dark had fallen, and he had the memory of those footsteps coming down the hall toward him rattling around in his head…

It wasn’t right. It wasn’t right at all. Stan had been angry at his twin more times than he could count; he’d been resentful of him for ten years; on a few occasions he had even been a bit intimidated. But the idea of being scared of Ford didn’t fit in his head at all. Before tonight he wouldn’t have said it was possible.

Then again, to hear Ford tell it, it wasn’t really him that had Stan scared.

The stupid thing was, in a way it made sense. Some twisted story of demonic possession fit perfectly into everything he’d seen so far: Ford’s paranoid rambling, the eerie and disordered house, the bloodied bathroom. It did all feel like he had walked right into the middle of a horror movie. Which probably meant he was going to be killed off pretty soon, he thought glumly. The dumb brother called in for reinforcement who didn’t know what was going on and wouldn’t leave when he was told? Stan wouldn’t put any bets on that character surviving the movie if he was watching it.

What was worse, though, was that he wanted to believe it.

He wanted to believe it hadn’t been Ford who had casually tried to get rid of him like a broken appliance.

He wanted to believe it hadn’t been Ford who had looked him in the eye and gleefully told him he should have died long ago.

But. Demons.

You’re so desperate you’re willing to believe a ridiculous ghost story rather than accept what happened right in front of your eyes. How much plainer could he possibly be? He told you clear as day he hates you. He tried to kill you. If this doesn’t make you accept the truth, what possibly could?

Something about that made Stan slow to a stop in the dark hallway.

Because...because...because that wasn’t right.

Because Ford saying he had always hated Stan, Ford saying he was going to get rid of Stan...that wasn’t Ford. That was the version of Ford from his nightmares, the idea that haunted him on long lonely nights when he wondered if he would ever see his family again, the fear that pushed him to give up every time he had tried to contact his brother. It was Ford as the ever-present voice in his head wanted Stan to see him. But as terrible and persistent as that phantom was, it wasn’t real. It belonged in Stan’s beat-up broken head, not standing over him holding a knife.

I’m giving you the chance to do the first worthwhile thing in your life was Ford. Why would I want to do anything with the person who sabotaged my entire future? was Ford. Ford pushing him away, Ford turning his back, Ford shoving him to ground was real. And it hurt, oh God it hurt, but it was real. He knew what that pain felt like. And he knew what it didn’t feel like.

Ford might hate him, Ford might never want to see him again-that might be real. He didn’t really know. But Ford cheerfully trying to kill him wasn’t.

Of course, demons also weren’t real.

So the question now was, did he believe in demons more or less than he believed in this nightmare version of Ford suddenly and inexplicably existing in real life?

A strange sound from the kitchen blew his train of thought off the rails. For a moment all he could think of was something in the dark, coming toward him, something with a taunting singsong voice and eyes that were somehow wrong. He froze, hardly daring to breathe, not sure whether to run or fight or hide or-

Then the sound happened again, and this time he realized what it was.

He crept into the kitchen and saw Ford kneeling in front of the kitchen trashcan, looking absolutely miserable as he retched a third time. A quick, reluctant glance at the trashcan showed that nothing much had really come up but bile.

He abruptly found himself wondering when the last time Ford had actually eaten was. His twin had proven himself more than capable of completely forgetting about basic human needs over something as minor as studying for an algebra exam; given a situation like this-whatever this was-it was almost surprising Ford had managed to keep himself alive at all.

Stan instantly regretted that thought.

He cleared his throat. Ford glanced at him. “Oh. Stan. Your...your timing is impeccable.”

Stan rolled his eyes. “You’re the only person I ever met who could use words like that while you’re puking your guts out.”

Usually Stan would have expected Ford to respond to his crassness with irritation, but he only folded in on himself more and glanced ruefully at the trashcan. “I don’t think there’s much of my guts left,” he muttered.

For a moment they both hung there in the awkward silence, not sure what to do next.

I don’t know, Stan thought. I don’t know what I believe in. Maybe it’s because Ford’s sick, or maybe he finally snapped after spending who-knew-how-long out here alone, or maybe I really am just too stupid to see what’s right in front of my eyes.

Or maybe it is a demon.

It had to be stupid to stick around here. If he was watching this movie he would have yelled at the dumb brother for not getting out while he had the chance.

But there was one thing he did know, one certainty that was creeping up behind him: this was his last chance. For better or worse, if he left now, he knew he wasn’t going to see Ford again.

Maybe that would be the right thing, the smart thing. Maybe that was better than whatever fate was waiting for him here.

But he would never know.

Anyway, where else was he going to go? What else was he going to do? What was really the point of escaping death here if all it meant was extending a life of misery and solitude, of scrounging to survive, of one failed con after another?

No.

He crossed the kitchen and put a hand on his brother’s shaking shoulder. “You all done for now?”

Ford swallowed and wiped his mouth on his sleeve. “I...I think so.”

“Okay. Let’s get you back to bed, yeah?”

Ford looked up at him in shock. “Stan-I can’t just-”

“You’re sick, Ford. You need to-”

“I am not crazy!”

Well. That had touched a nerve.

Ford glared up at him, desperate and defiant. “I know this...this all seems insane, I know you don’t believe me but I am not delusional, Stan! Think what you will, but-”

“Whoa, Ford. Time out.” Stan put his hands up placatingly. “I’m not talking about that. I mean, literally, you are sick. You just threw up in your kitchen trash. So you need to rest, okay, because whatever’s going on here, I’m willing to bet that you running yourself to the brink of death ain’t going to make it any better.”

“Stan, I can’t sleep,” Ford said. “You saw what happened-”

“I didn’t say you had to sleep. Just...look, just come back where it’s warm and lay down and...and...you can tell me what’s going on, okay? I won’t let you fall asleep, I promise. But sitting here on the cold floor isn’t helping anything.”

Ford looked at him for a long moment. Stan knew that look. It was the look Ford got when he knew he needed to rest but was too tired to actually make the decision to do so, only now it was mixed with a lot more fear and hopelessness than Stan remembered.

He was about ready to just drag Ford back to bed anyway-he didn’t think Ford could stop him at this point-but, to his surprise, Ford finally nodded. “Okay,” he said weakly. “Okay. But you have to promise-”

“I promise. C’mon.”

He gave Ford a hand up.

“Stan?” Ford said as they trekked down the hallway. Stan was idly wondering how often he was going to have to help Ford hobble back to bed before all this was over.

“Hmm?”

“I...I really am...I’m so sorry. That you got hurt. I mean, that I-”

“Hey. It’s okay.” The cut was really starting to hurt now, but that was alright. It was better than that distance, better than not being able to feel anything when he knew he should. “It’ll heal. Things can do that, y’know.”