my gravity falls sideblog lol

Masterpost of masterposts!

He stretched out, basking in the leisurely rays of warm sunlight pooling across the floor, letting a content sigh escape him-

-Ford pulled himself free of the memory, grunting. "Nothing of use there," he said, not turning around. The memory of Remus didn't get up, anyways - either he didn't notice them come in, or he was too relaxed to care.

"Ya were barely in there for a couple seconds," Fiddleford said from behind him, though he didn't sound all that peeved now. Just tired.

"I'm developing a system," Ford told him, "After all of this exploration into his mind, I believe I'm beginning to recognize his thought patterns enough to tell when a memory won't bring me any new information. It's all about observing and learning."

At their feet, the memory of Remus huffed, wiggling on the carpet to get a better angle, trying to catch as much sun as possible.

"I'm not sure why ya even checked this one," Fiddleford said.

"Call it academic curiosity," Ford droned, not interested in explaining anything he ever did whatsoever. "Shall we move on?"

On the couch, the memory of Remus spread himself across the cushions, basking in the warmth of the sun and the relaxation and the distant sound of the memory of Ford puttering away somewhere further into the house.

On the hardwood floors the present Ford stood, the real Ford, who did not bend and shimmer with the flexibility of a memory, but stayed solidly, exactingly the same. It was enough to a nerve in his temple throb, like an annoying, blinking light of pain in his periphery.

And at the doorway, the dog-headed Remus watched them through eyes narrowed with suspicion.

"Let's get out of here," Fiddleford said.

As though for the first time understanding Fiddleford (which he couldn't have, because Ford was fairly certain he couldn't, and Ford detested being wrong too much to consider any other alternative), their Remus rose up on creaky, thin arms and legs, sitting alertly on all fours. He moved a step backwards without turning away from them, gaze grasping them tightly as he lingered there, waiting.

No time to waste, Ford reminded himself. They kept walking.

It was a maze, and a headache, walking through this place. Ford checked memory after memory, tediously combing them through. Fiddleford rarely spoke, jaw grit, but Ford could practically feel the way his patience steadily thinned and frayed with every failure.

And Remus- he only watched, restless eyes following both of their every moves. It was of some consolation, at least, that he seemed to watch Fiddleford with just as much scrutiny as he watched Ford, narrowed and cautious. Even still, his gaze prickled Ford, even if he only followed them, unacting and unintroduding. It would almost be better if he did, Ford thought. The silence and the uncertainly put Ford on edge.

They kept moving.

The house didn't conform to any law of natural, physical reality - that was an established, expected fact. Even still, Ford wished it conform to at least some type of definable, obvious law. The halls looped around and split off jaggedly and merged again in a patternless randomness, bending to unknown whims, never staying the same, even between the space of two blinks it could change entirely.

Ford dragged his fingers along the wall as they walked, feeling the texture, the flakes of wallpaper. It was off, somehow, but he couldn't place it.

"… frontal lobe, temporal lobe- but that's all thinking too literally about this, this isn't that kind of magic. Herald's Law of the Unnatural: Magic is both completely literal, and a purely abstract concept. Where does this land on that spectrum? How can I manipulate this environment? There has to be a way. I have to be able to control this, somehow…"

He was muttering to himself, working through his thoughts under his breath. This place made his head ache and his eyes sting, but if he closed them for too long, tried to navigate through touch alone, things started to get - strange. As though the world his hands could touch was different than the one his eyes could see.

It didn't make any sense. His head hurt. How long had they been in here?

Fiddleford hadn't said anything in a while. Whenever Ford chanced to glance back, he caught his (ex?) assistant's face crimped into something tense, his mouth a thin line and his eyebrows furrowed together, creasing his forehead. Ford was careful to only glance quickly and look away faster, but he wasn't sure it mattered - he never, not once, caught Fiddleford looking at him.

For the majority of the while, Ford walked in front, choosing memories at random. Sometimes, he blinked, and suddenly it was the dog-headed Remus leading them. He always walked with such purpose. Pathways, doorways, hallways - they seemed to flicker when he lead them, their colors muddling as they disappeared, or a new way opened. And when a new way opened, that was always the one Remus led them to. Ford was beginning to suspect that he had some control over this. Maybe all the control.

Psyche, Ford thought to himself. Likely an internal manifestation of Remus's sense of self, their mind-formed psychopomp and warden.

Did he know what they were looking for, Ford wondered? Was he trying to lead them to it, or away from it?

… but most of the time, he hung in the back. Ford could always feel his eyes, like a cold prick of ice against the back of his neck. And when he looked, Remus was always watching, and he never looked away.

"… just have to develop a system," Ford muttered to himself, trying to focus. "I need to… study the patterns of behavior. I need to find the rules. There's always rules, rules will help me…"

The rooms didn't seem to be in order, nor were they organized in any real way either, but they were all of one, distinct category - they were all memories in the house, all memories formed after Remus had strolled, on all fours, into Ford's life.

XX

"We need to go further back," Ford said, after what seemed like the hundredth, or maybe the thousandth memory that failed to yield anything even approaching useful. "These memories are all too recent. We need to dig deeper... we need a way out of here."

And as he said that they rounded the corner, and were met face-to-face with a way out of there.

Shattered, glittering shards of glass scattered across the floor in a smashed array. That was the first thing Ford noticed, and some old ping in his brain from a half-forgotten Archaeology course he'd taken in his first or second year of college told him it was window glass, flat-surfaced and clear.

Of course, when Ford lifted his head a few degrees, he confirmed that that suspicion had been correct. They'd come to a dead-end, facing a flat wall, with a window in it.

Ford quickly realized which window this was.

Stepping over the shattered glass, the three of them came to Ford's kitchen window. The colors had all leeched away, turning the window and its surrondings grayed and dull. The curtains swayed and ruffled in a wind they couldn't feel, framing the empty window, fragments of shards still clinging stubbornly into their sockets as the only proof there'd ever been window glass at all. Now, it was little better than an opening in the wall, out into the grayscale forest beyond.

Ford and Fiddleford stood before it, their dog-headed Remus making up a watchful rear. Ford could feel Fiddleford's gaze sitting, burningly, at the back of his head, but Ford didn't look back at him. He only stared at the window, flexing his one hand, now unblemished and unpained in the half-reality of the mindscape.

"I suppose this is where we get off," Ford said. Fiddleford only hummed vaguely.

Unwilling to sit in this unnerving and still silence for a moment longer, Ford pushed himself forward, clambering through his window. The shards jabbed and dug at him, but somehow, they didn't break skin - they were dull as stones, and flimsy as paper.

He crawled through, inelegantly plopping onto the ground other side, before quickly scrambling up, brushing himself off and hoping nobody saw that. If Fiddleford did, he didn't deign to mention it, clambering through after Ford with pointed lack of commentary.

Ford didn't wait for Remus to follow after. He turned, and he walked straight to the treeline. It didn't matter, anyways; he could hear the soft sounds of Remus treading after them not a few moments later.

They were at the back of the house, now, despite the fact that that wasn't at all where Ford's kitchen window was placed in reality. Ford looked into the forest, at the narrow footpath he could see cutting through the trees, even more overgrown than the road they'd followed in. He looked, and some small, animal instinct in him hissed that it was looking back.

Jaw grit, seizing his determination for all it was worth, Ford pressed forward, and the others followed.