Author's note: Just to give you all fair warning this chapter is going to get a bit feels-y towards the end. Seriously, even my own eyes were watering as I was writing the later half. Oh, and about this story only being ten chapters long... Yeah, I was wrong about that again. It's actually going to end up being eleven now instead. Sorry for miscalculating that twice.

Chapter 9

A noble purpose inspires sacrifice, stimulates innovation and encourages perseverance. - Gary Hamel

Stan's mind was whirling and stuttering sluggishly about as though it were an overheated, overtaxed computer.

The dark apparition in the distance, it was… it was the same one that had gotten him out of the trunk. Maybe. Was it? Was it the one he'd fooled himself into thinking was Stanford while he'd been going through that desperate outburst of hysteria? No, no it couldn't be. Stanford wasn't here; there was no way he could've been all the way out here. He didn't know what was happening to his twin, and he couldn't have gotten to where he was from Oregon in such a short amount of time even if he had. He…h-he had escaped from the enclosed trunk on his own, somehow. There just… there couldn't be any other explanation. All of his banging and bashing around must have weakened the latch on the vehicle and popped it open.

Stanford wasn't here. He never had been. Stan was determined to remain firmly within the reality of that fact. He wasn't going to let a sense foolish hope or his own delusional loneliness drive him right off the deep end again. He'd only just been released from one dangerous fit of insanity, he wasn't eager to jump back into another.

It was probably… probably, just another hallucination, right? Then there was no real need to pay it any attention. After all, Stan thought as he allowed himself another quick peek up to where his 'subconscious' was tensely draped across the stubby branches of the Joshua tree, he was busy dealing with enough unpleasant hallucinations as it was.

It was a bit strange, though, Stan noted as he scrutinized the limply dangling body of his brother above him, that… that… what even was that thing? Why could he still see it? Why was it so hot? So hot. He was tired. Well… well, it didn't really matter, but it was strange that it could see that silhouette too. Really weird. But then, Stan supposed, if this thing really was just another product of his already fractured, failing mind, then it made sense that it would be affected by the same erratic delusions that he was having.

He was tired. The heat of the sun was starting to feel almost soothing as it beat upon his dry, red skin. He found the ground wasn't too uncomfortable either, or at least, not nearly as hard, rough, and pebble strewn as it had felt before when he'd first fallen onto it. Stan's eyelids were starting to feel quite… quite… very heavy, and they drooped as he vacantly observed the progress of the wavering shadow meandering in the direction of him and his other delusion. He couldn't, though… not yet. He couldn't let himself fall asleep just yet. There was something he needed… w-was… was it… What did he need to do?

Oh, that's right.

He was dying.

Hmmm. Yeah. That was probably it. Tha-that…ummm. It seemed kind of important.

Hmmm. He was tired.

Stan tried lifting his head a little, but only made it a few inches before his weak and weary neck just couldn't take the strain anymore and his head fell back to the desert floor again with a dull thunk. The sound was awful. It reverberated throughout his skull like an echo in a large, inky, forebodingly silent cavern. Stan pinched his eyes closed in a grimace as he waited for the resonant vibration to fade away or disappear, but despite the seconds slowly ticking by it just seemed to keep going. Ever rising like a dizzying, nauseating rendition of the Shepard's tone.

He attempted similar motions with some of his other limbs as well, but nothing really responded like it was supposed to, and the effort that it cost him to move the appendages was quickly draining him of any remaining energy he had managed to hang onto thus far. Too exhausted... he was beyond exhausted, he couldn't do this. He didn't want to try and get up anymore. It was just too hot. He was burning up inside. Everything was too hot.

A soft sigh tumbled its way out of Stan's stiff, cracked lips, and the shallow scraping of his breath sent a small cloud of feather-light dust drifting into the dry air in front of him. He watched in a dazed stupor as the sunlit particles of dirt hung suspended for a few moments, before they slowly settled back down to the earth in a gentle wash of dirty brown mist. He let out another long exhale, and watched the results of his spiritless wheezing again.

He was dying. The truth of the statement was now beginning to sink into the more self-aware parts of his consciousness in the same haunting way that blood seeps through and stains the cloth of a well-worn shirt. His body was finally giving out, and shutting down on him. Stan could feel it in the shallow panting of his chest, and the thick, tingling static buzzing about in his pounding head. He knew it by the tired, painful creaking of his joints, the shaky, spent energy of his weighted, aching limbs, the fevered flush of his face. It occurred to him that he should probably… probably… that he should… do something about that.

But what?

Stan racked his brain for a solution to fix this problem, but nothing came to him. He tried it again, just to be on the safe side, and again his mind just hummed along unhelpfully. His will to fight, to continue struggling for his life, was faintly fading into nothingness as though it were as fragile, and wispy, and floating as the puffs of dust kicked up by his breath. It didn't really matter, Stan thought grimly to himself. As things were now, he seriously doubted that he had enough strength to go through with any grand plan of action even if he had been able to concoct something up.

Maybe… If he could only close his eyes for a minute or two, then... maybe he could figure something out a little later on. Really, just that. Just one or two measly minutes was all he wanted. That wouldn't really kill him, would it? And… and even if it did, well… Well, when it came down to it, it had been a good run.

Yeah, he was going to die as a penniless, worthless, grifting, lowlife who'd never accomplished anything significant or worthy of praise, but hey, the world was probably full of unmarked and unmourned graves stuffed with poor stupid saps like him, so at least he'd be in good company. And yeah, he'd never succeeded in proving everyone back home wrong about what a loser he was going to turn out to be, and he'd never risen above the title of 'family disappointment', or done something that would have made his existence beneficial to his folks instead of just a financial burden, but… well… At the very least he wouldn't be there to wreck things up for them anymore. That had to be worth something. He'd never gotten to live out his big dream of being an international treasure hunter either, but then, that had been a pretty naïve and laughable aspiration anyways. Unfeasible and childish was what others had called it, and they were right. They were… t-they had all been right about everything having to do with him. Still, it had been something nice to look forward to while it lasted, even if he had just been dangling an imaginary carrot in front of his own dumb face the whole time. Hell, a good chunk of his life may have been a pretty miserable and pathetic wreckage, but he couldn't deny that he'd also had a lot of fun along the way. After all, he still had the collection of pleasant memories that he'd shared with his brother Stanfo-

Stanford.

And… and Stanford. Things between them were… he'd never gotten to…

Stan closed his eyes again to try and fend off the rising tide of empty, anguished regret that seemed to pool itself around his heart, and drown it in its unrelenting pressure and weight. A lump of sorrow clawed its way up into the back oh his sore throat, pressing against the soft flesh till it ached. He didn't have enough saliva to force it back down. His body shivered a little in spite of its near critical temperature.

If there was a single remorse that Stanley couldn't help but take with him to the grave, it was that he'd let things end on a bitter note between the two of them. That he hadn't been able to make things up to his brother. That he wouldn't be there for him in the future, if Stanford needed him. Heh, yeah. Right. Like Stanford would ever really need his help. Like an incompetent, lazy, mean-spirited, pain in the butt such as himself could ever do something valuable for someone as hardworking, intelligent, driven, and kindhearted as his brother. Who did he think he was fooling?

When he had been struggling with that surreal hallucination earlier, his 'subconscious', or whatever, had almost made it sound like his brother might need him somewhere down the line, but looking back at that now the whole argument they'd had seemed utterly ridiculous and pointlessly speculative. It had most likely… maybe it had just said those things because that was what Stanley had wanted to believe. It was hard to imagine a person as meticulous and well thought out as Stanford ever getting in over his head, or requiring someone else's assistance to fix his own mistakes. Making rash, reckless decisions and later needing a bailout had always been Stanley's area of expertise rather than his.

He wished… It was just that… h-he wished that he could maybe just hug him, one last time. Just squeeze his brother tightly against his chest like he would never have to let go, and then tell him how much he meant to him, and how… how sorry he was. For everything. If he could just do that… Yeah. If could just do that, then Stanley felt that he could die in peace. T-that… that… was….w-…

Stan gave a sudden jolt and his eyes snapped wide open again. The dark specter, or mirage, or whatever it was, had somehow snuck up on him without him realizing it and was now standing quite stationary a mere couple of yards away. Stan looked back up towards the Joshua tree to see if his 'subconscious' could still see the thing too, and found to his slight surprise that it apparently could, and was right now glaring at the shadowy shape with the reserved, angry caution that one might give to an unpredictable animal or potential enemy. The silent, phantomlike silhouette, on the other hand, seemed to barely take any notice of the figure sprawled out on the twisting branches of the tree at all, and instead appeared to concentrate its attention solely on Stan and Stan alone. The way it stared at him was intense, but it didn't hold the same distressing, piercingly ominous energy that the seemingly all-knowing yellow eyes had used to force their way into the more intimate sections of his soul. It was looking at him like… well, there was no other way to describe it really, like it was curious. It was a bit hard for Stan to tell, especially since he couldn't make out any eyes on the things face, but it almost seemed to be tilting its head to the side, as though he were the strange or foreign something that it couldn't quite wrap its head around. Although Stan's insides squirmed a little in apprehension at the shadow's peculiar behavior, he didn't actually feel all that intimidated by it. He wasn't sure why.

Probably because it was just an illusion, Stan told himself, or some other result of his own deranged imaginings. As such, he was well aware the trying to engage it would not only be a waste of time, but would also probably take him one step closer to his ever and ever more inevitable death. But at the same time it was just so… so there, and prominent, and eye-catching that he couldn't really avoid it either. Besides, it didn't look like it was going to be going away anytime in the near future, and even playing along with a hallucination now seemed more appealing than simply lying around and listening to the painful drone of his own pathetic regrets while waiting for the Grim Reaper to finally come and claim his dark empty soul.

Wait! Stan backtracked his train of thought a little. Was it possible that this… this couldn't be the Grim Reaper itself, could it? It didn't really seem all that awe-inspiring or terrifying for a supposed angel of death, but then, who was Stanley to judge when it came to being a gigantic disappointing letdown.

He had an idea of asking the maybe-ghoul if the legends he'd heard about its weakness for gambling were true, and if so, if it wouldn't mind going a few rounds with him. It was a pretty long shot, firstly because even now Stan wasn't entirely convinced that he believed in supernatural specters like this, and second and thirdly because he didn't have his loaded dice on him at the moment, and even if he'd had, it wasn't likely that he'd be able to get away with cheating death itself, but then, Stan felt that he really didn't stand to lose much of anything by trying either. What was the worst it could do, kill him faster? That would almost be a relief. Stan opened his mouth to try and start up a conversation to this effect, but the dry wheezing that choked its way out of his raw throat wasn't even remotely recognizable as human speech. The sound bounced around uncannily in the near defining silence of the flat, barren desert.

For a few moments, moments that took no time at all and yet simultaneously took all the time in the world, nothing happened. His 'subconscious' hadn't stopped glaring at the shadowed figure since it had first appeared, and even now was keeping its mouth firmly shut. There was also no attempt by the silhouette to respond to racket he had made, aside from continuing to hold its seemingly intent stare. It just... stood there, as stagnant and still as an immovable stone against the waves of heat that boiled and distorted the surrounding air. Stan's thoughts, which had been wandering along in a sort of careless acceptance of his oncoming doom, suddenly restrained and muted themselves in a stiff anticipation of whatever was to come. His breath built up uncomfortably in his chest as he settled himself into a tense calm.

They both gazed back at the other unfalteringly; waiting for something, though, neither really seemed to be sure what that something was. Waiting for the other to show them, to make the first move and break the steady wall of oppressive quiet that had grown between them. Then, gradually, almost unbearably slowly, the man-shaped shadow began to move. It raised one of its long black arms, and pointed to a spot on the ground next to Stan's prone body. Stan hesitated uncertainly, then he let his eyes track the line that the gesture had made till they landed upon a small, cracked compass lying a few feet away.

That thing again. He must have… he must have accidentally dropped earlier as he'd been descending upon the fake Stanford with the intent to kill still boiling throughout his blood. Stan didn't remember dropping it back then, but then he didn't remember ever picking it up either, and in fact, hadn't the slightest clue as to how it had come to be in his position in the first place or why it seemed to be following him around.

Wait. Hadn't Stanford given this to him in a dream he'd had while he was still locked within the trunk? Yeah. That was right. One of their old teachers had given Stanford the compass as a gift, and Stanley had asked his brother to use it to find him only to have the trinket thrown back at his head. Was that supposed to be a signal to him that he was still dreaming, even now? Was he that far removed from reality that he couldn't tell the difference anymore? Did any of that really matter when he was on the verge of death anyways?

Stan shot a weary, questioning glance over to the pitch-black phantom, but it didn't appear to notice his expression and simply continued to point at the spot where the compass was now nestling lightly in a slight crater of hot, dusty earth. He hesitated again for another brief moment, took a deep breath to gather himself, and lifted his uncooperative body up a little as he inched forward to grab at the familiar trinket.

The moment that the side of his index finger brushed up against the sun-warmed brass of the instrument, a sudden dark, red wash of light poured smoothly over the world surrounding Stan. The ground, and sky, and plants and rocks around him seemed to be fluidly stretching and twisting away, streaking farther and farther until they disappeared completely into crimson glow of the horizon. The daylight dimmed, flickered, and wavered as though the sun were being forcibly wrenched from its position high above Stan to rest somewhere at his back, the blistering intensity of its heat muted to a dull warm radiance. A cool, wet breeze that carried the musty smell of saltwater and seaweed lightly swept against his hurt, scabbing face, and the refreshing lungful of air he inhaled was enough to make him close his eyes for a moment and ease the tension in his shoulders. The low, subdued rhythm of waves crashing against the sand and then receding back into the deep, dark sea, seemed to be in tune with the shallow beating of Stan's heart, and he couldn't help but feel as though the organ were drawing strength from the overwhelming power and might of the ocean just by his listening to it. Stan opened his eyes again, and for a few timeless and soundless moments, he couldn't tell if he was lying in the dusty desert, or in the sand on the shore of the ocean. The winding of heat in the distance looked like the swelling tide of the sea stretching out as far as the eye could see before him. He peered back over to the where the shadowed silhouette had been standing, only to find that its features were now dimly illuminated by the soft ruby light of the sun setting behind Stanley.

The figure was Stanford. But unlike the Stanford that he'd been chatting with since he'd gotten out of the trunk, this one wasn't the same ageless, photographic image than Stanley remembered. There wasn't exactly a huge difference, he was apparently still sporting his old wayfarer glasses after all this time, but the wrinkles and bags under his eyes were now a bit more numerous and pronounced, and he looked taller and lankier too. It seemed his chin and shoulders had even squared out to resemble Stanley's a little more closely.

A few gulls screeched overhead, and the metal links of a swing set squealed in a faint hush as the two brothers stared at each other. Stanley, with an odd mixture of caution and amazement, and Stanford, with his eyebrows furrowed in confusion and curiosity, the same expression that he would often wear as a child when he was trying to piece together an especially vexing mystery.

Stanley really didn't know how to feel about this, about any of it. He was sure that it was just another illusion conjured up by the stuttering insanity of his own fatigued mind, but his brother's presence set his heart fluttering all the same and released a tight pressure that had been curled up at the base of his skull.

Stanford put a hand up to his mouth and cleared his throat briefly before asking in half timid uneasiness, half intense interest, "Is that yours?" As he did this, he nodded his head slightly towards the compass still held loosely in his brother's grip.

Stanley tiredly forced himself to sit up a little more so that he was now kneeling in the cushiony, chilled sand beneath him, and then the let his line of sight fall back down to the strange trinket. It glowed brightly in between his fingers, reflecting the light of the scarlet sun sinking into the backdrop of his old hometown. He allowed his fingertips to slowly trace over the dented, rusted metal and the sharp grooves of the unusual symbols etched into its back, before remembering something from earlier and then turning it over to the front.

The lens of the instrument was still cracked as it had been before, splintering jaggedly right down the center and dividing the inner workings into two halves. But despite this, it didn't look as bad as he'd thought it had when it first fractured.

It was kind of funny. At the time he'd been so consumed by the misery of his brother not wanting or needing him anymore, the loneliness of no longer having a home or person to return to, that the damage had appeared to be completely and irreparably devastating. Now that he was examining it again, however, the destruction seemed… trivial, like a series of small battle scars that looked cool but didn't really speak of great pains. The needle at least seemed to be working well enough, and it lazily swiveled around and around till it finally settled upon one direction that it seemed to like, and refused to be moved any further. It was pointed directly in front of him. To the man standing before him, and the dull red ocean swelling and shimmering beyond.

Why?

It was where the needle of the compass was always going to point; he had known that before he'd even bothered picking it up… but the question remained, why? What was the reason that Stanley had still firmly insisted "No", even when his 'subconscious' had taken away all the good memories that he'd ever had of his brother and left only the most bitter and cruel ones in its wake? Why had he stubbornly refused even when he'd been given every reason in the world to comply with the yellow eye's demands and agree to give up on Stanford forever? Although his 'subconscious', or delusion, or whatever the hell that thing had been wasn't clouding up his mind anymore, or trying to confuse and mislead him, he still wasn't sure if he had an answer to the query it had presented. Because, when it came right down to it… Stanford had abandoned him. He wasn't actually here when Stanley needed him now, and he hadn't been there for the many times that Stanley had needed him in the past. And in both cases he very well could have been if he'd cared enough to ever seek out his brother even once in these past seven years.

Yes, Stanley had wrecked his brother's science fair project, and whether it was an accident or not, tremendous damage had been done. Stanford had been humiliated in front of his peers, his hard work had gone unrewarded, he had lost the substantial amount money that he would have received with his scholarship, and he'd had the opportunity of getting into the school of his dreams wrongly taken away from him through no fault of his own. This hadn't been just a little mishap on Stanley's part, it had been a colossal and devastating screw-up. And no matter how desperately Stanley tried to convince himself otherwise, no matter how often he planned out a way to fix things and make it up to his brother, there was nothing he could do that would really reverse it. Stanford had every right to be angry with him for that. He was more than justified in blaming Stanley for the hardship that his temper and clumsiness had unintentionally put in his brother's way, and Stanley would even relent that it wouldn't be all that ridiculous if Stanford, after all this time, still resented him and hadn't tried to seek him out for this very reason.

But though his brother's hatred of him may not have been unwarranted, the fact that he'd apparently still clung to this grievance even unto this day, did reveal something inherently self-serving about his priorities. Namely, that he was putting his own hurt and anger over an incident that had happened years ago before the wellbeing of his own brother; a brother who, despite his many, many failings, truly was doing everything in his power to try and repair the damage he had caused. To Stanford, Stanley was less important than the pain that he had wrought, less meaningful than Stanford's own personal sense of pride. It was a stark reality that Stanley couldn't really deny even when he was feeling the most affectionately nostalgic about his brother.

So, if he wasn't doing this for the sake of all the good times that the two of them had shared in past, or really out of a sense of guilt or feeling that he owed Stanford something, and if he wasn't necessarily doing this out of a certainty that Stanford would one day forgive him, or that his own life would one day be fixed and made better because of this, then why? Why did he keep putting himself through so much pain? Why was he wasting so much of his energy and life away? Why was he enduring sacrifice after sacrifice for the sake of someone who didn't seem to be willing to do the same for him right now? Why did he always put his brother first in his life, when he was most likely second in Stanford's life if not even lower?

Stanley sat there quietly for a moment or two thinking all of this over, gazing down into the sand while his fingers absentmindedly brushed over the broken lens of the compass and occasionally caught on the sharp edges of the glass. When the answer finally did come to him, it was like a cold and bitter sunrise finally breaking free from the starlit clutches of a clear winter night. It left him feeling awed by the simplicity of it, and yet at the same time, slightly empty and unsatisfied for the lack of warmth or comfort that it gave.

The fact of the matter was that Stanley loved his brother. He loved him, more than he loved himself. And even if Stanford never again gave him the forgiveness or companionship that he so desperately desired, his feelings on this still weren't going to change. Even if his brother's compass was always pointing elsewhere, Stanley's would ever and unfailingly be pointed towards him. That was just the way Stanley's heart had been made, and he couldn't really help that.

"No. This doesn't belong to me." Stanley finally murmured in answer to his brother's earlier question. The deceleration made his chest heavy with a somber certainty, an exhausting truth that couldn't be escaped even if he'd wanted to try.

Stan put the hand that wasn't holding the compass onto the ground to brace for the movement he was about to attempt, and then with a surprising ease, pushed himself up into a standing position. His head swam a little with the sudden shift in height, and he scrunched his eyes up to force away the black spots that were jerkily gliding across his field of vision as he stumbled around in the soft sand. Slowly, and with all the tipsy grace of a young man walking back home from a bar on his twenty-first birthday, Stanley made his way over to where his brother was waiting patiently for him. Stanford's eyebrows furrowed and then rose into his hairline as he observed his twin's wobbling progress, but aside from that slight change in expression and a tiny, almost defensive, alteration in his stance, he didn't move any closer or retreat any further away.

"Here." Stanley shuffled to a halt once he'd made it to the point where he was only a few feet away from his brother, and offered up the compass for him to take. "This is yours remember. It was given to you. I thought it… I thought it was meant for both of us, but I was wrong. It was really only ever meant to be for you." Stanley let a halfhearted, worn smile lurch its way onto his face. "Besides, you said that you were trying to find me weren't ya? You…I remember you saying that. Said you were tryin' to locate me or somethin'. I don't really see how you'll be able to do that if you don't have this, though."

Stanford's eyes lit up a little, and he nodded. "Hmm. Yes, I was having some difficulty finding where you were earlier in all that fog, and if I'm recalling things correctly, you seemed very insistent that I use this compass to find you back there too. Why is that?

The small light that had warmed onto Stanley's face drained away again, and he could feel a gentle pressure building up in the backs of his eyes as he looked into his brother's clear and focused gaze. "Honestly, if you can't find me using this, then… then I'm not too sure that I want you findn' me at all. I just… I just don't think I can take that right now. Not on top of everything else."

Stanford let his eyes fall down to the brass instrument before sliding his cool, steady hands against his brother's scabbed, trembling ones, and easing the compass from his slack grip. He then stared back up into Stanley's face and seemed to study it very earnestly for a few moments.

"Who are you?"

The query caught Stanley off guard, and he blinked in a sluggish disorientation before drawing his brows tightly together and letting out a huff of heated exasperation. "Whadya mean. Is this supposed to be some sort of joke or somethin'? You can't actually be sayin' that ya don't recognize me-"

"No, no." Stanford briskly interrupted, as he held up a pacifying hand. "You misunderstand. I'm not saying that I don't recognize you. It's just that when you showed up in my dreams twice before, you never formally introduced yourself." His eyes darted to the side quickly as if he were considering something, before he asked, "Am I… correct in assuming that you're some kind of entity or presence that's haunting this artifact?" Stanford lightly rattled the compass grasped in his other six-fingered hand for emphasis.

"Wha-What? Are you… what?!"

"Because if that's the case, then I have to apologize. I received this as a gift from one of my old teachers over a decade ago, and I honestly had no idea that it worked the way it did due to a spirit being housed within it. Actually, given the inscriptions on the back, I had always assumed that there was some sort of alchemic equation that- Well, never mind. The point I'm trying to get at, is that I didn't know that something was being held in here against its will, and if that's the reason that you've persisted in contacting me in my dreams then I promise that I can do something to help your situation. Due to umm… certain reasons that I don't intend to disclose I've been doing a lot of research on possession and exorcisms lately, so this kind of thing is really right up my alley. I'll have you out of here and put your soul to rest in no time, trust me."

"No, I… you…" Stanley shook his head as though it would help him to dispel the murky confusion that seemed to be obstructing their conversation, and then let out a delirious, shaky laugh. "T-this is a dream… that's right, I forgot for a moment. This is a dream, or hallucination, or some other freaky thing like that. I shouldn't expect for it or for you to make any real sense. It's just that I… I thought that I would… you know. One last time before I finally kicked the bucket, I…I wanted to tell you that I..." Stanley winced a little and trailed off despondently, burdened by the terrible weight of what he wanted to say and how simple it would be to just spit it out, but not really having the fortitude to actually go through with it. Even if he would only be talking to an illusion, to tell his brother that he loved him, that he needed him, that he was as essential to who Stanley was as the energy pulsing through his limbs and pounding wildly in his heart, and then to have to endure the long aching silence that was sure to follow, required a courage that he just didn't feel capable of producing at the moment. Instead, he let his line of sight sink down gradually like an old rickety ship taking on water, and stared into nothing.

The sound of a buoy dinged somewhere off in the distance, and Stanford cleared his throat again a little awkwardly. "I… can't help but feel as though there's something about all of this that I'm undoubtedly misunderstanding. If you would just explain yourself this time I- Look, if you don't really want my help, then why did you try to contact me twice before? I don't imagine that you would've bothered with all of this unless you had something very important that you wanted to tell me."

Contacting him twice before? What was Stanford talking about? Was it maybe... the two times he had tried to make those phone calls earlier or... but no. That couldn't be it. He had hung up before he'd even said anything. How could his brother have possibly known it was him on the other end? It... it didn't really matter at this point, did it.

Stanley didn't say anything for a few seconds, just taking in what was likely to be his last sort-of-pleasant experience before he died. The deep, warm glowing light of the scarlet sun on his back, the chilled and misty breath of wind that twisted the locks of his hair and swept refreshingly against his flushed, dry skin, the dull rumble of the ocean, powerfully crashing and tossing within itself, the gulls singing sweetly overhead, and the steady creaking of a familiar swing set, these were all the things that he loved most. They were his favorite color, and sensations, and place, and sounds. And person.

The pressure that had been slowly building up within Stanley's chest began to grow unbearable, like a savage, scalding hurricane being forcibly stuffed into a small bottle and then pressing hard against the sides to demand its release. He could feel the heat of it scorching around the inside of his ribcage and burning its way up to his face and the tips of his ears. He held it off for as long as possible, till it made his chest hurt and his head feel dense and blurred, before relenting and allowing himself to do the thing he'd wanted to do most since he'd first watched the luminous rays of the setting sun pull back the shadows that had masked his brother's face. His last dying wish.

Stanley swiftly closed the distance between the two of them. He ignored Stanford's surprised gasp as he encircled his arms fiercely around his back, balling the cloth of his coat within his quivering fists and pressing his forehead hard into the nook of his twins neck and shoulder. The leaden, melancholy ache in his heart dissipated like tempestuous storm clouds melt in the sunlight, and he let out a contented sigh as his whole body relaxed and leaned heavily into his brother. Stanford didn't return the gesture, in fact, if the sudden tension and upright stiffness of his spine were anything to go by, then he seemed quite stunned by the physical interaction. But it didn't matter. For Stanley, this was enough, it was more than enough.

"I just wanted to say…" He murmured into the fabric of Stanford's shirt, his eyes closed and an easy grin spreading gently across his face. "I just wanted to say that... you need to stay safe, all right. The way my umm… you know, my subconscious or whatever was talking earlier, it made it sound like something bad might happen to you in the near future, and I… Well, the way things are looking now, it's unlikely that I'm going to be able to stick around for much longer, so I don't think I'll be able to help you out with that. I… I really want to, though. I was being stupid, wasting my dying wish or last request-thing on this. I-I should've used it to help you out somehow. I… I'm sorry." Something that sounded like a soft sob crept its way out from the back of his throat. His breath started to shudder and catch as though it were a loose string trying to pull itself through Velcro, and the tremendous, violent strength of it caused both of them to vibrate slightly. Stanley's too warm face lolled wearily on Stanford's boney shoulder while the muscles in his legs wobbled and twitched weakly beneath him. It was a good thing that he was slumping onto his brother at the moment, because if he hadn't been then he probably would have collapsed to the ground right then and there.

"So just… j-just stay safe, ok. Look out for yourself, 'cause I-I can't be there to do it for you anymore. Keep yourself safe 'cause I swear…" Stanley sniffed a little. "I swear if I see you trailing behind me on my way to the pearly gates, then I'll never forgive you. Heh, n-not that I'd end up going that direction knowing me. I'd probably… probably… the other way…" Stanley petered out in a daze, too exhausted to continue any further.

"W-w-who? I-I… I… please. Who are you?" Stanford repeated the question he had asked before, but this time all traces of intent curiosity and puzzled wonder had bled out from his voice and splashed onto the ground as though some part of him had been very deeply wounded. He sounded absolutely terrified now. Stricken.

A small smile flickered its way back onto Stanley's face. "Heh. Do you really have to ask that, even now? You know who I am… Poindexter."

Stanford's breath hitched at the familiar nickname, and if his posture had seemed frozen and inflexible before, then the severity of it only doubled with his brother's softly spoken words.

Stanley allowed his eyes to slip open again and gazed down into the small space between their two chests in a comfortable, lightheaded dizziness. One of Stanford's hands was still caught in there, trapped from when he had unexpectedly ensnared his brother earlier, but it wasn't the only thing that was separating the pair of them. Clutched tightly amidst Stanford's six long fingers was the old brass compass, and the dazzling light of the dying sun shimmered and refracted off from the chipped, fractured glass with a blinding red intensity that made Stanley's cheeks flush. He looked even deeper into the compass, past the sparkling brightness of the shattered lens, and into the mechanism itself. What he saw there instantly robbed all the air from his lungs, and set his chest aflame in a slow, tender burn. The thin, warbling needle wasn't pointing north like it should have.

It was pointing to him. The needle of Stanford's compass… was aimed directly at the center of his steadily beating heart.

A noise between a choked laugh and a whimper spilled out from Stanley's dry, cracking lips, and his fists balled up even more insistently into his brother's coat. The words that he hadn't had the courage to speak before now soared throughout his entire being like the clear and vibrant ringing of a golden bell. "I-I…I love too, you stupid…y-you stupid… Heh." He didn't have any water in his body left for tears, but they started trailing their way down his cheeks anyways. They splashed down onto the small metal instrument below in the steady dripping of a summer rainstorm, and streaked across the sheer surface of the glass to fill the yawning fissure that split it down the middle. "I love you too."

"I…" Stanford's voice wavered, his body finally easing a little in his brother's viselike grip. "This is… I-I mean… I." Stanley could feel his brother's head turning up slightly as though he were peering out at something in the distance, then abruptly, his posture stiffened once again.

"GET DOWN!" His brother's alarmed shout thundered right next to Stanley's ears, and he barely had time to react before Stanford threw both of them forcibly to the left, down onto the soft and clammy sand. At the same time that they were dropping Stanley felt as though something that possessed all the power and fury of an oncoming car had brutally grazed against the back of his right side, knocking the air out of his lungs and stunning him. It was only for a few seconds, but his temporary loss of awareness and control of his limbs ended up costing him dearly. Without his hands there to break his fall, his head struck hard upon the unforgiving ground with the full force of his impact, and instead of crashing into the cushioning shore of Glass Shard Beach, he instead felt his skull give a nauseating thwack as it smashed against the stony, unyielding terrain of the of the arid desert.

Stanley gave a choked gasp in his surprise at the sudden, jarring collision and the razor sharp agony that soon after tore jaggedly into his brain. His vision swam around dangerously. For a moment, he thought that he might have glimpsed the venomous wrath of a single, malevolent yellow eye floating somewhere above him, but it blurred away before he could do anything more than take note of its presence. A glowing-hot orange wire began to drift along the outer edges of his sight, scorching the perimeter and leaving behind an encroaching darkness as pitch-black as charcoal on its way to the centers of his eyes.

There were three things that Stan was last aware of before he completely lost consciousness. The first was the hot, saffron intensity of the high noon sun above him. The second was the brightly glinting, slightly dusty brass of the compass that had rolled far enough away so that it was just out of his reach. And the third, and most distressing, was the ominously still, stiff, and heavy body of what he assumed to be his brother, that was draped across his prone form and pinning him down.