Stan & Ford:

This writing sample is from a time travel AU. It is dated: 09/08/22.

Stan’s slumped in the passenger seat the entire drive to Gravity Falls. It takes nearly 10 hours and two days, but they manage it with ill grace and more bickering than you’d expect from a brother willing to show up at a hospital to collect his twin. “What were you thinking? Were you even thinking?” Ford says for what must be the sixth time that day. He glances sidelong at him and Stan clenches his jaw, grinds his teeth together. He’d cross his arms but one of them is broken and the pain isn’t worth the effort of making himself appear aloof.

“You wouldn’t understand,” Stan says dully. He’s so fucking tired and he swears every time he’s preparing himself for a nap, Ford starts up the argument all over again. Were he not homeless and critically low on money, he’d insist that Ford let him out of the car so he could make his own way. As it stands, the hospital meals have given him more food than he’s had in weeks and the diners they’d stopped at since yesterday have been the only saving grace to the whole event.

“Then help me understand, Stanley,” Ford says, long-suffering and ill-tempered. “Getting involved with guys like that? Scamming the Mafia? Do you have a death wish? You know they’re going to keep coming after you — after me, for being associated with you. I — ”

“I was going to fake my death, Sixer. Is that what you want to hear? Look, I know what I’m doing. If you’d have left well enough alone, I would have figured it out on my own.” It’s not like he hasn’t been in this exact scenario before. No one had cared then, not even when he’d wanted them too. Dad had been contacted and God only knows what he’d thought about it, but Stan had never heard back, not even a phone call from Ma. It was then that he’d realized that he was well and truly alone.

“Left well enough alone — they called me! What was I supposed to do? I got a call from a hospital detailing that you’d been beaten and left for dead. Did you think I’d just ignore that?” Yes, quite frankly, Stan had though that’s exactly what Ford would do. Waking up to find a stressed Ford in his hospital room hadn’t been on his list of things to deal with for the day. He’d been planning to sneak out when no one was looking and, well, that hadn’t gone to plan either.

“You didn’t show up last time it happened, so — ”

“Last time?!” Ford demands, his voice higher-pitched and borderline shrill. “Jesus Christ, Stanley, how long have you been doing this? Screw faking your own death, my god, you’re going to end up dead for real if you keep this up.” He sounds genuinely upset and that makes something sour and malicious bubble up inside of Stan. How dare his brother care now when he didn’t before?

“It’s not like I have a choice!” Stan bursts out, fed up and rubbed raw from their nonstop verbal parade of antagonism. “Dad kicked me out before I finished school! Do you know how severely that limits your job potential? How do you expect me to make a living if I’m not doing it under the table? There aren’t any options — and before you tell me to finish my schooling, don’t forget that I’m homeless. I don’t have time to do school and work at the same time!”

“Stanley…” Ford says, his voice soft, hushed. It sets Stan’s teeth on edge. “I — I didn’t think — ”

A bright light envelops a spot just before the shack as Ford pulls up to it. He jerks the wheel, spinning it wildly to avoid colliding with it. The car screeches and very nearly runs into a nearby tree as Ford does his best to steady the wheel. By some narrow margin, they miss the tree. The breaks squeal as Ford stomps on them and Stan swears graphically as they’re jerked in their seats, the movement jarring his broken arm. “The hell was that?” Stan asks, disbelief warring with shock as the light begins to fade and is replaced by a young woman. They glance at each other once before scrambling for the car door, ripping their seatbelts off, and climbing up out of the vehicle.

“Ow, fuck!” Stan complains as he staggers from and around the back of the car. He limps, bruised and battered, but nothing more serious than a broken arm. Converging in the middle, Stan and Ford make their way over to the woman spit from the sky and dumped on their doorstep. She’s wearing clothes inappropriate for the wintery weather, up to her ankles in snow and looking like a living anachronism. “Hey kid,” Stan says because he’s nearing thirty and she hardly looks more than twenty. “You’re going to freeze to death being out in the snow like that. C’mere.” He shrugs off his thick, tattered coat (barely on because he couldn’t fit his broken arm in it) and holds it out to her. It stinks because he does, but it’s better than getting frostbite.

“More importantly,” Ford says, adjusting his glasses as he looks down the length of them at her. “What can you tell me about the light that brought you here?” He digs out a small pen and notebook and frantically flips through the pages until he finds a blank one. Already he’s scribbling thoughts, theories, but he glances up at her curiously, poised, waiting for her to tell him more.

* * *

Stan shivers at the icy chill of the air, but at least he’s dressed in an admittedly shabby but warm sweater he’d picked up from a thrift shop. It’s not his style, but when you’re trying not to freeze to death and living out of your car, you can’t afford to be picky. Aside from the sweater, he’s wearing a pair of organically ripped jeans, the color of which match his black eye and the bruise on his jaw. A pair of tattered holey shoes adorn his feet, well worn and in desperate need of a replacement. He looks rough, but recognizable; rosacea still pinkening his nose just as it does his twin’s.

Ford is clad in a long thick trenchcoat, buttoned up the middle to hide the turtleneck sweater Stan thinks he’s most likely wearing. The slacks he’s wearing are in as good a condition as the winter boots. He looks like he’s stepped out of a Sears catalog, something that Stan does his best not to begrudge him for. It’s difficult to see his twin looking so good when he’s struggling just to get by, but he knows he’s brought it on himself. He has no one to blame but the face he sees every day in the mirror.

Recognition reflects in the young woman’s familiarity with them and the words that spout from her lips have Ford and Stan trading looks of confusion. Stan’s of the opinion that somewhere between the lightshow and her being there, that she’d lost her mind. He doesn’t for a minute believe her claims of “teleportation”, can’t even begin to wrap his head around that of all things. Ford doesn’t seem to have the same issue. He murmurs “fascinating” under his breath, though still loud enough for Stan to hear it, and the intensity of his writing increases tenfold.

“So you claim—” Ford says, his eyes glued to his notepad. He flips a page. “— to have been teleported here? That checks with what I witnessed. What were you doing that caused it to happen?” He glances up at her when she does him and Stan watches her freeze, shock writ across her features. Huh, what caused that? He glances down at himself, at the way he looks as though he’s been through the ringer. He dismisses the thought that it might have been because of him almost immediately and goes back to how strange this whole scenario is.

Goosebumps line his arms and Stan uses his good one to rub some heat back into himself. “Nerd alert,” he jokes, chuckling despite his unease. “Ford get the girl inside before you interrogate her. We’ll be popsicles before you finish the trajectory of your thoughts. I, for one, want a hot shower to get this stink off me.” He waves them all towards the shack with his good arm, moving them through the snow slowly. Ford goes with reluctance, glancing over his shoulder at the young woman before walking passed the two of them to unlock the door and gesture them inside.

Header Art by VerinsDemise. | Background Art by Tenshiikisu.

© 2022-2024 Cinderlite. All rights reserved.