He was in the dark.

That wasn't Stan being poetic, no. Sure, he guessed in general he was in the dark in the figurative sense too. He had more questions than answers on the whole situation with Ford, after all.

Right now though? He was more concerned about literally being in pitch black darkness.

He moved carefully on the uneven and bumpy ground. Great. There was no telling where he was and he couldn't see a damn thing.

Stan reached out with his hands as he moved in the complete silence, trying to find a wall or anything. His forearm hit into something solid and rough quickly enough, and Stan stopped to feel whatever it was. The scraggly surface was easy enough to recognize, especially when he was able to pull a piece off. Bark from a tree…

Something about it being this dark and finding a tree… didn't quite make sense, but it was like something was blocking his brain from connecting why that was.

There was a sound of chittering and something quickly skittered onto his hand and was just starting up with his arm when Stan immediately pulled back and shook it off with an undignified yelp that echoed slightly.

"Ugh!" He wiped a hand on his arm to make sure there was nothing still on him. There had to be a wall or something for his own yell to echo back like that.

Only then did he notice the quiet and occasional drip of water, something he would have sworn hadn't been there before. He reached down to touch the ground and felt a cold and wet stone. Wait-

He moved his hand back towards where the tree was, but instead his hand touched on a rocky wall.

...Okay, well, screw this.

He stood up and moved along the rock wall, just picking a direction and sticking with it. He didn't know if it was the right direction or not, but he wasn't getting stuck in some weird and clammy cave for the rest of his life.

Stan kept along the slightly uphill slope, moving relatively quickly. For a brief moment he thought back to the cave system in Gravity Falls. Was that where he was at? Had Ford actually ditched him this time? Gah, he'd just get out of the cave then worry about that.

Soon enough, he did see some light ahead, and Stan moved off of the wall entirely. There were some chittering sounds ahead, maybe some crickets outside. The closer he got towards the light though, the louder the sounds got.

After a few seconds of jogging, the walls themselves seemed to start having large black patches. Stan slowed down when at a certain point the black patches covered the walls entirely... and were endless shifting around. He didn't need his glasses to be able to tell what it was. Ceiling to floor was absolutely covered in 7 different types of dark bugs, crawling over top of each other and all the chittering noises combined into something like a staticky TV with the volume cranked all the way up.

A few stray ones moved in his direction and he took a few steps back. Very gross, but there was a dim light coming from ahead which meant out.

Stan took a moment, scanning the ground ahead for any clear spots. There weren't any, but he half expected that. He took a breath to himself before accepting his destiny.

"Alright, uglies, yer blocking the road!" He yelled as he ran ahead and took striding leaps to avoid the living carpet as much as he could. The less to be said about the crunchy noises each time his feet hit the makeshift ground the better. That went double for the textures.

As he ran, he was surprised by how long the bugs kept going. Then the light seemed to drain away entirely, leaving him in the dark and completely surrounded by the loud sounds of the chittering and clicking.

Just keep moving. Just keep moving, Stan. Moving, moving – there's only so many bugs in the world. It's fine. Just keep- ' crUNCH' - oh God, that one was big – Keep moving.

He didn't stop for a second, letting any bugs that may have crawled onto his shoes in the brief seconds get flung back off as he ran. The light started to appear again, going around some bend in the cave system or what, Stan honestly couldn't care less. It was there, and that's all he needed right now. He freely grinned as his steps eventually landed back directly onto the rocky ground again.

Stan laughed back at the mile of bug-central, victorious and smug, before turning back around again and finally making it out of the mouth of the cave.

Out of the woods and into the-!... and into the actual woods this time.

At least he was out of that cave now. He sighed loudly and ran a hand over his face. "Christ, this is just irritating." He grumbled, checking his surroundings.

A few dozen feet away from him, standing close to a tree, was his brother looking perfectly at ease writing into a journal.

"Ford!" He jogged over the short distance to him, and jerked a thumb to gesture behind himself. "Hey, so whatever you do don't go into that cave. Seriously, I easily smashed like twenty different kinds of roaches alone."

The other hummed, but didn't look up.

Stan let out a breath. "What are you even writing? There's nothing around here." He asked, checking the direction Ford was facing. The only thing that way was more woods though, nothing special.

Despite the question, Ford didn't even respond, simply continuing his writing.

Stan waited a moment, before trying to look at what the other was writing. Regardless of how he tried though, oddly enough it seemed like he could never quite keep an eye on the page. Even when he did spot the words he couldn't read a single one of them. Ford wasn't even outright trying to hide the writing, but Stan was still having a nearly impossible time getting a look.

"Earth to Sixer, you mind? Come on, put the book down. We're out in the middle of the woods at night." Stan said, getting irritated as Ford didn't so much as pause. "Could you look at me for five seconds!" He finally snapped at him, grabbing Ford's shoulder.

Ford stopped writing only to push away his hand. "I know you're there, Stan, I just don't care."

Stan couldn't help stopping at the icy response which apparently gave the other time to go back to writing. As soon as Stan realized, his irritation flared right back up, and he went to shove Ford. Somehow though, he missed, and Stan stumbled a bit ending up behind the other. He turned, a bit embarrassed, but mostly just angry. "You and your research." He gestured an arm straight out. "Why are you even out here?! Being out in the middle of the woods at night is a recipe for getting murdered!"

Was he even listening to him?! Stan walked back around to Ford's side pointing to the book. "Knowing what a tree fairy eats isn't exactly material worthy of getting stabbed by some hermit lunatic. So, come on already!"

Why wasn't he saying anything?! He didn't even so much turn his head to listen to him. All he did was focus on his book, only occasionally looking up to the woods. Still nothing.

Stan walked so he was standing directly in front of Ford, keeping his eyes on his face. "Stanford, look at me."

The pen in Ford's hand stilled, and Stan held silent. After a few seconds though, he only continued again much to Stan's aggravation. He'd also stopped checking the woods now too.

All Ford had to do was just look at him. He didn't even have to move his head a single inch. He was standing right thereand Ford couldn't care less.

Stan went to give Ford a full shove this time, this time though he connected with a satisfying force against Ford's shoulders making him stumble back a few steps.

Ford's voice came over through the air, though the actual man did nothing. "Give me one good reason why I should even bother with you."

"What kind of fucking question even is that?" Stan fired back. There was a small part of him that was grateful Ford was responding, but it was easily buried underneath how pissed off he was at him. "I'm the one bothering so that you're not standing around in some creepy forest all alone." He continued, ranting at him now. "You wanna know what else too? I didn't have to answer my damn phone for you. Much less go on a whole forty hours driving here just to make sure you weren't a corpse lying on the floor!"

"I came to help YOU, Stanford so no!" He jabbed an accusing finger at his chest. "No, you don't get to make me out be the one giving you trouble. I'm the one bothering with you."

There was a faltering grin that finally spread out across Ford's face. Wrong, wrong – something in the back of Stan's head was telling him that that thing in front of him was wrong. He couldn't care less right now though, too fed up with his twin. Jerk wanted to smile so much then he could knock the smug look right off of his face if it bothered him too much.

Ford's voice quickly changed into something oddly high pitched, but lowered back down to his normal voice. "That's rICH, Oh." He laughed lightly, closing the stupid journal. Then finally. Finally, Ford look at him. "You helped me? Really?"

"Let's look at how you helped me," he continued. "You took me all the way to Gotham, Stan. That's not exactly a city that screams 'safe,' is it? You couldn't even go and hide my journal like I asked you. Oh," he said, bitterness then creeping into his tone despite the still present grin. That smile wasn't his, it just wasn't - it was wrong.

"Oh, let's not forget how you 'helped' me when you trashed my science fair project and forced me to go to some B grade college."

It was an accident. It had just been a dumb accident! "Stanford-"

"Dad was always right about you, you know." Ford interrupted him, the words completely stopping Stan dead in his tracks. "You're just some cheating grifter that settled down in Gotham only to get a job robbing banks. Ten years and you're still the twin that's never done anything worthwhile."

Something inside of Stan cracked, he almost felt it in his ears. It didn't matter that Stan had thought the same thing more than a few times about himself, both drunk and sober. Ford didn't get to say it.

"Fuck Pa and fuck you, Stanford! You don't want my help then fine!" He shouted throwing his hands up in the air. "Go wherever the hell you WANT! See if I care!"

Ford's smile almost seemed to grow, and Stan didn't even care a single bit how much his own mind was screaming at him. Wrong, wrong, wrong. He internally mocked the words that kept bursting up like air bubbles – who cared?! Not him and definitely not the jerk three feet in front of him.

His twin shrugged, bringing out his book again. "Well, good. The car ride alone with you was suffocating enough."

Stan stomped off past him to leave him behind in the woods. "Have the time of your damn life then, Stanford, because I'm out of here!" He didn't need him. Not a single bit. If the jerk wanted to get hurt because he was too good for help from Stan then let him.

He continued walking, even as woods turned to some dusty Arizona landscape and even as thoughts continued to pop up as he simmered.

Wrong. Wrong. Not Ford.

Eventually, the landscape led way to familiar faces and familiar guns. Often the wrong faces in the wrong places though. He never saw the Washington gang in Arizona. Then the mob from Texas always used rope and duct tape to tie people up, not chains. Details didn't match up, but it didn't matter. Stan kept scrambling along for safety.

It finally clicked for him when Jorge told his goons to break his legs and leave him in a canyon. Rico was the guy that wanted people to suffer for what they'd done. Jorge would would have just shot him to get him out of the way. These were all just nightmares.

Nightmare after nightmare kept piling up though. Stan kept forgetting they weren't real, and even when he was aware it still didn't keep him from getting scared. He tried waking up, but he couldn't do it.

After an eternity of different Hells, Stan was finally in one of the worst ones – burning in a car trunk, bound and gagged so he couldn't do anything.

He woke up in a sweat, sheets tangled up around him. Panting heavily, he quickly kicked everything off of him to get to the cold air.

Stan had had some bad nightmares before, but Jesus Christ. That had easily been over six nightmares in one night, and nearly all of them had been damn '11's on the horror scale.

At least other nights he'd wake up after the first or second one. Not to mention, he rarely had any that got that bad. He let out a slow breath as he caught his breath, glancing over to the clock.

He might already be heavily reconsidering sleeping at all the next night and currently felt like absolute shit, but hey. At least, he'd gotten ten hours of sleep.

He lied on the bed, letting himself cool off for a while before he eventually rolled off and headed to the bathroom. He was completely drenched in sweat so he took a quick rinse in the shower before walking over for some food. He stopped in the middle of the living room though when he saw Ford on the couch, thoroughly knocked out.

He would have thought Ford would have kept awake for all the fuss he'd made about falling asleep. You could only stay awake for so long though. He guessed it didn't matter all that much now.

What's the worst that dream demon could do here anyways?

Stan went over into the kitchen, checking through for something for breakfast and realizing there wasn't really well… anything. He'd just go and snag some food. After all the nightmares, right about now he just kind of wanted to be around some people who wouldn't outright be trying to kill him.

As he went for the door, he was surprised to find every single lock undone. Even the basic one on the knob. He paused at the door, looking back over his shoulder at Ford asleep on the couch and back again to the locks.

After a moment, that lasted too long in his own opinion, Stan finally brushed aside the worry. He was just paranoid from all the nightmares. Going out the door, he quietly closed it and used his key to lock the door.

Ford woke up quickly. Immediately pulling himself up from the first loose strands of consciousness. He jerked up on the couch, still in the same spot he'd been when he'd fallen asleep. Was it a trick?

Cautiously, he got up and the immediate soreness was enough to convince him otherwise. This was real.

He sneezed and tugged his coat around himself. He glanced around the room briefly, eyes sticking onto the TV as he got an idea. He turned it on and changed it to a news channel. Maybe something about last night would be on.

To his disappointment, though, the immediate story was something about a possible new vote on the security policies at the local asylum. He lost interest as soon as he realized it had nothing to do with last night.

He walked around the room, moving along with just a bit of effort to check on the various books. He kept an ear on the TV as the journalist wounded down on the story, starting up on some new breaking story about the court house. He really couldn't care less - more of his attention was placed on double checking his memory that none of the books had been moved or pages turned. None of them seemed to have been touched though which was good.

The journalist was now earnestly talking about some clown prince and Ford snorted to himself at her urgent tone. He turned back towards the TV to turn it to more as serious news channel that might-

"What the Hell? "

When Stan came back to the apartment, he used his key on the door and pushed only for it to stay shut. Ford had apparently gotten up and used a couple of those new locks.

"Uh Ford," he knocked on the door with the back of his knuckles, holding a couple grocery bags in his other hand, "it's me."

He only had to wait a few seconds before all the locks slid back and the door opened. He moved into the apartment to shut the door after himself with an elbow. The TV filled up the room with some background noise, it kind of made walking inside more comfortable.

"Hi," Ford greeted him, moving to put all the locks back once Stan had taken a couple steps away from the door.

"Hey," he said, heading around the wall to the kitchen. "So, I ended up getting some food." The books were still unsurprisingly taking up half the counter space, but there was plenty of room by the toaster so he set the grocery bags down there. "Didn't realize how low I was on it 'til this morning." He said, looking over as Ford walked near him.

His brother was stopped in the middle of the kitchen, simply looking at him with his coat pulled tightly around himself, seeming outright tired and a bit agitated.

Of course, he's mad. "Okay, what is it?" Stan asked flat out.

"What kind of a city is this?" Ford just asked, his nose sounding a bit stuffed up.

"What?" Stan's face scrunched up. "What do you mean what kind of-" He finally glanced over to TV, realizing it was on a news channel. "Oh." Right… He'd kinda forgotten to fully tell Ford about Gotham's special brand of criminals. "Yeah, I'm guessing you saw something, huh." He said, looking back at Ford.

Ford scoffed. "Do you-" he stopped, exasperatedly gesturing at the TV with one arm.

He squinted at the image on screen. "Uhh, yeah, looks like Joker tried to literally gift wrap the courthouse."

Ford slowly lowered his arm back down, lethargic. "Yes, the news said it was the courthouse's anniversary so essentially its birthday." He told him. "Apparently, he was tying up those inside with ribbon and was trying to do the same to the building itself when 'Batman' stopped him."

Stan couldn't help rolling his eyes, turning back to the bags on the table. Of course Batman stopped the lunatic. Joker was literally putting a bow on a building, guy always went way over the top and got caught.

"Stanley-"

"Look," Stan interrupted him, not even willing to hear whatever remark he was going to make about what sort of city he'd taken him to or what kind of lowlife he was for living here, "you can't be saying how 'I didn't tell you' or whatever because I did tell you there were some nuts in my town." He said, turning and waving a loaf of freshly stolen bread at Ford.

"What? No, that's not it." Ford refuted walking over to him now, to Stan's own mild surprise. "It's unreal, Stanley. These people dress up in literal costumes to commit crimes. You have to tell me, that's unusual." He finished in disbelief.

"Yeah, it is." Stan admitted. 'Unusual' didn't even cover it, really. "It's like being smack-dab in the middle of a comic series with a bunch of supervillains."

"Exactly!" Ford agreed, perking up. "Yes, that's exactly what it's like!"

Stan couldn't help smiling at Ford. "Ha, I know, right?" He pulled out a couple slices of bread to put into the toaster. "It's super crazy. You actually get kinda used to it though." He said leaning his forearms onto the counter. "I mean, sure, sometimes one of 'em does something extra crazy."

"Like gift wrap a building?" Ford asked.

Stan held out a hand, "ehh, almost." He shrugged, letting his hand back down to the countertop. "Joker always does something ridiculous like that though." He said, looking at Ford. "Honestly though, Sixer? That guy is a serious psycho. A good chunk of those people aren't actually that bad, but with that guy? He's as likely to shove a pie into someone's face as he is to use a bazooka on a car then call it a hot rod." Joker would laugh just as hard either way though.

"Plus, he's a jackass." Stan added, grabbing his toast.

"How many people are there like that?" Ford asked, going to pull the groceries out of the bags and look at them.

He shrugged his shoulders. "Kind of a lot criminals have some kind of gimmick, actually."

"What about a scarecrow?"

"Oh yeah, Scarecrow is up there too. He's- wait," Stan stopped, standing back up straight to check on the TV. He couldn't see anything besides a reporter in front of the courthouse. "Wait," he said again. "Did they lock Jonathan up again?" He was suppose to meet up with Oswald this week.

Ford faltered, briefly checking back at the tv as well in confusion. "No? He was locked up? How'd he get out and- Wait, 'Jonathan?'"

Shoot. Stan gave a large shrug, turning for the fridge. "That's the guy's name. All these people dress up, but for the most part everyone knows who they actually are. Once they're caught the first time it gets splattered all over the news."

He started to list off phony headlines in an equally phony journalist voice, complete with a waving hand. "Terrifying Scarecrow, actually ex-professor, Jonathan Crane."
"Poison Ivy is Gothamite botanist, Pamela Isley."
"Harleen Quinzel, turned from helping patients to joining one as newest jokester, Harley Quinn."

Pulling a nearly empty jug of juice from the fridge, he closed it again with another shrug. "You wouldn't believe how often everyone breaks out though. Whether it's the asylum or prison, they always find a way back out."

Ford raised an eyebrow. "How do they keep breaking out? The whole point of a prison is to keep the people inside."

That was a very easy question to answer from personal experience, but he just crossed his arms. "Ah, who even knows. Hey, you feeling kind of sick? Because you're really looking and sounding like it." He said, pointing to Ford.

Before Ford could say anything though, there was a phone ringing. Stan froze for just a half a second before it registered that the ringing was coming from a few feet to his right instead of his pocket.

In fact, Ford walked right over where Stan now noticed a phone that was shoved into the corner behind a few notebooks and loose paper that was already engulfing most of the counter over there.

He picked the handle up, holding a relatively short conversation. "Hello… Yes, I am," Ford's body went rigid for a moment in an obvious cringe, "Oh well, of course, I do." He answered stiffly. "Yes?... Right, yes, I couldn't agree more… Mm-hmm, I'll be there…. Have a nice day."

Stan watched as Ford hung up the phone. First off, he didn't even realize that phone was there, and he wouldn't have even considered Ford would have gotten a phone of all things. He wasn't exactly the most sociable guy. Not to mention, how he was talking about manipulated sound waves or whatever when he'd called him. Second, who would Ford have already given the number to? He hadn't even been in the city for a full 24 hours yet.

He was ready to ask the biggest question of who, but when Ford turned to the side he had a hand up to his own mouth, confused. He looked into space, a crease formed between his eyebrows.

"What?" Stan asked.

Ford finally turned back to him, "What month is it?"

AUTHOR NOTES:

Wooh, a couple months, huh - a bit long of an update, I know.

Axe, about the whole Batman thing - hAHA, oh man - let me tell you what, Ford is gonna get mistaken for Stan more than once. The issue at the moment however... is that Ford doesn't realize how 'popular' his brother is.

Rain - bLESS honestly, I was so hoping the last chapter was going to be all nice and tense!

Also - it's hard to remember exact dates when the past 5 months or however long you've been getting pulled around by a dream demon and have had a bad grasp on precise reality. Which if you're wondering - yes, this means he had absolutely ZERO idea he was calling Stan on new years.