Ford's bedroom was, frankly, a complete mess. It looked worse than the rest of the house. A war zone compacted into its own room. There were a few things still shattered on the ground and the bed was covered in all kinds of objects; books, lamps, odd devices. There didn't seem to be any pattern to the things weighing the bed down, but it all felt as purposeful as the locks installed on the front door.
"Okay, seriously, when was the last time you actually slept." Stan commented, moving over to the bed and grabbing an arm full of the stuff off the bed to set it on the ground nearby.
"It's hard to tell." Ford went to simply grab the top blanket and pulled it off with everything on top of it crashing to the ground in a cacophony of thuds and clanks. Once everything had settled he pulled the blanket up until it freed itself from the different objects still trapping it and haphazardly set it on the bed.
Stan looked at everything on the ground now and dropped what he had in his arms, letting it fall onto the edge of the pile. It took a little bit of effort to pull out a chair by the desk, oddly one of the cleanest parts of the room, but then again knowing his brother, not that surprising. Once he had pulled it out and set it down again near the bed he noticed Ford still standing there looking over the bed uneasily. "Ford, come on. It's a bed, it's not gonna bite."
"Right… right…" He finally went to lay on the bed, not getting under any of the covers or taking off his coat... or even his boots. He laid on his back, looking up to the ceiling and placing his hands over his chest, interlacing his fingers.
Stan sat down in the chair with a sigh, glancing over the room.
"Remember what I said."
He questioningly looked back at Ford who still stared up at the ceiling, a bit nervous maybe a bit determined, it was actually hard to tell what but there was a mix of emotions. Already though, his breathing was slowing and his body slumped into the bed.
"Right, no 'sleepwalking.'" Stan said, putting up air quotes with his fingers even despite his only audience not looking his way. Although, he really couldn't find it in himself to try and press on whatever 'sleepwalking' actually meant now. A question that would probably be easier answered when the other had had some rest.
Ford nodded his head, his eyes closing. He looked instantly asleep. Stan imagined he probably was too.
After an hour passed Stan got bored and decided to actually look around the room. It's not like Ford was going to wake up anyways, and hey he'd be cleaning up so it's not like Ford could necessarily be MAD at him or anything, right? Classic good brotherly move.
He started with the pile now surrounding the bed and his chair, actually moving it out of the way and up against a wall. He stacked the books, quickly glancing at the titles. To his disappointment, nothing besides boring textbooks and nerdy manuals or whatever. He wasn't that sure exactly. After the first few words of 'quantum third degree calculus of-' he lost interest to even finish reading the title. Eventually, he stopped even glancing at the titles. After he went through the books he just piled up all the other objects up against the tower of books. More interesting stuff, but he didn't know what most of it was, so it was just about as productive as going through the books had been.
The rest of the room didn't go much better. He found a few things. A half emptied bottle of scotch. Two piles of clothes, one clean, one dirty. A discarded shirt with some worrisome reddish brown stains, obviously dried blood and a lot of it, which he tossed onto the dirty pile. Shattered glass. A mirror that had been covered up. Then finally, scrawled notes that he couldn't understand. Everything was in a disarray, but nothing noteworthy outside of that. He spent a good twenty minutes trying to read the notes or find some that made SENSE, but either they had equations on them or it was in some coded message which he couldn't figure out.
So he sat down, leaning back in the chair and waited. Stan kept himself amused with taking some of the blank papers, which were what mostly littered the desk, then folding them and flicking them between his fingers, trying to hit different goals like the poster of some mustached nerd on the wall.
This went on for maybe another hour before he ran out of paper that was either blank or didn't look important. Folded paper triangles now littered a few spots of the room, but hey, easy mess to clean up anyways. Stan zoned out after a while, going half asleep himself, though never actually let himself fully drift off. Even if he hadn't been a bit on edge about whatever it was Ford had gotten himself into, he still knew it wouldn't exactly be good if Ford woke up and he was out cold. Literally. This place was absolutely freezing, made it hard to fall asleep even if he wanted to.
After four hours he had become resigned to sitting in the chair, leaning it back, with his hands stuffed into his coat pockets. Who knew how long Ford would sleep for? At least 8 hours. Definitely longer though. After all, he was sleep deprived. So, you know, probably 10 hours, maybe even 12 or 14.
Then, Ford shifted on the bed.
Or you know…. A really packed 4 hour power nap, Stan guessed. He watched Ford, keeping quiet out of the possibility he hadn't broken out of his thus far dead sleep.
However, Ford's eyes opened and he blinked a few times, grinning as he sat up.
Oh, yeah no, that didn't look weird at all. "Uhh, trouble sleeping?" Stan asked.
Ford actually looked over to Stan now, and there was a slight pause before he swung his legs over the side of the bed and faced him. "Oh, hey! Didn't think I'd be seeing you."
Stan replied, cross his arms. "Well, yeah, did you honestly expect me to leave?"
The other continued looking at him and shrugged. "Hey, can'ya blame me? Wouldn't be the first time you've done that." It was- well, despite the wording it was surprisingly not a bitter accusation. The comment rolled off of his tongue with a pleasant note. Which was way off. He stood up from the bed, and Stan let his chair fall back down onto all fours and got up himself.
"Why don't you go back to bed, Ford. You didn't even get a full rest." Stan said, only a bit irritated at the jab. He actually wanted to be a bit more upset about it because of the sore subject. The way he had said it though was unsettling enough to throw off a proper reaction for now.
He hummed, as if in contemplation, glancing into a corner of the room, even dropping the grin. Then he looked back up at Stan again, "Nope!"
"Did- Didn't you want to actually try and get some rest?" Stan questioned.
He shrugged his shoulders and stepped around Stanley with a grin, heading towards the door. "I guess I changed my mind!" He said tapping the side of his head and glancing back over his shoulder at him. Stan could have sworn that there was a yellow tinted sheen over his eye, for just that moment.
Some weird trick of the light, he figured. There was a lot of reflections of light from glinting glass and metal. That didn't really help the creep of caution to the atmosphere when combined with the odd behavior though. He brushed it off for the time being, following after Ford as he went through the door and started down the hallway. He kept with him, admittedly not sure what to say or even feel. The whole thing was weird, he knew that much. Ford only had a few hours of sleep and he had seemed completely out, but then he just woke up out of the blue, acting worse if that was even possible.
Ford practically fell down the steps, letting gravity do most of the work, laughing a bit as he reached the bottom. "Ha, no dizziness. How long ago did I fall asleep, brother?"
There was a spark of frustration, something to go off of. "Barely a few hours which is why I said-"
"Haha! Man, you ever realize how much your body needs sleep? Such a waste of time, but try to avoid it and all your tiny nerves and cells go haywire!"
Okay, he was definitely frustrated. "Right," Stan started, tensely, "and you need to go back tosleep."
Ford waved a hand, continuing on his way and heading rather clearly towards the basement door. "Sure, sure, I'll go back to sleep, but I just got one little errand to run first."
As he started reaching for the paneling, Stan grabbed onto his shoulders and pulled him back. "Hey! Keeping out of the basement, remember? You didn't want to go down there."
At this Ford frowned for the first time, seeming upset, but it passed by almost instantly. "I don't get this chance all the time, buddy. I'm gonna make use of it while I've got it."
"What chance?"
There was a pause and then Ford smiled, wrinkling up his eyes, one then the other. He put an arm around Stan's shoulders. "Why, the chance to show my brother what I've got going on downstairs, of course!"
Stan was taken aback by the first actual positive contact he'd gotten from Ford since he'd arrived. Actually, come to think of it, it was the first physical contact he'd willingly made with Stan at all in over 12 years, not counting the incident at the front door, of course. He blinked a few times, looking over at Ford who continued smiling at him, waiting expectantly. When he didn't respond, Ford continued, hugging him just a bit closer. "I mean, you haven't seen it yet, right. Aren't you a little curious?"
He hesitated. "I haven't… but you said it was dangerous and you didn't really want to show me before."
"Ah, come on, this is my project. I know exactly what it will do. I helped make this baby and everything! Besides, I want to show you now, so who cares about before!" Then he added, the cheerful tone dropping to slyly add, "and be honest... do you really think I was in the best state before?"
"Well, no, but-"
"Exactly!" The cheerful tone was back again. "So, you can just forget whatever came out of this meat sack before and go downstairs with me!" He took his arm off of Stan, putting both arms at his side nonchalantly. "Hell, I'll even let you pull a lever! Doesn't that sound fun?"
Stan took a breath and put his hands up. "Okay," he said slowly, lowering his hands again, "okay. I'm taking you back up to bed."
He frowned. "...Why?"
Stan couldn't help feeling just a slight edge of his nerves at the question, gesturing at Ford sharply. "Because you're acting like you don't have a damn care in the world and before you went to sleep you looked like you were suspicious of even the damn woodwork itself! You're actually worse now than before you went to bed. Something is up and you're just acting like everything's okay! For fuck's sake, Ford, you're even acting like-" Stan groaned and ran a hand over his face. Ford was actually smiling at him, and sure it was creepy. Actually, the whole way he was acting since he woke up was really damn creepy. Even still though, it was lacking the underlying bitter resentment in the air coming off of him since even the phone call. Stan wasn't an idiot either, he knew what it was about. His brother wasn't anywhere even close to forgiving him for what happened over thirteen years ago. So for that resentment to be missing like it didn't even happen...
"Ugh! Whatever," he said, brushing it off. He grabbed Ford's arm and began to pull him back with him as he walked, "you can just sleep it off until your brain's stopped being so fried."
"Woah," Ford laughed a bit uncomfortably, "now, come on, don't you want to see what's downstairs?" He tried, lightly tugging back against the pull, testing it out.
"Big hunk of metal with glowing lights, right? I don't gotta see it right now." Stan dismissed. He just wanted his brother to go back to sleep again and wake up over whatever this was. Back to his resentful self, like he should be.
"It's- haha, you know what," Ford scoffed halfheartedly, "you're right! What was I thinking?" He bopped the side of his head for effect. "There's no reason to take you downstairs to see the portal, that must have been why I didn't show it to you before."
His mind paused on that a bit and he looked back to Ford. He couldn't help feeling like an opportunity had just slipped him by. Sure, his brother was out of his own head right now, but would he even be willing to show him when he was fully rested. All he could get before were bare answers, if any at all, and not one of them nearly enough to actually understand the situation.
Ford spoke up again, looking aside with a slightly saddened look, the appearance of it marred by the upward curl of his lips even now. "You probably don't even want to see it." Like a foot casually pressed into a closing door to stop it from shutting completely.
"I do want to see it." Stan replied quickly. He cleared his throat. "I uhh, I just thought you didn't actually wanna show me." Ford didn't, of course, he knew that. Stan just wanted some answers though. He couldn't help if Ford kept shutting him out from any possible explanation.
Ford grinned at him, almost victoriously, and grabbed his hand pulling the other back with him towards the door. "Of course, I want to show you, brother!"
Okay, Ford was definitely out of it right now, but Stan would make sure Ford didn't screw with anything downstairs. He watched him cheerfully enter in the code and followed after him down into the elevator.
The elevator doors opened up to a hallway that shortly led into a cavernous room, with a little side room with all sorts of gizmos inside. Even in the dark it was easy to make out the ominous triangle shape looming in the middle of the room. The towering metallic thing with odd symbols surrounding the inner rim, emitting a dull blue light. It was impressive. Of course it was though, wasn't it... Ford had made it.
Speaking of the devil, he started out with a confident stride, taking a few steps ahead before stopping. Planting hands on his hips, he looked back at Stan. "Good-looking portal, isn't it. Lemme tell ya, pal, it took me eons to actually get this thing finally made right! My last couple attempts did not go well. Some of those apes, huh." He rolled an eye, the other lagging just half a second after. "I always seem to pick the dramatic ones." He said looking over Stan's head.
He quickly followed the gaze to see large red zeros up against the wall. Huge panels of lights to display what looked like... a countdown clock. Stan almost let out a laugh. That alone just screamed Ford. Count on him to have some huge honking numbers for a countdown instead of just using his watch. Stan looked back again at the other, who gave a shrug and had a worry free smile that was oddly unfit for his face. "It spices things up though!"
Stan's brief amusement quickly faded away and he couldn't help frowning. That countdown clock had his brother's name written all over it, but there didn't even seem to be a trace of him in the actual body twenty feet away from him. He was definitely out of it...
"So, uh, what happened the last couple of times you tried to make this thing?" Stan asked, casually walking up to him.
Another shrug. "Couldn't make it." Then he perked up, grabbing onto Stan's arm and pulling him towards the middle of the room and closer to the portal. "Oh, here!" He stopped short of a lever before releasing his grip on Stan.
Stan blankly looked at the lever and back to Ford.
Ford sighed at that. "It's the lever, kid. Now, come on, pull it so we can have some real fun already!"
"You want me to pull it," Stan said slowly in disbelief. The same machine that Ford had yelled about having disastrous effects and now he pulled him right up to some lever for it.
"Huh, you know I didn't peg you as this dumb before." He turned back to the lever, crossing his arms over each other. "It would have been hilarious if you activated it, but it'll be funny this way too!" He uncrossed his arms and started to reach for the lever, a giddy smile on his face.
Stan panicked, remembering Ford's earlier admission, quickly grabbing Ford's arm and pulling him away from the lever. "Woah! Ford, slow down, that ACTIVATES it?!"
He slowly looked over at Stan, smile gone, but only for a moment. "Yup. Want to see what happens?" He asked, like it was a secret to discover.
Stan balked. "Uh, NO? You told me if this thing activated it'd tear up reality! Why would I want to start it up?!"
"Because it might not! Besides, just imagine what'll be on the other side, all sort of stuff nobody from this planet has seen before."
Stan couldn't help a scoff, and he started pulling Ford back to the elevator. "You know what else nobody has ever seen before? A black hole, doesn't mean I wanna open up a portal next door to one." No wonder Ford had told Stan to keep himself out of the basement.
Suddenly, there was a piercing six fingered grip around his forearm, stopping him short and causing Stan to look back.
" L_I_S_T_E_N. " He faced the other, his attention burning the air in between them and focusing on Stan.
Stan locked eyes with Ford's, an oddly intense gaze that held, reminiscent of times when he had found himself in over his head with the wrong person crossed. Never Ford though, even on that night Ford hadn't been like this.
Out of instinct, his arm went to jerk away from the unexpected pain, breaking out of Ford's harsh grip after a moment. With his state, his body was just incapable of holding a strong grip for long apparently. Stan remained where he was even still, staring back at the other.
The intensity of Ford's behavior flipped off entirely, like a switch, and he smiled crookedly. "You know, you're gonna be a real pain in my side if you try to stick around."
Stan let out a breath, and went to grab Ford again, carefully this time and pulled him back towards the elevator again, being met with little resistance now. "Yeah, yeah, let's just get you back to sleep already. If you're going to kick me out you're gonna have to do it when you're well-rested..."
He soured, keeping silent as they rode up elevator and walked back through the house. They had barely made it up the stairs when he suddenly smiled with faux innocence and laughed. "Hey, you know what, you want me to sleep? I can do that, no problem!" He snapped his fingers to point at Stan and then his eyes closed and he began to fall forward.
"What are- oh shit!" Stan looked back at Ford and scrabbled to catch him. Ford's weight had almost pulled him down to the ground as well, but Stan managed to stop the motion before he hit the ground. He sighed heavily and started lifting Ford back up to get a less awkward and unstable hold on him. "You couldn't have passed out like thirty seconds from now, really?"
"If I have to babysit you while you sleep again I'm piling your stupid nerd books on top of you." He grumbled, carrying Ford back to the room.
AUTHOR NOTES:
Look, okay, I was excited about the Bord chapter, and I have zero regrets about that ham handed pun in the last note. Making bad puns is what's kept me from spoiling new chapters.
Which, yEAH, Ford's pride is literally the only reason that the portal is still actually UP. Which is something that'll be addressed later along with his pride in general and what's behind it. A lot later.
By the way, as events go along a LOT is going to depend on how the twin's relationship and mutual trust goes. Which well, as you may have already guessed - Ford actually extending just the barest enough of trust to tell Stan the global destruction thing is REALLY the only thing that kept it from actually happening this time.
(EDIT: Hoooo my gosh, so I'm going back to copy/paste updated versions and then going through to match the italics/bolding and i JUST realized that any single words with spaces in them? It just gets deleted so 'L_I_S_T_E_N' had just become 'N.' because those underscores had been spaces. How many of you saw that- thought Bord had just grabbed Stan's arms then just made an 'nnnn' sound like jfc that- that just ruined the moment entirely.)