Stan pushed his hood back to get a better look at Ford's place and was immediately grateful for the snowstorm keeping him from getting too good a look. Ford's house was creepy as anything, not to mention the huge "STAY OUT" sign. That probably didn't apply to someone who had been invited, right? Not that it mattered either way; Stan wasn't going to turn back now.
Probably. Stan probably wasn't going to turn back now, but he still found himself hesitating before he knocked on the door. "You haven't seen your brother in over ten years."
He felt something against his left leg, and he turned to look at Cassandra, who had gone up on her hind legs to rest one paw up against Stan's thigh. "It's okay. He's family. He won't bite," Sandy said. The snowflakes clung to her black fur, looking like stars and constellations on a cloudless night, and Stan feels his lips quirk up in spite of himself.
"Oh yeah? What about Cass?" he said.
"Cass is family too, knucklehead," she replied. Sandy gave a fox grin, mischievous and full of needle-sharp teeth. "Besides, I'd like to see her try."
"Yeah, I'll bet you can still take her," Stan agreed, going along with the joke and letting it steel his resolve. They'd been doing this the whole drive up from New Mexico, Stan freaking out about going to see Ford, wondering what his brother could possibly want and why he would have reached out to Stan after all these years, and Sandy keeping him focused and light and hopeful. It was a flip from usual, since normally Stan was the one trying to put a good spin on things while Sandy worried, but maybe it wasn't that surprising. Sandy had been pushing for them to come see Ford and Cass, or at least talk to them on the phone, for years now.
"Alright," Stan said. "Alright." He knocked on the door.
Almost immediately it flung open. "Who is it? Have you come to steal my eyes?" Ford shouted, pointing a crossbow right at Stan's face. At his feet was Cassiopeia, her silver-grey hair fluffed up to its full-length as the cat hissed at Stan and Sandy. Upside, technically no one had actually bitten anyone yet. So there was that.
Really, Stan couldn't stay annoyed at Ford for too long. He and Cass looked bad, worse than Stan and Sandy even maybe, and that was saying something. Whatever crazy thing Ford had gotten up to – drugs? Stan would bet it was drugs. Ford had never been the type for that sort of thing, but he was sure acting like he was strung out on something. And after ten years, Stan wasn't sure he knew what Ford was or wasn't the type for anymore anyway. Still drugs or whatever else, it was clear that something had Ford in a full-blown paranoid panic.
So here was Ford, panicking and in way over his head with something and needing help, and he had called Stan. Here was Ford, saying he didn't know who he could trust anymore, and he had called Stan. That had to mean something, right? Stan just had to help Ford out with his problem here, drugs or whatever it was, and then maybe… but Stan was getting ahead of himself. Sure, it had to mean something that Ford had called Stan. It had to mean something that while Stan and Ford were riding down Ford's elevator – seriously, an actual elevator inside his house – Sandy had sat down next to Cass so close that black fox fur mixed and blended with grey Main Coon fur, and Cass hadn't moved away. But Cass also hadn't leaned into either, and that had to mean something too. So just focus on helping Ford right now, and then take what happened next as it came.
Then they got down to the basement, and Stan realized that he might been in a little over his head too. "There is nothing about this I understand."
"It's a trans-universal gateway, a punched hole through the weak spot in our dimension. I created it to unlock the mysteries of the universe. But it could just as easily harnessed for terrible destruction. That's why I shut it down and hid my journals, which explained how to operate it. There's only one journal left. And you are the only person I can trust to take it. I have something to ask of you: you remember our plans to sail around the world on a boat?" Stan smiled and Sandy's ears pricked up so high in interest she was standing on her hind legs again. "Take this book, get on a boat, and sail as far away as you can! To the edge of the Earth! Bury it where no one can find it!"
Something in Stan broke. Sandy dropped back down to all four legs and snarled at Cass, who took a half-step backwards before hissing right back at Sandy. Stan barely noticed that, barely noticed the words coming out of his own mouth. Stan had come all this way because Ford had summoned him, because Stan thought that meant something, and all Ford wanted was kick Stan right out the door again. Ford cared about some stupid book more than he cared about his own brother, so Stan would destroy the stupid book. Ford, unsurprisingly, did not take too kindly to that plan.
Bright, red hot, searing pain. Stan screamed in agony as his shoulder throbbed in time with his heartbeat. Across the room he could hear Sandy howling as Stan collapsed to the floor.
"Stanley! Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry! Are you alr-" Ford started to say.
Stan didn't want to hear it. He was done with it, all of it. Forget Ford, forget his dumb book and dumb machine and dumb mysteries, forget that Stan ever had a dumb twin brother. Stan took the book and shoved it at Ford. Ford stumbled backwards and started floating up into the air toward the bright light swirling in the middle of his machine.
What.
"Whoa, whoa, hey what's going on? Hey, hey, Stanford-" Stan said.
"Stanford!" Cass screamed behind him. Stan chanced a look back. Cass was pinned to the ground by Sandy, struggling to get away, but Sandy was caught up in her own panic and holding Cass down.
"Cassiopeia! Stanley, help me!" Ford cried, snapping Stan attention back to his brother.
"Oh no, what do I do?"
"Stanley! Stanley! Do something! Stanley!" Ford chucked his book at Stan. Stan just managed to catch it before there was a bright flash of light and he was knocked unconscious.
Stan came to a few seconds later, just in time to see a flash of silver-grey fur streak pass him and up to the machine. "Stanford! Stanford, no! Come back! Come back, Stanford; you can't leave me here without you!" Cass wailed, pawing and scratching at the machine, but nothing happened except the thing powering the rest of the way down.
Part of Stan wanted to do what Cass was doing, to pound at the machine and demand it spit his brother back out. But the sight of Cass there with no Ford to be found on top of everything else was one more thing than Stan could bear, so he just sat there in the ground in shock.
There was a nudge against his hand as Sandy came up to him. Stan wanted to pick her up and hold her close to his chest. He wanted to prove to himself they were both still here, in stark denial of the gruesome, lonesome scene playing out in front of them, but he couldn't make himself move. "Ford ain't really gone, is he?" Sandy whispered. "He can't be, not if Cass is still…"
Somehow the sound caught Cass's ear. She whipped around and stalked up to them, her tail lashing furiously. "He is gone. Stanford's stuck in the Nightmare Realm and it's all your fault. Do you have any idea what you just did?"
Sandy crawled low on her belly toward Cass, ears pressed down against her skull. "Cass, we-"
"You severed us!" Cass shouted.
Stan gagged. He hadn't meant to… He'd learned about severing back in history class; everyone did. Way back when, someone had gotten the idea into their heads a good way to make crazy people more even-tempered was to break their connection with their dæmon, and for a long time it was used as a psychological "treatment." Eventually people realized how sick and twisted it was, and these days severing was only ever used as a highly illegal form of torture. One time a guy had threatened to do it to Stan and Sandy. Stan didn't know if the guy would have ever followed through on it or not, but just the threat had Stan, for the first and only time, going to the cops. It meant eighteen months in prison and a bunch of community service Stan had never bothered showing up for, 'fessing up to his part in everything, but it got the guy threatening Stan twenty-five to life, so it was worth it. If Stan had gotten twenty-five to life it still would have been worth it, to keep him and Sandy safe from severing. And Stan had done that to his own brother.
Sandy rolled over on her back and tried to lick at Cass's muzzle, but that only got her hissed at. "We didn't mean to do it. It was an accident," Sandy whined.
"It wasn't an accident; you held me down," Cass snapped. "I was trying to get to Ford and you held me down. Why couldn't you just let me go? Why can't you ever let us go?"
"I didn't mean to, I swear I did mean to. I was just scared. Ford was flying into that machine and we didn't know what was happening to him and I couldn't let you go. Because when we let you go, you leave us behind," Sandy said.
"Well now I'm left behind with you. Now Ford and I are severed and we're going to fade away until Ford dies and I disappear into nothing. Is that what you wanted? Are you two happy now?" Cass demanded, her voice choked and cracking.
"We'll fix it," Stan said softly, then again, louder and surer. "We'll fix it. You know how this machine works, right Cass? You tell me what to do, and I'll get it running again so we can pull Ford back out. Then everything will be alright." It wouldn't be really, Stan knew. You couldn't un-sever someone after it happened; what's done was done. But if they could get Ford and Cass back together physically at least, then that was supposed to keep them from fading out and dying. It wasn't ever going to be alright, but they would still be alive, and that was something anyway.
"We can't! Every time the portal is activated we run the risk of bringing about the end of the world as we know it," Cass said.
"Jeez, what the heck were you two doing down here anyway?" Stan said. "Don't answer that. Look, I don't know anything about trans-universal portals or whatever, and I don't care. All I care about is you said Ford was in some place called the Nightmare Realm and that can't be good. All I care about is if we don't get Ford back the both of you are going to die, and I won't let that happen. It's my fault he fell through, and I'm going to save him."
"Ford wouldn't want to be saved if it meant re-opening the portal. We would willingly die if that's what it takes to keep it shut and keep the world safe," Cass insisted.
"Well too bad. Ford ain't here, so he doesn't get a vote, which means it's two against one. Me and Sandy are going to bring Ford back. If that means the end of the world, then we'll deal with it when it happens," Stan said. He stood up and crossed his arms, and Sandy came to stand at his heels, both of them glaring challengingly at Cass.
Cass lashed her tail twice. "Why do you always have to be so stubborn?"
"Just born that way, I guess," Stan said.
"Ford's our family," Sandy added. "We'll always have his back, even if he hates us."
Cass looked back and forth between the two of them for a minute, then deflated. "Just promise me one thing? After we die, promise you'll take the journal away like Ford asked you to."
"Not going to happen," Stan said. "I'm not letting you die."
"I thought you'd say that." Cass walked toward the basement entrance, pausing briefly to press her nose into Sandy's side. "We don't hate you," she whispered, then she was gone.
Stan turned to Sandy. "C'mon. Let's get to work."