He runs, stumbles and staggers, then runs again, through the streets, atop the stairs, in the very tallest building of the town. He drops off his burden on the floor, his fingers perfectly steady and precise as they undo the clasps of the case, much unlike his laboured, shaky breaths. The black metal of the gun shines in the surreal glow of the environment, the comforting weight of the weapon settles neatly on his shoulder with a practiced gesture. It clicks, hums and flashes as the shot charges, almost soothingly so with the familiar procedure he knows by heart and he engineered himself. He exhales, he rests the barrel of the weapon on the window sill, he aligns his eye with the gun sight. He aims at his target, sharply visible despite the chromatic chaos of the world. He grits his teeth, whispering to himself, steeling his entire body for the recoil of the shot. He pulls the trigger.
He misses. He doesn't have time to even begin to process the devastating consequences of his mistake because the next thing he knows, the entire world crumbles around him, literally and metaphorically. The next thing he knows, he's buried in debris, ridicule, and pain. Lots of pain. The next thing he knows, he's shuddering uncontrollably on a floor that is as dark and cold as his mind, inhaling the suffocating smell of his own singed clothes and hair, tasting the stinging flavor of his own blood. At regular intervals electrons rush through every fiber and tissue of his body with excruciating speed, burning cells, disrupting synapses, triggering spasms. He screams, seizes, drools, heaves, breaks and lies, with the constant background noise of the triangle's giggles. He crawls onto his knees between pained gasps, reaching in his coat to grasp the small object poking at his chest through his pocket. He stands up, aims the memory gun at the eye, shoots. The flash bounces off the pupil as if it's made of glass. He shoots and shoots, each gleam just as ineffective as the previous ones, each flare eliciting more infuriating snickers, more shrill laughs, more noisy cackles. He folds on himself, completely and utterly overwhelmed, he clasps his palms over his ears and turns away, childishly trying to erase the monster from his world just by shutting him out.
The noise ceases. The sudden silence and stillness of the air shock him nearly as much as electricity did. He opens his eyes, and sees a man standing a few feet away from him. A man with his clothes, his face, and an utterly void and emotionless expression. Ford takes a few steps towards him before stopping and raising the gun. He shoots, not for a second, not on a whim, but for minutes, with resolve and patience, watching as the light engulfs his twin's features, melting him away piece by piece, thought by thought. When he releases the trigger, ages later, nothing has changed, the man wears the same empty expression as before. Ford walks up to him, drops the gun, clenches his fist, and punches him.
The man stumbles backwards, head turned to one side from the force of the blow, and does nothing. His body is slightly sagging to one side, resembling more a dull mannequin than a conscious human being. He punches him again, and this time he grabs him by his lapel to keep him within arm's reach, and hits again. He doesn't stop. His fist flies forwards and backwards repeatedly, until his knuckles hurt from the harsh impacts with his twin's cheekbones, until warm blood is trickling through his clenched fingers. There is no reaction from the other man, only the elastic bouncing of his head from side to side after each blow, as if he was made of rubber, yet it is not rubber that makes that wet, crunchy sound when his nose creaks out of place. Ford strikes and strikes, until he nearly runs out of breath, until the other man's legs suddenly give out and he crumbles to the floor on his hands and knees.
Ford kneels down as well and takes a few deep breaths, calmly. Calmly, he grabs his brother by his short hair and smashes his forehead against the floor. Once. Twice. Again. Unlike his previous punches, there is a rhythm to his hits now, an even, mechanical sequence of identical gestures that don't really make him tired, don't really require any emotional involvement. It just keep happening, the shiny stain on the dark floor just keeps growing, his arm just keeps moving. Nothing can quite ruin the soothing regularity of those motions, the consistent thumping echoing around them, only occasionally tainted by the sharp sound of a cracked bone-
Ford's eyes snapped open suddenly, and for a moment he was only aware of the blood rumbling in his ears, of the short breath and quick pulse weighing on his chest, of the rough sheets tightly crumpled in his fist. The cool, dim light of the Arctic white night filtered from the porthole, casting a faint glow on the silhouettes of the tight bedroom, hosting countless relics, tools and whatnots shoved, stacked and hung in every available nook and cranny. He unclenched his fist with a snappy gesture, then he run his palm over his face, peeling the remnants of the dream off his skin. He took a few moments to steady his breath, then he sat up and climbed down the ladder soundlessly. Stanley was sleeping undisturbed in the lower bunk, still huddled fully on the side of the bed furthest from the wall - Ford's side, since he usually woke up first. Ford had found his access to the bed unsurprisingly blocked the evening before, surely a childish retaliation on Stan's part after the day's argument. Ford was well above such sorts of petty revenge and he had simply slipped in his own bunk without raising an eyebrow.
He went to the bathroom and splashed some water on his face, his mind clearing by the second. What had the argument even been about? Some- some insignificant discussion about a broken piece of equipment Stan was in charge of maintaining, which he obviously had not maintained according to Ford's precise instructions. Unsurprisingly, Ford had blithely added, considering Stan's scarce attitude for thorough maintenance, his wrecked portal a testimony of that. And that had rapidly snowballed into a snappy trade of blows and insults about- about too many familiar topics.
Ford sighed, drying his hands on the towel. For the first time in decades, he was completely, reasonably sure that his dreams were only just dreams. No thinly veiled outerwordly threats, no outright torture sessions, no ominous possession attempts. Just restless synapses firing blanks. Yet, he couldn't bring himself to dismiss them as easily as he would have in his youth. In that particular instance, it didn't take 12 PhDs to make a reasonable guess at the source of that bout of oneiric violence. Still, Ford would have hoped that his mind didn't need to remind him of how much he used to hate his brother at any available occasion.
He supposed he should just give it time. Things had already improved between them, considerably so, if one didn't stop to think too hard about the peculiar form their closeness had taken. They still hit some rocky patches now and then, but overall they had little to complain - albeit they always did so quite vocally. Ford walked back to the bedroom and moved to climb into his bunk again, when something brushed against his knee, so softly that it could have almost been casually. Stan shuffled under the sheets briefly, freeing up Ford's space and rolling on his side to face the wall wordlessly.
Ford considered it, and considered repaying his brother with the same childish denial he had received. He didn't consider it for long. Wordlessly, he slipped under the covers, adjusting himself as comfortably as he could in the tight mattress, back to back with Stanley. His mind lingered on on the last shreds of the dream for a moment, then on the broken component he'd have to buy at the first port, then on the bigger bed they'd also have to buy before crippling their backs permanently, then his thoughts melt with the warmth seeping from the mattress beneath.
