Blue flames flickered around him, searing heat burning everything it touched. The blue white cancels out everything, wiping all from his mind. The fire roars and takes anything he knows even the picture clutched in his hand. For some reason, he couldn't remember what the picture was. All he knew was that it was important. He couldn't let go. Never again. He held on until the frame had crumbled to ash and the blue flames had devoured every last thing.
He's floating in darkness. He's drifting in a sea of calm cool black. Who is he? What is his name? Where is he?
These questions are brushed aside as the dark beckons.
He lies peacefully, no longer caring. He's so tired and so old.
Is he old? Is this what old felt like? Or is he young?
It doesn't matter, the black is warming his bones up, blanketing him in warmth and comfort and rest. It seems this is all there is, in the silent dark.
Though, the black seems somehow empty.
But it is heavenly, like a warm cup of hot chocolate on cold snowy day. What did it taste like? He couldn't seem to recall. What was snow like?
Big puffy white flakes had settled on the ground, covering it in a thick white blanket. Surrounded by large pines and fir trees, an old dilapidated-
The flash of white and color was gone, leaving only blackness in its wake. He might have investigated, but the black was so inviting, soothing his aches and bruises.
How had he gotten them?
The black whispered comfortingly and reassuringly that it was all as it should be, before something touched him and he blinked open his eyes.
Had they been closed?
For some reason, he couldn't remember.
0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0
These people, the girl and boy with bruises and tears welling in their eyes that somehow broke his heart and the man with cracked glasses and burns on his neck-
Screaming, fire, it hurts! Stanford! Help! No ones coming to help you- they abandoned you. Worthless drifter. Fire, burning- betrayal scorching heat- no!
He blinks and whatever had been there was lost.
The man with burns and six fingers and sad eyes looks away. They all said he should know them. Should he?
He doesn't remember.
The Spanish- (por favor! Mercy! Stop! Please no!) -man with the hat and dull brown baseball cap keeps watching him and crying. It makes him uneasy as the people that all insist they know him ushers him into an old dilapidated house.
Shack.
He sits and listens, looking at the pink book of photos, he wants to make this little girl with shining tears in her eyes feel better. He wants her to laugh. She should be laughing. Telling jokes... Making him laugh...
Then the pig licks him and all he can think is 'Waddles stop it! Now is not the time for-' and his mind floods with big fat pig, gazing at him blankly.
Blazes of pink and screeching oinks fill the air, something else is brown and he's punching something large and dangerous but he's gotta keep that darn thing safe for her-
Someone says something about a boss-employee relationship, the gopher man- Soos. 'Soos, you are not getting a raise-'
Little boyish feet stumbling excitedly toward him, showing off the fixed part of the vending machine. He's ruffling the kid's soft brown hair and taking the boy out for ice cream. He grumbles about spending too much money but he finds he can't bring himself to care, he'd do anything for the young Hispanic kid. After-
Then the girl is excitedly showing him more pages and suddenly-
Two boys are swinging and gulls caw overhead. Salty sea spray fills the air and the wind ruffles his hair, the boy beside him- Poindexter, Sixer- laughs, his face squiching up and his glasses reflecting the light of the hot summer sun. He's getting just a hint of sunburn and his knee itches under the bandaid. The swing set creaks and the warm sand squishes between his toes. Everything is amazing.
He's driving a scarlet car, it's motor rumbling beneath his feet. He's trying not to acknowledge that his gaze is partially obscured by hot tears. He doesn't care. He doesn't. The road speeds away under the tires and sun has sunken underneath the horizon. Only a warm red glow lingers, just enough light to prevent the stars from coming out. No more than one or two stars defy the last rays of the sun, exposing their twinkling faces. He speeds up the car. He doesn't care, and then he sees the vast shoreline reflecting the red sunset and the first sob rips from his throat.
Something is hitting him, something hard and heavy. He moans and curls inwards trying to ignore the fists and boots pounding into him. The scratchy rope is holding him down, his limbs are tied, he can't move. He's trapped. Sometimes, if he manages to open his swollen blackened eyes, the inky blackness is gone, replaced by a fizzing yellow light and grinning faces. The faces leer at him and laugh. There's something warm running down his own face and something slick under the ropes around his wrists, the same thing is hot and coppery, filling his mouth in-between his teeth. He knows what it is, somehow. It's the familiar feeling of blood. He can't help but think how wrong it is that he's used to copious amounts of blood but then the jeering fills his ears and the hits don't stop coming and he is finally mercifully gone.
He's gazes at the small white bottle next to the numerous books. He just couldn't understand, he was trying so hard. The cold metal seat dug into him, (would it have killed Sixer to get better seats- no! Don't think about that.) The empty portal is gazing accusingly at him and he just hopes that if he can get it up and running his brother will be waiting on the other side safe and sound. But he's taking too long. It only he wasn't so dumb! The bottle sits and whispers, but he can't give in. He can't, his brother is waiting for him and he'll bring him back even if he's just a corpse by the time he manages to find him. He coming, Poindexter, just hang on.
He holds two squalling babies in his arms. One is swathed in a pink blanket- he doesn't know that pink will be her favorite color and she'll be throwing glitter everywhere coating his home in the cursed stuff. But he wouldn't care, the place would be alive again full of laughing and joking. It'll be full of bright loud sweaters and long brown hair and headbands and 'bling' and giggling from the slumber party upstairs. It'll keep him awake but he just wouldn't care, it's happy.
The other baby is wrapped in a blue blanket- the boy'll grow up to be smart and nerdy reminding him painfully of the one he lost, but the boy will stick with his sibling through thick and thin. He doesn't know that the kid will be braver and tougher then he ever could have imagined, fighting the world to protect his twin. He doesn't know that he'll be so proud of the boy that he'll feel that the buttons on his suit might burst. He doesn't know that he'll see the boy studying for school in summer break and grin sadly because 'how exactly like his brother.' He doesn't know that he'll watch the twins laughing and getting along. He'll smile as bittersweet memories fill his mind.
He is watching the girl and the boy gazing in avid hero worship at his brother. The heavy sting of betrayal settles in he watches they're adoring faces follow his brothers every move. He can't help but feel that he's gone back to being the second twin again. Why settle for second best when the first was right in front of you? But no, he was glad his brother was back, he was thrilled. The sting was back. He sighed, he was definitely jealous.
The wave of weirdness swept toward him and he hid as the sounds outside filled the air. Screaming and burning and cries for help. He stays inside, like the coward he is. The screeching of strange creatures and red light filters in through the closed windows. Where is his brother? Where are the twins? Are they safe? He can only pray they are. The heat and the buzzing of giant mutated flies and three headed birds fill the emptiness. All he feels is that he truly is a coward. Instead of finding his family, he's hiding. But that's what he does best, isn't it? Well, that and running. Besides, they had his brother. They didn't really need him.
He's shoving a pen in his borrowed brother's gloves in a desperate attempt to make his sixth 'finger' look and feel real. This is his last chance to make it all right. To prove to his family that he's worthy of them. To protect them and keep them safe. He won't let anything harm them. He won't remember anything after this, but that's fine. They won't need him. They've never really needed him. They'll realize that soon enough and then they'll finally be happy. Sixer will have his house and his name and his life back. There never really would've been anything for himself after this anyway. He would've been drifting again, homeless and hungry. He'd rather die than go back to that. And in a way, he was. He smiled reassuringly at his twin, "Don't worry, Sixer. Everything will be fine." He knows it will. His twin has always been able to take care of himself when he's not around, hasn't he?
He snaps back to the present and glances at the smiling hopeful faces around him. There's Soos to his right with an arm behind him and he finds that he's scratching Waddles who is smushed next to him in his chair. Dipper and Mabel are perched on the armrests, pressed into his shoulders and looking at him with wide eyes. His brother, Stanford- Ford- is to his left fiddling with his six fingers hopefully. Hopefully. He meets Ford's eyes with recognition and his twin's mouth blossoms into a grin.
And Stanley remembers.