Chapter Text
The moon glimmered over the Oregon forest like an unblinking eye. Stan’s 1965 El Diablo convertible charged along the road, cutting through the snow and the silence like a prayer.
“We’re low on gas again,” Ford stated.
“I know,” Stan replied, eyes fixed on the high beams illuminating the asphalt.
Ford swallowed, feeling small. He turned to the window and observed the trees extending towards the sky, like countless fingers on a monstrous hand stretching out to grab them both. His headache thumped, and he closed his eyes.
Stan darted a glance at him and sighed. “I’ll get the Stanmobile filled up at the next stop. I got some money. Just…” He paused, and sniffed. “Well, you said remote. Doesn’t get more remote than this,” he grinned, sinking back into the once familiar routine of soothing his brother’s anxiety.
Ford rewarded him with a fleeting smile. Under the harsh headlights, his brother looked older – so much older – eye bags sagging over his five o’clock shadow, hair an unkempt riot of dirt-brown curls.
The snowfall intensified, and Stan clicked his tongue. He fumbled with the radio dials, skipping over muffled synth tunes, sketchy mail order ads and static until he landed on the evening weather report. A woman with unnatural enunciation said it should clear by morning and roads were not expected to close.
“I think we better stop for a bit.” Stan craned his neck as he searched for any signs of a side road. Ford nodded and began to worry the edges of his sweater sleeves.
Eventually, they found the perfect place – a loop where a dirt path forked off their lane, shielded from view by a smattering of mountain hemlocks. Stan pulled over and turned the high beams off, swapping them for the overhead light.
Ford looked inside the glove box for a soda, or cold water, or gum, but found nothing. He settled back into the seat and pinched his thigh through his clothing until he winced.
“You should sleep,” Stan grunted after a pause.
Ford’s eyebrows rose. “Are you sure?”
“Yeah,” he said. “You get some rest now, it’s been a long drive.”
“Thank you, Stan.” Ford smiled as he rifled through one of the piles of clutter on the rubber mat and handed Stan a length of rope.
They began their ritual with practiced ease. Stan took the rope and helped Ford recline the passenger’s seat before tying his wrists together. Ford pulled his knees up to his chest, and lowered them when Stan had finished tying them together too. He strapped Ford down with the seat belt and secured his legs by hooking a tough rubber band from a Stan-Vac’s gasket into the loop. With a reassuring smile, Stan took his brother’s glasses for safekeeping and turned the light off.
“Thank you,” Ford repeated as Stan reached into his pocket for a spare cigarette and clambered back into the driver’s seat.
“It’s all right,” he mumbled as he lit up. He rolled down the window and turned toward it to let out the smoke. The car smelled rancid enough as it was.
After a while, Ford hummed, already half asleep. Stan frowned painfully as he looked out the window at the unspoiled snow, thinking about how tired his brother looked now, how the anxious frown that had nested between his thick eyebrows as a teenager seemed to have only deepened in the decade and a half they’d been apart. Part of him knew Ford had always had it tougher, with his deformity and his lack of social skills. Part of him knew Ford had always had it easier, with a roof over his head and a couple of warm meals a day, with his intellect and all his promise.
He took a drag, seemingly oblivious to the yellow eyes glowing behind him.
He found it hard to stay mad at Ford. He’d just been a child like himself when they were torn apart. He couldn’t have stopped it. Hell, Stan would have found a way to ruin his own life, sooner or later. Now, his brother needed help, and that was enough to reawaken his protective streak.
The inhuman snarl behind him failed to make Stan speed up his drag of the cigarette. “Hello, Bill,” he finally mumbled when he was done, not even turning to look at the demon now possessing his brother’s body in his sleep.
“You two keep driving like you’re gonna find a Quantum Destabilizer behind a pine tree,” Bill cackled. “Surprise, genius! It’s just more trees!” He cracked Ford’s vertebrae painfully as he craned his vessel’s neck to look out the window. “Still in Oregon, slick?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know,” Stan grinned, scratching his stubble.
“Oh, oh! I’d recognize the Wallowa mountains anywhere… Wa-llo-wa...” Bill whispered, twisting each syllable into its widest shape. “They built altars to me here, y’know. Thousands of years ago…”
Stan rolled his eyes and kept smoking.
“But you don’t care about altars, do you, Stanley Pines? You care about nothing but the stack of cash in your glove box.” Bill licked his lips. Ford’s eye began to bleed. “Hey, who’s got two thumbs and his mug on the dollar bill?” he boasted. “Did you know I can see out of every drawing you humans have ever made of me? Let me tell you…” he dropped his voice to a conspiratorial whisper, “your pocket is a lonely place to be.”
Stan huffed the last of the cigarette.
“I could change that, you know? Make you rich. Get you out of this mess. All you gotta do is shake my hand,” Bill teased him in a sing-song voice. “You think you’re better than that, right, Stan? You, the extra Stan, three dollars or better off–”
Bill hissed when Stan put out his cigarette on Ford’s arm as casually as his father had.
“Oh! Oh, Stanley Pines! Willing to hurt your own brother?” the demon twitched inside Ford so hard the car bounced. Stan ground his teeth. “Hey, I don’t blame ya! Maybe the feeling is mutual, too. After all, what has Sixer ever done for you?”
Stan knew better than to drop his poker face. Instead, he reached for the portable cassette player on the floor, some shiny newfangled device called a Walkman, and untangled the headphone cord. He hadn’t expected it to be this useful when he had pick pocketed it a few weeks ago. Unfortunately, he only had one tape for it, but even BABBA’s Eurodisco fluff was better than listening to Bill’s shrill voice tearing out of his brother’s throat. He slung the foam pads over his cauliflower ears and cranked up the volume.