Hey! Sorry about the wait, guys. School started, and I've been a little more focused on drawing, recently.

Feels hit hard on this chapter. You can hate me after I've replied to reviews.

Alysia of the Pen: Glad it's to your liking, and that I've managed to get it right with both suspense and Fidds' mindset. Do I want to ask what this family joke is? Or is it too personal?

Gladothell: Glad to know!

Guest: Thank you. It might take a while, but it might happen eventually ;) And yes, Stan's likely going to be the head cook.

Chapter 3 – Seeing Double

Through Eyes that can't even Trust Themselves

Despite the relentless howling of the blizzard reverberating in his ears and the unforgiving cold gnawing at his bones, he forced himself to carry on back to the house. He slipped over at some point and sliced his hand open on a sharp rock, and now he was bleeding quite badly. But regardless of the crimson life liquid staining the snow upon which he trod, and the angered voice of Stan telling him to go back to the bunker and wait out the storm, he pressed forward.

Come on, you're supposed to be the smart one! Stan yelled as he trudged past. This is not smart! It's pure stupidity!

His words went unheard, and he remained silent for the rest of the way.

He was back at the shack.

Finally!

Sweet relief washed over him, and he picked up the pace as his house came into view. It hadn't changed since he'd left; several windows were still haphazardly boarded up, the signs and barbed wire were still there, and even the car was still parked on the-.

Wait. Wait, he didn't have a car, did he? No, it had been crushed not long after he'd first arrived in Gravity Falls.

Fear gripped him yet again; numbing his already damaged sense of reason; and he sped up into a run towards the door. Someone was in his house, and they were after his research. Bill had managed to trick someone else into allowing him to possess them, and now he was going to open up the portal!

Just outside the door was an axe that he… kept there for emergencies. Grabbing it, he didn't even pause before he walked through the wide open door to find a man in a dirty red hoodie opening the door to the room that housed the stairs to the portal.

"What're you doing in my house?!"

The intruder tensed and slowly, hesitantly, raised his hands into the air. He had his back to him, and gave him a perfect view of that absolutely atrocious mullet. When was the last time the guy had gotten a haircut?

"Hey, stranger," the man said, his voice holding a clearly forced friendliness. He sounded familiar. "Look, I don't want to cause any trouble, okay? Me and my, err… friend needed a place to stay the night, and we thought this place was abandoned."

"Who are you?"

With slow, deliberate movements, the man turned to face him, and horror immediately chased the blood away from his face and sent his heart into his throat. Why? Just… just why?!

Yet again, his twin stood before him, but unlike the usual visions, he looked as if he'd actually aged in the twelve years that they'd been apart. He wore denim jeans and an unwashed red jacket, and the mullet coupled with a layer of stubble gave him a worn, neglected look to match the grim wisdom that simmered in his tired eyes.

"S-Stanley?"

His twin's eyes widened, as if he was shocked to see him. "Stanford?! What're you-?"

"Get out!"

Shock and hurt flared in Stan's eyes, and his face morphed into an expression of weary anger. "Nice to meet you too," he growled sarcastically, lowering his hands. "Still an asshole, huh?"

Gripped in the unyielding jaws of fear, he held up the axe in a threatening position. This was not his brother. This was another illusion, and if he attacked it, then so be it. It'd just fade into nothing anyway. "You're not real!" he shouted. "You're not supposed to be here! Just get out of my head!"

Worry found its way onto Stan's features, and he took a cautious step-. Forward? Why the fuck was he stepping forward? He had a fucking axe in his hands!

"Ford?" Stan ventured. "What's going on?"

"You know what," he whined pitifully. "You're just a figment of my imagination. You're in my head when you shouldn't be!"

The worry increased. "Stanford, you… you're not thinking straight. Calm down."

Still wrapped up in denial, he shook his head. "N-no. No, you just need to leave. Please, please just go!"

"Okay, okay," the illusion consented. "Okay. Just… put the axe down, and then I'll go."

Immediately, he tensed and shifted the axe. He'd opened up the wound on his hand, and now the handle was beginning to grow slippery with blood. "I'm not falling for that one," he spat. "You tell me to put the axe down, and then you're all over me. You're not you any more, you're just… just a thing. Clawing at my eyes, choking me, whispering, breaking me apart..!"

Horror and disbelief were the only emotions visible in Stan's eyes. His face had set into a mask of hopelessness whilst he watched his brother continue to yell twisted, insane and nonsensical gibberish whilst brandishing the bloodied axe before him.

He heard footsteps coming down the stairs, but it didn't stop him. So what if another demon walked in, it wasn't as if it'd make any more-.

What's he doing here?!

Fiddleford McGucket stood in the hallway, right behind Stan, with fear and only the barest hint of recognition in his eyes. He… he hadn't… no, this… this was…

Stan…

Fiddleford…

Could it be that-?

No! No, he'd just checked! He just got back!

But it had to be… There was no other explanation…

"You didn't…" he growled, eyes zeroing in on the ragged-looking mechanic. "You let him out?! And now you're using him to… to what, replace me? Distract me whilst you and the rest of your sick Society plan to wipe me from existence? What the fuck?!"

He noticed Stan turning to face Fiddleford. "What's he talking about? You know my brother?" his brother demanded whilst the mechanic backed away in fear that had to be fake.

The whole thing is staged.

Please, think rationally.

I am.

You're not! You really think Fiddleford would do that to you?

Men will go very far to get what they want.

This is insane…

"Oh, don't play dumb with me, Shapeshifter," he growled, stepping forward menacingly. "Trust no one, trust no one…" He began repeating the mantra over and over again under his breath, but for once he didn't try to stop it when he finally noticed.

"Oh, jeez… Ford," the Shapeshifter whispered, faux dread in his eyes as he stepped forward. More or less stepped over the invisible line that had been set up between them.

With a roar, he lunged forward, swinging the axe towards the Shapeshifter's head. With a look of panic on its face, it ducked and sidestepped to avoid him. It did little to deter him from hacking the monster's face off, though, and he spun round into another attack. He didn't anticipate the Shapeshifter grabbing the axe and wrenching it from his grasp.

"Poindexter, that's enough!"

He froze, eyes wide with shock. "What..?" he murmured disbelievingly. "You just called me…"

"Poindexter," the Shapeshifter – no. No, this was Stanley – repeated firmly as he set the axe aside. "Stanford, what… what happened to you?"

Stanford. He was Stanford Pines. His brother was Stanley, and he was right here. He was real.

"Stanley… I'm so sorry. I-I kept seeing you, and… whenever I tried to… i-it was never you! You were never real, and this time, I just thought… I didn't even think, I just-."

"Whoa, easy Sixer," Stan interrupted, placing a hand on Stanford's shoulder. It…so real and so warm. Finally, he had a tangible grip on reality. "As much as I want to know what's up, you look like shit, and that cut looks pretty bad. Come on, let's get you fixed up. We can talk when you're more… coherent."

Coherent? When had Stanley ever said that before? Regardless, Stanford kept on talking. "I fucked up again, Stan. Real bad, too. I thought I was being clever but I… I really wasn't. Then I forgot to take my meds, and it turns out I'm all out of them, and all this shit happened like a really shitty Butterfly Effect."

"Ford, you're not making sense," Stan said as he lead Stanford to the kitchen and got him to sit down at the table. "Just… wait here whilst I go look for a first aid kit."

Stanford complied and waited in forlorn silence for Stan to return. If he didn't, then… it was okay. He was used to realising that everything was a dream or twisted illusion. There was no point getting upset over the unavoidable.

To his surprise, Stan returned, and he had a green plastic box in his hands. His face bore a familiar worry from when they were kids and he'd just returned from chasing away his tormentors from their childhood.

"Hold out your hand, Sixer," Stan requested as he pulled up a chair to sit down on. Still silent, Stanford held out a hand, choosing not to question the absence of blood. "Other one, genius."

Oh.

A Point of View that isn't quite as Mangled

While Stan was searching for a first aid kit, he found what must have been Stanford's bedroom. It was… well… Stan could only describe it as 'worthy of a place in the set of a horror movie'. Wow, he was really getting obsessed with horror movies and their likenesses, wasn't he? But in all seriousness, it was quiet unnerving.

The window had been smashed, and some shards of glass were crusted with old blood. A few wooden boards had been nailed over it but they rattled in the wind and did very little to hold back the biting cold of the outside. Papers were strewn about on every surface; some bearing scribbled equations and other scientific writings that Stan didn't bother trying to make sense of; most covered in jagged nonsense. Some of the equations were a little singed, as if Stanford had put a match to them before having second thoughts and snuffing them out. Looking over at the bed, Stan noted how the sheets were slightly torn for some reason, and there was a white pill bottle on the bedside table next to the dusty, dejected-looking lamp with the broken lampshade.

Stan's noticing and paying so much attention to any of this was merely a desperate attempt to ignore the painfully, frightfully obvious sign of Stanford's madness. The writing on the walls.

It was clear that at some point, Ford had completely lost his shit and taken a marker to the plaster. Crazed symbols that meant little to nothing to Stan punctuated scribbled gibberish and nonsense that may as well have been another language entirely. Inky handprints and smeared scribbles accompanied the deranged chaos, and there were smudged red marks here and there. Stan didn't want to delve into the history of those. Trying to block out the insanity around him, Stan walked over the desk and grabbed the green first aid kit that rested upon it (ignore the blood, ignore the blood).

Heading back downstairs, he saw that Fiddleford was pacing about the hall with a troubled frown on his face. His hands were wrung together and shaking behind his back; similar to Ford in a way.

"You okay, Fidds?" Stan asked cautiously.

Fiddleford didn't respond.

"Hey, Fiddleford," Stan pressed. That got his attention. "Everything okay?"

A perplexed expression settled onto Fiddleford's face, and he pulled out his notebook to write something in it.

"I don't know what's going on. I feel like I should know him, but it hurts when I try to remember."

Now it was Stan's turn to crease his brow in confusion. "You mean Stanford?"

A nod, and another note. "Who is he?"

"He's my brother. We're twins. He… didn't seem so happy to see you."

The look that passed Fiddleford's gaunt features was the only answer Stan needed. The bitter frown and the way he averted his eyes to the floor just screamed 'I'm hardly surprised'.

"You said it hurts to remember Ford. So, what, are you like… some sort of amnesiac?"

Now it was despair's turn to take the reins of Fiddleford's emotions. Nodding, he looked on the verge of tears, and Stan immediately regretted his words.

"Oh, jeez, I-I'm sorry, Fidds," he stuttered, trying to atone for his mistake. "I shouldn't have said that, I really didn't-."

Fiddleford held up a hand, immediately silencing him. After a moment of hasty scratching of a pencil against paper, he showed it to Stan. "It's okay. You'd have figured it out sooner or later."

Not knowing how else to respond, Stan merely nodded. "Okay. Look, if you… if you ever need help with… with anything, really… just ask, okay?"

A grateful yet saddened smile and a nod was all he got.

"Right, yeah. I, um… I gotta fix up my brother."

Another nod, and Fiddleford pointed first to himself then to one of the rooms. 'I'll be in there.'

"Sure," was all Stan said, and he headed for the kitchen, where Ford was still sitting at the table and doing nothing. Now that Stan didn't have to worry about having his head cut off, he took the opportunity to take a proper look at his brother. He was pale, unshaven, sleep deprived and gaunt, much like Fiddleford was. A torn, stained trench coat hung from his scrawny frame, and mud caked his shoes and trousers, which were a little worn away at the knees. His unwashed, greasy hair stuck out every which way in a dishevelled, unkempt mess, and his bloodshot eyes were glazed over as he stared blankly into nothingness. "Ford? Poindexter?"

At the sound of his voice, Stanford's focused immediately snapped onto him. He looked surprised, and Stan wondered just how damaged his twin's mind had become.

"Hold out your hand, Sixer," Stanley requested. Sitting down in front of Stanford, he opened the first aid kit and pulled out a bottle of antiseptic, some cotton balls and a roll of bandages that looked almost spent. Then he turned back and saw that Ford had presented him with a perfectly unmarked hand. "Other hand, genius."

Surprisingly (and perhaps a little worryingly), Stanford was dumbly impassive about the jibe, and obediently held out his other hand; the one that bore a long, jagged cut that stretched from the base of his thumb and across the palm of his hand. Blood still oozed sluggishly from it, and it looked pretty red and swollen. The wound wasn't clean enough to have been caused by an accident with the axe he'd possessed earlier, so he must have fallen and hurt himself.

Gripping the wounded appendage by the wrist, Stan set about cleaning it. The moment he placed a damp cotton ball over the cut, though, Stanford gave a low hiss of pain, causing Stan to halt.

"You okay?" he asked worriedly.

"M'fine," Ford mumbled blankly. "It hurts. It's real." His words dissolved into unintelligible muttering.

Brow creased in concern, Stan quietly carried on wiping away all the blood on Ford's hand before moving onto smearing antiseptic onto it as a means of preventing infection. Then he wrapped the appendage in gauze and bandages, and leaned back to admire his handiwork. "Not bad, if I say so myself."

His smile faded when he saw the dull, faraway look in Stanford's eyes.

"Ford?" he ventured. "Hey… snap out of it." With some hesitation, he reached forward and grasped Ford by the shoulder, shaking him gently. "Sixer."

After a moment of shaking and repeating his name, Stanford was finally brought out of his daze. He looked at Stan with confused, unfocused eyes. "Stan?"

"You zoned out for a moment, Poindexter," Stan explained, forcing a rough chuckle out of his chest. "Had me worried."

"Oh. Sorry about that, I-I, um… Sorry about everything…"

Stan almost didn't catch the last whispered words. Almost.

"It's okay," he said. "I'm sorry, too."

Stanford just shook his head. "No, it's my fault. I should've done something, talked to Dad, listened to-."

"Hey, don't get yourself worked up," Stan cut him off, placing a firm hand on Stanford's shoulder. "Listen, I'm over it, okay? But if you really want to talk about it, then we can talk later; when you're thinking more clearly."

"Okay," Ford murmured quietly, bowing his head and refusing to meet eyes with Stan. He looked like a guilty child who'd been caught with his hand in the cookie jar.

Brow furrowed, Stan steeled himself to ask the question that had been bugging him since he'd first laid eyes on this town. "Ford, what's going on?"

Wendy: Dude, that is way out of line. Ford thinking his brother is the Shapeshifter? How messed up can this get? Don't answer that.

Howls: I know, I know, I'm a horrible person.

Wendy: *frowns* But you're not going to stop?

Howls: I think we both know the answer to that. Mind asking?

Wendy: *rolls her eyes* Review, guys.