#ave-aria

Ford realized how much he loved his brother when he saw him fall to his knees after Bill entered his mind.

He got close a few minutes earlier, though, when Stan snapped his fingers and demanded Ford hand over his sweater, already tugging his sweat-stained suit pants down over his shoes.

“...What?”

“Look, we got one shot at this. I know how to shimmy out of these things pretty quick but we don’t know how long we’ve got. Gimme your clothes.”

It clicked then, and Ford didn’t know how he didn’t see it before, and he realized his brother was an absolute genius. But they were still running on adrenaline and Ford was still sore and achey from Bill’s torture and doesn’t dwell on the revelation. After all, Stan was a con artist. Tricks like this were what he did. He stripped quickly, trading everything with Stan.

Stan started rummaging around in the trench coat’s pockets. “You got anything sharp in here? A letter opener or some kinda alien gizmo?”

“What for?” Ford asked. “We can’t exactly stab Bill.”

“Not that.” Stan gestured to the side of his face. “Your hair. Looks like Bill fried part of it off or something, and that’s gonna be a giveaway.”

Ford dug into the pockets of Stan’s pants and pulled out a small swiss army knife. Stan grabbed it, using the knife part to hack off the sideburns. “There we go. Now, just act like I’m an idiot for agreeing to the deal, got it?”

“Right. Yes, got it.” Ford said, in awe of how quickly Stan had taken control of the situation. Perhaps he was still recovering from the electric shocks. Stan cleared his throat.

“Bill, you asshole.” He sounded exactly like Ford. Perhaps a bit more gravelly, but Ford himself wasn’t at his best, so it was forgivable. He flashed a grin. “Your turn.”

“Bill, you asshole!” It felt good to say, and Stan laughed.

“Not bad, but you gotta really lean in on it. You know what I sound like.”

“Of course I do.” Ford said in his best impression of Stan’s voice, and Stan’s face hardened as they heard screams and thundering footsteps.

“It’ll work. It has to.”

________

The knob on the side of the memory gun felt wrong under his sweaty fingers. Stan had collapsed to his knees, head thrown back and fingers brushing the bricks below. Bill was inside of his brother. As soon as he realized he was tricked, he was going to wreck havoc, and destroy him. He couldn’t just erase ‘BILL CIPHER’. Bill would burrow in, find a way to ruin Stan from the inside out from whatever was left. It needed to be a clean wipe.

‘STA’ Stan hadn’t known this was coming. He hadn’t spent nearly three decades preparing to die facing Bill. He just saw what needed to be done, and did it. No hesitation.

‘NLEY’ Ford didn’t want him to go. Stan’s face was… almost calm, now. His eyelids didn’t even flutter, looking for all the world like he was simply dreaming. Ford hadn’t seen that. Most of the time they’d been together these past weeks, they’d been snipping at each other, or avoiding each other. He’d only caught it in glimpses- when Stan was cheering about beating Probabilitor, or relaxed watching TV with the kids. Stolen moments he hadn’t been meant to see.

‘PI’ That he wouldn’t have seen, if Stan hadn’t spent thirty years trying to bring him back. He’d wanted a thank you, and now Ford could never give him a proper one; one that wasn’t ground out in irritation for someone he had still seen as the 27-year old that had shoved him into the portal.

‘NES’ He’d be saying goodbye forever when Stan would be saying hello, not knowing what he’d done, what he’d sacrificed.

But Ford would. Ford would know that Stan had saved the world when he hadn’t been able to. Stan was the hero of this story, and Ford realized that he would have moved heaven and Earth to save Stan if he’d been the one pushed through the portal now, Bill Cipher be damned.

The memory gun vibrated as he pulled the trigger, hearing it buzz like a bug zapper, frying Stan’s very being from the inside out. It just kept going for a solid minute- there was a lot of Stanley Pines to erase, after all. Fifty eight years of it.  Beside him, Ford could hear Mabel sniffling and the fabric of Dipper’s jacket shuffling around, and from the corner of his eye he could see that Dipper was wringing the fabric part of his hat.

When the gun had finally erased everything, Ford’s arms dropped. Stan remained on his knees, barely twitching but his mouth had fallen open. What Ford would give to hear a snarky comment, a laugh, a joke that proved he didn’t just lose his brother.

Instead, all he heard was the clatter as the memory gun hit the floor. There was noise- the people in the banners had been freed and fell to the floor- but he didn’t care, sight locked on Stan. He took a single step forward before the Fearamid shook, the entire structure breaking apart. Dipper and Mabel both grabbed one of his arms, and he held them close. Mabel grabbed Stan’s fez before it was sucked up into the giant X in the sky, hugging it to her chest. While Stan’s hair rustled in the wind, he remained dead to the world, soft breaths lost in the roaring disassembling of Weirdmageddon.

It took them a few minutes to find him after that. It was a miracle he’d been dropped nearby, dazed and still on his knees.

Ford’s heart nearly stopped when Stan didn’t recognize Mabel and didn’t properly start again until he yelled at the pig.

_______

The next morning, there was a lot to do. Dipper and Mabel had started packing, (Mabel had to figure out which sweaters to keep and which to gift to Candy since she didn’t have nearly enough room in her suitcase, something that had invoked some fake swears he’d definitely heard from Stan a few times.) Stan had mentioned they were going to throw the kids a birthday party to Lazy Susan when he stopped by for breakfast, so by now half the town probably was coming.

At the moment, Stan had a pen in his mouth and was trying to tape a banner up over the door to the gift shop. Ford watched for a moment. “How much do you remember?”

Stan pulled the pen out from between his teeth and tucked it behind his ear. “Remember you should be helping me with this.” Stan said, turning around. “It’s still fuzzy, but I got the main stuff down, I think. I know the kid’s names and your name, and Wendy and Soos. Can’t remember the blonde kid’s that stopped by earlier, though.”

“Preston’s daughter? I admit, I don’t quite remember that one either.” Ford said, taking the tape from Stan and tearing off a good-sized piece before handing it back up so Stan could finish. “There was… something I wanted to tell you.”

“Is it bad news? Nobody ever starts good news with ‘I need to tell you something’, they just say it.” Stan asked. “You better not be radioactive from alien experiments after everything.”

Ford shook his head, a small smile starting to build. “No, not that, although it is quite possible parts of me aren’t entirely human anymore. No, I wanted to thank you.”

“For w- oh.” Stan blinked.

“I know how difficult it must have been. I checked over the work you did that was still in the basement lab this morning, and if you only had one journal… really, it’s a wonder you didn’t do better in school if you managed to rebuild most of the portal with only part of the blueprints. You could have been a great engineer, and a good assistant-” Ford cleared his throat. “Anyways. Thank you. For saving me. I wasn’t well when you found me and honestly I haven’t always been in the best state since, but I’m glad you brought me back.”

Stan blinked again, before a grin spread across his face and he grabbed Ford into a tight hug, burying his knuckles in Ford’s hair to give him a noogie.

“Ha, knew you had it in you!”

“I just can’t believe you’d risk the world for me. I made the warnings clear.” Ford said, half to himself, but Stan let go of him and stepped back.

“Of course I would. Yeah, we were angry at each other, but we were both going through a lotta stuff. Would you have done it for me?” Stan tensed a bit at the question, but Ford laid a hand on his shoulder.

“I might not have then, paranoid and confused, but I certainly would now. I wouldn’t want to be here without you.”