here's an idea for the memory vial au:
something happens—it could be as simple as someone bumping into the shelf that it sits on, whatever—and the vial containing stan's memories falls and shatters
I don't even have words for what would happen next. I was gonna say "ford would be devastated" but of course that's an understatement. he would grieve all over again, that years-old wound reopened as the thing that contained stan's entire life is now gone. just like stan himself
@aroace-get-out-of-my-face I can't remember who else to tag off the top of my head
Cricks neck.
Ford keeps the vial on him at all times.
He keeps the memory gun on his person when he goes out, it's usual spot on his desk or deep in the pockets of his trenchcoat, but the memory vial that contains what he has left of his brother, the memory vial that holds what Ford has left of his brother's soul, he takes everywhere.
It transfers from pocket to hand to pocket. Every day, every night. Sometimes Ford isn't even aware that he's holding it, it's just an extension of him now, no longer a true item, just another part of him.
The only time he's not weighted down by it is when he places it on his nightstand, next to his glasses.
The glasses are folded up, clicked down into their repeated place, just under the lamp, and then Ford stands the little metal and glass vial upright, right next to them. Every night it's the same, every night everything goes into it's place. It's routine.
When he sets the vial down, and switches off the lamp, every night, Ford whispers "Good night, Lee." Before he closes his eyes. It's repeated, every night.
In the morning, he wakes up.
He's...refreshed. For the first time in a long time. He lingers awake, staring up at a blurry ceiling for a moment. It wasn't a good dream, at least, not that he remembers, it's just that he slept well, or some other indescribable feeling of contentment. Like seeing the sun after a long, hard storm.
Ford reaches sideways, and fumbles on the nightstand for his glasses.
His middle finger, his extra, reaches out too far and taps, a minuscule amount, against glass.
The memory vial wobbles, teeters there, on wood grain for a moment, making a tiny noise.
It tips, the top side clinking gently into the top of the nightstand and now, as cylindrical things to, it rolls, in that sickening back and forth way as it quietly, quickly, and unquestionably, rolls off the nightstand and falls, crashing to the ground.
There is a beat, where the still morning air is broken, yet silent.
Lamely, dazed, Ford slides his glasses onto his face.
The vial is shattered on the floor right at the base of the nightstand. The largest, intact piece of glass still wobbles, in that broken signature way, as the force of the impact settles into the grain of the floor.
Ford stares.
He still has that gross sleep taste in his mouth. Light pours in from in between the bedroom curtains, there is eye crust in the corner of his left eye, and Stanford Pines has just killed his brother for the second time.
Ford's mind caves in like a dying star, like a whirlpool, like total and utter destruction. Its not guilt, it's not fear, the grief is rising again but its not even that, this feeling is unnamed, unbearable.
He hears, clear as day, clear as bells and clear as his niece and nephews laughter on a warm day, Ford hears his brother's voice over the rising ringing in his ears. He hears Stan, a boy, and then a young man, and then an old man, because that's all Ford ever knew his brother as, seventeen years and then two weeks, plus one fight in between. Ford hears his brother's voice, as he lays there, half rolled over in a bed, staring at a pile of broken glass, of dispelled and lost memories, he hears the whisper of his brother laugh, and just say,
"Whoops."
