this chapter was originally a bit longer, but quality over quantity, right?

i hope this was worth five months of waiting


"Ah-ha, Perry the platypus! You have fallen prey to... Agh. No, no, this isn't working at all."

Norm watched the script fall to the floor, its pages splaying open to reveal lines of Courier New text typed up in the wee hours of the morning. His Father (no, no, creator, it was only creator) gave it a contemptuous glare before turning to the window and gazing out into the day.

Norm leaned over and picked up the script, thumbing through it in a fruitless search for the source of the doctor's anger. "Sir? Would you like some help rehearsing your lines?"

Dr. Doofenshmirtz waved his hand dismissively. "No... it's no use, Norm. He's not coming anyway."

He meandered over to the couch, and as he switched on the television, Norm returned his attention to the script. It started as they all did; the greeting, the trap, the invention... but somewhere around the third page it stopped being so typical. There were paragraphs upon paragraphs of monologue, and yet... it wasn't a backstory. It wasn't even an explanation. It seemed more like an apology, a long-winded speech on how he was touched more than anything that Perry had even bothered to show... and beyond that it ceased being a script altogether. It read more like a diary entry, a melancholy rendition of the events of the past few weeks, events Norm had only the vaguest knowledge about.

"Sir?"

Heinz heaved a dramatic sigh and didn't even bother looking back. "What, Norm?"

"Did somebody die?"

From out in the heart of the city came a scream; it was closely followed by a wailing car alarm and a barking dog. An agent at work, Norm thought.

Heinz turned to his side and hooked one arm around the back of the couch. "How did you...?" He trailed off as his eyes found the script. There was an intense sadness about him, Norm saw; something beyond the usual depression. Something darker.

"I'm sure it wasn't your fault, sir. You'd never kill anyone. You won't even kill Perry the platypus!"

Heinz flinched back as though he'd been stung. His hands were visibly shaking as he struggled for a response, and the thought suddenly occurred to Norm that perhaps Perry had died - but it was quickly dismissed. If Perry the platypus had met with an unfortunate fate, Dr. Doofenshmirtz would have not only spoken of it, but he probably would have kept the body for himself and pretended it was still alive. Norm knew insanity was really just a platypus away for his Father.

"In other news, local authorities have identified the culprit in the case of Buford van Stomm and Baljeet Tjinder, who were both brutally attacked just days ago in our own backyard." Pictures of the boys in question flashed across the screen as Heinz and Norm both turned to look.

"Do we... do we know them?" The way Heinz asked the question made it seem rhetorical, yet Norm still studied their faces for an answer. They did seem a little familiar... especially the larger one with the underbite.

"The only witness to the crime was interviewed earlier today, and it appears that a local bear is to blame."

The bar along the bottom of the screen read Phineas Flynn, Witness to Bear Attack. Norm watched as Heinz sat up in alarm, then fumbled for the remote so the volume could be raised. This boy he knew.

"Oh, man, it was awful," said Phineas as the wind whipped at his hair and the over-sized sweater he wore. Perry the platypus was in his arms and either half asleep or shutting his eyes against the breeze. "I've never even seen a bear outside of the zoo, and then... it was just there. I didn't even have time to react. In fact, if it wasn't for Perry here... he's a tough little guy!"

For having apparently fought a bear, Perry the platypus looked pretty good, Norm thought. He almost relayed this out loud, but that was when Heinz spoke, his voice filled with equal parts awe and fear.

"Phineas, what did you do?"


Ferb emerged from under his bed with a frustrated sigh. He'd known the wrench wouldn't be there, but he had to make sure - Phineas managed to leave his things in all manner of places, especially when Ferb wasn't around to pick up after him.

The clutter of their bedroom was a nightmare to search through. It was all clothing and crumpled papers, signs of Phineas's sleepless nights and chaotic days; it was apparent that no one else had dared set foot inside within the past month. And why would they? Anything Phineas even touched was off limits. He was a bomb with the clock disabled, able to blow at the slightest provocation.

Ferb had noticed his own clothes had been picked up and moved; he wondered, for a moment, how bad the fallout had been. He'd never seen Phineas blow up before, but based on the things he heard whispered between his parents, his brother had erupted on more than one occasion after the funeral. And of course there was the matter of the day of the accident...

"How can you be okay with this?" Mum asked, her voice thick and wavering, her eyes no-doubt filled with tears. "Lawrence, that isn't..."

"It is," Dad said. "I know my son, darling. And you know yours. This can't be too much of a shock, can it? Don't you remember what he said? 'I can fix it, I can fix it,' over and over..."

"While he tried to kick you!"

"He was upset. We all were. But he did say he could fix it. Screamed it, really. He was rather serious about it."

"That doesn't make it okay!"

Dad had sighed, but it was still with that loving patience he was so filled with, and Ferb imagined him grabbing his mother by the shoulders and smiling at her as he spoke. "Forget right and wrong, Linda. This is just our boys. This is what they do. Could we ask anything less of them?"

Ferb shook his head and lifted himself up to his feet. The conversation had unsettled him, and he wished he hadn't heard it; he had only been on his way to the bathroom and hadn't intended to eavesdrop. It was the first time he'd heard Mum speak in days... it was fitting, he supposed, that it was to decry what had been done to him. She seemed to be having the most trouble with it. And hadn't she always? If Candace had ever been able to actually bust them...

No, there was no time for that; he had a wrench to find.

He was digging through a pile on his brother's bed when it finally occurred to him to use the optic. It just wasn't something that came to him naturally. He still thought of having two eyes, never really focused hard enough to notice the difference - but he knew it was there. Phineas had gone over every detail with him, had gushed about the tech behind it and how it was made to see things the human eye couldn't dream of seeing. All he had to do was focus, and the optic would take care of the rest.

Ferb looked around the room as if to make sure he wasn't being watched. A large part of him feared all that Phineas had done, and to use it... He had almost killed one of his best friends by using his new arm. Even if the optic was harmless, it seemed like a betrayal of sorts, as though he were accepting what had been done to his body. He wasn't sure he could ever get that far. It was too much, too terrifying; every night was filled with contemplation and self-loathing that all orbited his mechanics.

Still... he could use the optic.

The hum in his head was imperceptible outside of his skull and maddening all the same. He would get used to it, surely, would grow to expect it; now, frightened though he was, he gripped his head in his hands and closed his eye firmly. This was wrong. It was so wrong, so much, and for a moment he felt the weight of his situation bearing down upon him as it had when he first realized what had happened -

And then he saw the wrench.

With a tiny sigh of pure delight, Ferb jumped over the piles on the floor and made his way to the desk. The wrench was just slightly buried under crumpled papers, and were it not for the optic, he would never have noticed its glimmer in all the gloom. It looked so beautiful to him as he lifted it to his face and inspected its details. It was the special one - the one with Phineas's name etched on the side. His favorite tool. Ferb had given it to him for his sixteenth birthday.

There was a paper on the desk that had been written on. Ferb noticed it only after he had begun to pull away, all ready to go deliver the wrench to his brother. His optic made a tiny click-click sound as it refocused twice.

His name was in the first line.

Curious now, Ferb set the wrench down and pulled the paper out from under the pile of failed successors that had been balled up and left to rot. The letters were shaky, and the paper was stained with tears; it hurt to look at as soon as he noticed. He could see Phineas in his mind, sitting alone in their shared bedroom, scrawling his messy letters as a fresh wave of sobbing overtook him. The pain must have been unbearable. And he had tried to let some of it out by...

...writing a song?

Ferb narrowed his eye as the humming started up again.

Ferb, my brother, my bestest best friend

The other day I watched you meet your end

They assure me you are meant to ascend

But this is a problem I swear I will mend

Cross my heart and hope to die

Stick a rebar in your eye

It stopped after that, though Ferb could see erased words crossing over one another below, and he was sure every other paper was much the same - Phineas was trying to make a song. Or he had been, anyway, before his real work started. After that...

Ferb set the paper down and rubbed his temples with an agonized groan. He felt like screaming. At every turn, there was just another reminder, more proof that this was all happening for real and he wasn't just having the worst nightmare in the world. He just wanted to wake up. Each day that had passed since his... resurrection... had been worse than the last in a variety of different ways. If only he could just wake up.

A chatter at the door caught Ferb's attention, and he turned away from the desk and the horrible papers to find Perry watching him with his usual placid expression.

Ferb narrowed his eyes.

"You have a lot of nerve pretending everything is the same," he said. "I know what you did."

Perry chattered again and waddled into the room, his tail dragging on the floor behind him.

With a sigh, Ferb seated himself at the desk chair and watched Perry clamber onto Phineas's bed and make himself comfortable in the mess. He was nesting - a very normal thing for him to do. But things weren't normal, and Perry knew they weren't normal, and Ferb knew that Perry knew.

"You kicked me."

Perry plopped down in his makeshift nest and blinked.

"Right in the middle of the chest. While I was attacking. Phineas told me you did."

Perry twitched, then pulled his head back and scratched his cheek with his back foot.

"Maybe Phineas was imagining things," Ferb said to himself as he rubbed his forehead with the palm of his hand. "Maybe he's that fucking insane now." It felt bad to say it out loud. He wasn't sure why he did; it was a thought he could have kept in his mind, with so many other things. Maybe he was trying to get a rise out of Perry. There had to be something in there that was smarter than he let on; how else could he have known where to hit? Ferb couldn't remember the action itself, but he did remember waking up with Perry panting on top of him, obviously afraid and looking directly in front of his face for once.

Now, Perry was blank, his eyes carefully watching two different walls. This is pointless, Ferb thought.

"C'mon, I have to give Phineas his wrench." Ferb stood up and stretched his back, then retrieved the tool from its place on the desk and took a step towards the door.

His mind, so fractured in the wake of the accident, kicked into gear at the sight of the wrench; he had picked it up, then set it down again because... because he had seen the song. Yes, the song, the thing he was agonizing over before Perry came back in. If he left it behind, Phineas could see it and remember...

Ferb used his metal hand to snatch the paper up and crumple it into a ball. He would take it with him to the kitchen and put it in the trash there - he couldn't take any chances.

He was afraid of what he would do if he heard those lyrics out loud.


"Just set it on the counter, thanks."

Ferb set the wrench down beside the sink - an installation Phineas had made after the accident - and walked behind his brother to see what he was doing. He'd noticed the laptop in the shed before, but he'd never actually seen Phineas using it; now he was typing away in a program Ferb didn't recognize, making split-second calculations and notes all over the screen. Ferb put his hands on Phineas's shoulders and leaned against him.

"Whatcha doin'?"

Phineas surprised him by laughing.

"I'm just getting some things ready," Phineas said without looking back. "Can you lay on the table for me?"

Ferb tightened his fingers on Phineas's bony shoulders, then relaxed, afraid his metal hand might leave bruises. "Why? I thought you wanted to... use your wrench on something. I don't really have anything that needs tightening." He was nervous now; he hated when Phineas so much as refilled his tank. He didn't want more prodding and probing.

"I just wanted to have it; I don't need it right now." Phineas stopped typing, his eyes whizzing across the page, and then he turned around and looked Ferb in the eye. Ferb dropped his hands down to his sides and tried to not look awkward. "What I need right now is for you to lay down. Just trust me, okay? I have some things I need to attend to. I don't want... We don't want another accident. Do we?"

With a heavy sigh, Ferb shook his head and looked down at the floor. He felt like a puppy that had pissed on the carpet. He couldn't help it, hadn't been in control, but still he felt horrible... and he had every right to! His 'accident' had left two of his best friends clinging to life in hospital beds. He couldn't even go visit them to apologize. And here was Phineas, about to strap a doggie diaper on him so he wouldn't do it again. Or something to that effect.

And really, he had no choice but to comply.

The table was just as cold and hard as it had been before. Ferb tried to relax as Phineas bustled about beside him, but it was difficult; his entire life had changed on this table. His body had been pieced together like a gruesome puzzle on this table. He hated it, wished he could smash it to pieces - but that sort of thought was dangerous. After what had happened, Ferb knew he very well might jump up and just do it. His anger was suddenly a very real,very destructive force.

Phineas appeared in his field of view with thick black straps in his hands. "I'm gonna have to tie you down, dude. You know... just in case."

Ferb swallowed hard and made an attempt to nod. He wasn't sure if he was supposed to be afraid or turned on.

Over the years, he had mastered the art of redirection to cope with such things. As Phineas leaned over and began to strap him down, Ferb thought about the roof; it looked like it could use some repairs. It wasn't leaking yet, but it was certainly on its way with all the rain that had been happening. And there was such fragile machinery in the shed... some of it wouldn't survive if it got wet. They might have to rebuild things and that would take time. He would fix the roof before then. Maybe Phineas would help. Oh, who was he kidding; of course Phineas would help. And if it was a warmer day maybe he would take his shirt off -

No! No, none of that. Wrong train of thought. Ferb mentally berated himself before moving onto the tools he would need. A ladder, of course, and a hammer -

"That should do it," said Phineas, and Ferb was instantly focused on him again. "I hope, anyway... I'm gonna need some stronger ties. Try not to kill me, okay?" He was smiling, and Ferb couldn't find it in himself to smile back. Phineas didn't seem to notice how terrified he looked. Then again, Phineas didn't notice a lot of stuff; that was part of the problem, wasn't it? The way he just smiled at terrible things. Things that could kill him in an instant.

Ferb took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Relax, he thought. Just let him do his thing.

Phineas moved to the top of the table and gently lifted Ferb's head; within a few seconds, Ferb was feeling the horrible pressure of being opened, and it took all of his willpower to keep from shuddering as a cable was plugged into his head. Of course it was his brain Phineas was focusing on. It couldn't just be his arm, or his heart, it had to be his brain. He dreaded to think of how much had become cybernetic. In his peripheral vision he could see Phineas go to his laptop, and Ferb knew now that the program was Phineas's own design, something tailored to his project that had no-doubt been used to write codes and sequences currently at work inside of Ferb's head.

"Now that you're all hooked up, I'll tell you a bit about what I'm doing," Phineas said as he began typing away. "I've been brainstorming a lot of things and I'm pretty sure this all has something to do with your inhibitions."

Ferb arched an eyebrow, knowing it wouldn't be seen but feeling the need to do it anyway.

"So what I'm gonna do is shut them off completely and see if anything changes. I'm pretty sure I did it right, but there's a chance you have some kind of glitch in there that's making them not function..."

Since he wasn't looking, Phineas didn't notice the way Ferb's eye shot wide open, or the way he was shaking as he said, "Could you not? I need those."

Phineas laughed as typed in a few final things. "It'll be okay, Ferb, I'll turn them back on. I just have to see if they're functioning properly, if anything changes without them." He moved to press the enter key, then paused, his head tilted. "But... why are you worried? Are you afraid of what you'll say?" He hit the key as soon as he'd said it, then looked back and waited for a response.

He didn't have to wait long.

"I'm afraid I'm going to actually hurt you," Ferb said in a rush, his eye pleading. "I'm afraid I'll rip off these straps and leap across the room and tear you apart. And I'm afraid I'll come onto you, or maybe I'll just jump up and start humping you. I don't know. You look so gorgeous, Phineas, I don't know what I might do. I wouldn't have the presence of mind to hold myself back like I have been. I just want to kiss you. I want to grab you by the hair and kiss you. What if I do that? What if you hate me? My inhibitions have been the only thing keeping me restrained. You can't take that from me."

Phineas leaned against the counter, his eyes wide. His heart was beating faster now than it had when Ferb had attacked their friends.

"Why are you looking at me like that?"

For once completely speechless, Phineas could only shake his head as he turned back to the computer and typed in a new command. It suddenly felt much too hot in the shed, and he wanted to leave, but he knew he couldn't - he had to tend to Ferb. Ferb came before everything. Ferb was his best friend, Ferb was his greatest invention, Ferb was...

Madly in love with him.

Phineas hit the enter key a little too hard, then pulled his hand back and rubbed at his neck.

It took Ferb a few moments to gather his thoughts, and when he did, it felt like his stomach twisted itself through a narrow tube and fell into his intestines. The fear was akin to how he felt the last time he'd been on this table, and in that moment he wished Phineas had never brought him back.

"Oh God," he said, his voice weak.

And there it was again. The pain, deep in his head, where metal met bone and computer chips melded with brain matter. It came in waves; first they were gentle, and then they came harder, faster, and Ferb groaned as Phineas moved to his side and reached for the cables.

"Ferb? Look, we can talk about this - "

A wave of electricity brought the blackness with it, and he went under, down into the nothing.


Candace hesitated in front of the door, just as afraid now as she had been in the past. Only this time... she knew what she would find.

It was hard to not feel worried about the both of them; they were still her brothers, even if one was insane and the other was dead. Even in the wake of the attack she felt so much love for them. She hated it; she wanted to be furious, wanted to be in the front lines of the growing war against them. But... they had technically been busted already. Her drive to do anything had been taken from her.

Just as she reached for the handle, the door flew open, and she found herself face-to-face with Ferb.

He didn't spare her a second glance as he weaved around her, and she watched him charge the fence before leaping impossibly high and clearing it. She didn't even have a chance to react before Phineas was at her side.

"Ferb! Come back!" Candace couldn't help but frown at him; he sounded like he was calling for Perry. "Ferb, we can talk about this!"

"What just happened?" she asked, her voice wavering.

Phineas sighed and crossed his arms over his chest. "He... he told me some stuff, and then he flipped out. I thought he was... I thought... He was acting like he did before he attacked. But he just ran away."

Against her better judgement, Candace reached out and put a hand on Phineas's shoulder. He looked at her as though she were a stranger... but then seemed to relax, and she could see her brother in his eyes.

"Just give him some time," she said. "I'm sure he'll come back on his own."

Great. Now she was talking like he was Perry. She wished he was; a runaway platypus was much easier to deal with.

Phineas looked over the fence with his lips drawn in a straight line. Candace knew that look, and was sure he was going to go after Ferb; nothing she said could stop it. She briefly considered joining him... then drew back from the idea. Not only was this their thing, but she still couldn't so much as talk to Ferb directly.

He scared her.