Author's note: Bleh, sorry that this has taken so long, my week has been super hectic. And uh... about this being only eleven chapters... Yeah, I'm just going to come right out and say it. With this being my first fanfic I haven't really gotten a good feel for how to portion the chapters out, so I'm not really sure how long it's going to be. I mean, I ended up having to split this chapter into three separate parts because the story just seemed to flow better that way. Sorry about that. Oh, and just so you know, I gave Bill a really terrible pun at the end of this chapter. Please forgive me for that, it was just such a perfect setup that I couldn't help myself.
Next chapter we get a formal introduction to someone who's been persistently showing up in the background, it shouldn't be too hard to guess who that is ;)
Chapter 10
Pain is temporary. It may last a minute, or an hour, or a day, or a year, but eventually it will subside and something else will take its place.
If I quit, however, it lasts forever. That surrender, even the smallest act of giving up, stays with me.
So when I feel like quitting, I ask myself, which would I rather live with? - Lance Armstrong
Dying of heat stroke was an absolutely awful way to go. If there had ever been the slightest doubt of this absolute and undeniable truth in Stan's mind previously, then his current circumstances had all but blown the notion completely out of the water now. Not that there was any water in his brain for the thought to be flung from, despite how desperately he may have wished otherwise.
But honestly, at this point his insatiable thirst wasn't even the most distressing factor of his oncoming demise.
Nausea, it seemed, had determined that its earlier visit hadn't been quite long or horrible enough, and was now poking its ugly head out from around the corner to cheekily wave at him as the inside of his head swam around in a whirlpool of complete and utter misery. Even with his eyes still tightly closed Stan could feel the hard ground rocking and tilting unsteadily underneath him, compelling his insides to twist and slur as they endured the revolting fluctuation of the G-forces.
And as though those two maladies in and of themselves didn't make adequately abhorrent bedfellows, the temperature of his skin, which had been gradually crisping nicely over the lengthy hours that he'd exposed himself to the severe and unrelenting force of the sun, had also now chosen this exact moment to take its revenge on his ailing body. The heat of the desert high noon had skyrocketed right past the fires of purgatory and straight into hell itself, and the resulting swelter was boiling off the flesh from his bones and cauterizing every inch of his exposed skin with a sharp and tingly numbness. It was a sort of unfeeling heat that made it seem as though the outer edges of his body were distant from the rest of him, or that they were as disconnected from detailed sensation as the hair on his head. It was an extremely drowsing state of damage that brought pain to his still waking mind at the same time that it gently tugged it away.
He wasn't even going to touch upon the wreckage of sore and aching torment on his right side that had once been a set of intact and functioning ribs. Though, given the stab wound he'd received to his left side sometime last night still stinging away, he at least now had the satisfaction of having the pain be a little more evenly distributed.
Stan groaned softly, his voice creaking lowly like the orange, rust-coated hinges of an old and dilapidated door as awareness began to creep up on him again, and cut through the shaded gloom in his mind. A faint huff of air exhaled from his blood-encrusted nostrils to stir up a fragile wisp of dust, and the mist-like particles began settling delicately within the cracks of his chafed, peeling, lips. His mouth parted slightly in preparation to attempt the art of speech.
"…..Ford." The name drained from his body in a breathy, inaudible whisper, a silent plea spoken in the deepest and blackest hours of the night.
There was no answer, save for a muted, pitched ringing echoing around between his ears.
"F-…For-…." He tried to say the name again, but his head was floating in a delicate velvety haze that made it hard to stay focused, and he forgot what he was doing halfway through. The call to return to unconsciousness sang sweetly to him in an irresistible lullaby, as tender and pleasant as the hands of his mother smoothing out his toasty warm sheets and tucking him into bed. The dim light of the lamp sitting on the nightstand cast an allaying, soft amber glow throughout his room, blurring the long shadowy fingers that gently ran through his hair and brushed across his flushed, tearstained cheeks.
'It's all right, hun.' His mother's thick New Jersey accent cooed compassionately in his ear. 'It was justa bad dream. You can go back to sleep now.'
Stan's body relaxed a little more as the wakeful tension that had seized it started to slip away again. The temptation to just do as he was told was overpoweringly compelling, and he probably would have gone along with it too if he hadn't remembered the person who was sleeping up in the bunk right above his. The person who was lying on top of him right now. The person who could have been injured by the impact, who might be hurt and in need of his aid while he was loafing around unhelpfully in this dreamy daze.
"Ghhmm… F-ford, 're you alright… ? Hmmm… 're you ok?
Again, there was no answer.
Slowly, waveringly, Stan lifted a barely cooperative hand behind him to touch the rigid, unmoving figure pressing heavily onto his back, and for a few moments he had a difficult time figuring out what it was that he was feeling. His hand awkwardly jerked to and fro in a search for something above him that felt like hair, or flesh, or the soft fabric of his brother's coat, but was he was unable to find anything so familiar or reassuring. Instead, his stiff fingers clumsily crashed against something sharp and coarse that scratched at his dry skin and sent small droplets of blood racing across his palm and trickling down the insides of his wrists.
"…Ford? Sta-…..Stanford? F-" No. He stopped himself. Whatever was pushing down into his back wasn't his brother, that was fairly obvious even in his current state of exhaustion-induced hysteria. Trying to delude himself into thinking that this thing was Stanford wouldn't do either of them any good. He needed to get a hold of his scrambling mind and pull himself together or else he wouldn't be able to be of any use to his twin at all.
But how could he… how was he supposed to… when he couldn't even move his... No.
No, no, no, no. He had to do this; he couldn't just give up! Getting ahead of himself, that was the problem. He was trying to think too far ahead. Baby steps, he needed to begin with baby steps. Something simple to start out with, like just opening his eyes maybe. If he wanted to figure out what was actually going on, or where he was, or what had happened, then opening his eyes and having a look around would be a good place to start.
Stan winced a little in misery as he attempted to pry his impossibly heavy lids from their resting places. It was as much of a struggle as it would have been to lift up a heavy sheet of metal lying flat and seamless on the ground below, and he wrestled with his incompliant eyes unsuccessfully for a long and exhausting stretch. Flashes of blurred light and bending shadows filtered between the cracks in his field of vision, and they flickered into his consciousness like a wavering, fluttering candle in a wild and twisting breeze. It was enough to make him several degrees more nauseous than he already was, and Stan couldn't help but let out a relieved wheeze when he finally managed to slam the darkness that covered his vision back into the recesses of his tired, failing mind. He took in the surroundings that had remained enshrouded in mystery since he'd woken up.
Gradually, the hazy, dim shapes that comprised the world he was in began to brighten, condense, and solidify into their true forms. The harsh, white intensity of the sun revealed to him the flat desert landscape that he'd seen when he'd first escaped the confines of the trunk earlier.
Stan let his gaze listlessly trace along the surrounding area, hoping that he could gather enough information from it to figure out what had happened in those final, quick and confusing moments that comprised his last conscious memories. The barren scenery in front of him didn't seem to be providing much in the way of clues, so with a grunt of effort he strained his neck a little in an attempt to get a glimpse whatever it was that was painfully poking into his upper back. He was somewhat surprised to find that the culprit was the top half of a broken Joshua tree, though, given the way that the spiny leaves had just cut up his hand it did at least make some sense. The broken trunk of the tree, now extended up into the air, was slanting too far out for his field of vision to continue tracking, and he feebly toiled to flip his head around to the other side, gracelessly scraping his already injured and overly sensitive nose across the dirt in the process, to peer at what had caused the wood to break. When he did so, he was greeted by the sight of a car tire resting just a foot or two away from his face.
Stan let out a quiet, raspy cry, and a sluggish wakening of fear sprinted throughout his exhausted muscles causing them to tense and the tempo of his heart rate to switched into halftime. His breath caught in his chest as though it was a thick and clinging smoke, and he waited in agonized terror for the rubber sole of the car to creep forward and crush his head under the full weight of the vehicle.
But nothing happened. The tire didn't start rolling. The car didn't come any closer.
Stan looked on in a blank and bewildered daze while his thoughts worked to free themselves from the dense and tangled mire of his mind. They finally managed after a few disorientingly slow minutes, and a long, calming exhale spilled languidly from his slack lips as he released the vice-like strain in his muscles causing him to slump fully upon the ground.
The tree. The car had backed up and crashed into the Joshua tree that was now positioned between him and his would-be doom. The force of the impact must have caused its top half to break off and splinter down onto him, and that was the reason why it was currently pressed into his back. Stan had no idea how the car might have managed to do that since the desert floor was completely level, and cars didn't tend to move on their own without some kind of sloped surface, or at least, without someone behind the wheel, but his brain was drifting in so many dizzying, hazy directions that even filling up his lungs properly was task that required a fair portion of his attention in and of itself. Overtaxing his already sluggish train of thought by attempting to solve this mystery would've been a waste of time. All that mattered was that he was alive. He was alive because Stanford had thrown his body behind this desiccated excuse for plant life, and saved him. Though… circumstances as they were, his life probably hadn't been spared for very long.
Stanford! The name swooped back into his thoughts like a flock of frantic, half-starved birds throwing themselves with a careless self-harm against the confines of his skull. Stanford. Stanford, what had happened to him? Where was he? Was he all right? Stan's eyes shot back in forth in a frenzied dizzying whirl as he tried to visually tear apart the landscape to search for his brother.
He didn't see him anywhere. Aside from himself, there didn't seem to be another living soul out on the sagebrush-covered flats. In his desperate inspection, Stan noticed that something was glinting out of the corner of his field of vision, and worked the weakened muscles in his neck furiously to turn his head towards it to get a better look at what it was that had caught his attention.
It was the compass.
The instrument was propped up against a small rock just beyond the reach of his arms, catching the radiance of the daylight in its dark, smoldering brass and reflecting it back to Stan in an apathetic, yet gentle luster. The previously fractured glass of the lens appeared to be completely healed once more, whole and seamless as though it had never had been split down the center to begin with, and Stan felt what might have been the beginnings of a worn smile struggling to lift the corners of his mouth.
"You again, huh." He attempted a spiritless laugh, but it ended up sounding and feeling a lot more like he was being choked by the sheer drought of the air in his lungs. "Thought you were jus' part of an ill-…illusion or somethin'. Though… I guess that means… Ford, he was…also jus'… H-he must have been… Right. Sor-Sorry. I…I guess I jus' wanted him to be here so badly that I started playing tricks on myself, heh. But… even if it was only a dream or whatever, it was um… you know. It was a good one. Thanks for that." Stan let out a long, drawn out sigh as his throat tightened uncomfortably.
Yes, it had been a very good dream, and that was part of the problem. Though his time wandering within the dim, eternally scarlet sunset of the imagined beach with his brother had been brief, it still returned a feeling of peace and wholeness that had become a stranger to him in these past seven years. He hadn't realized how severely he'd missed Stanford until he'd held the illusion of his brother securely in his arms, hadn't noticed how exhausted this period of exile had made him until he'd rested his weary head in the crook of Stanford's neck, hadn't perceived how bitter and empty he'd been for all this time until his heart had been made full again. And now, now that he could remember in crystal clear detail what he'd spent so long missing, he wasn't sure if he could continue to go without. Maybe the fact that he was dying wasn't such a bad thing if it meant that he wouldn't have to endure that burden of loneliness for another day.
After all, even if the idealized brother in his dreams had loved him, the two of them had now been apart for so many years that he couldn't claim to know the thoughts or feeling of the real Stanford. Hell, when they had been kids and spent almost every waking moment together he still couldn't have claimed to know what was going through his brother's big stupid brain half of the time. Unlike Stanley, who would always make sure that everyone within a ten block radius knew whenever he was upset about something, Stanford was... secretive. Reserved. He'd always had a tendency of withdrawing into himself, often refusing to truly speak his mind with anyone, even his own twin.
It was one of the reasons that Stanley couldn't help but take this extended radio silence on his brothers end as such a discouraging sign. When Stanford was bothered by something, his first reaction wasn't to directly confront the problem, or the emotions tied to it, so much as it was to just ignore the mess altogether, and he had been ignoring his brother for almost a decade now. If it hadn't happened already, then it seemed unlikely to Stanley that he would ever be forgiven for the damage that his mistake had wrought, and if that were the case, then maybe the only way to escape from the miserable wreck his life had become would be through death itself.
"I… I don't know," He blearily stared at the compass, "what do you think? Does he… does he still hate me or… Maybe… maybe he really does care, but he jus' doesn't realize it. You know, like he didn't recognize me in the dream. Th-the needle was pointing to me, but he didn't even know who I was. He cares about me but… he can't see me past all the things I've done wrong, the ways I've messed up. When he looks at me he doesn't see his brother, he… he just sees… just a failure probably. Just… someone who can't do anything right and who's screwed things up for him. I-I didn't mean to do that, never wanted to hurt him, but… I don't know, 'm not makin' much sense right now. I'm a little confused is the thing. Can't really tell what's real anymore and what isn't. I mean… I… you're probably not even really here anyways, so what 'm I actually looking at, huh? You a rock or somethin'. Why 'm I even talkin' to you anyways? Rock or not, it's not like you'd be able to answer me."
But the compass did answer him.
Stan gazed passed the faultless shining of the lens, and watched as the needle of the old instrument whirled around in the kind of exasperated playfulness of someone forced to repeat an obvious truth to an asker who was already well aware of it. The thin strip of metal swiveled a little as it stopped, and then pointed steadfastly to the dark red lettering labeled NNW. It took Stan a little time to drowsily gather up the torn, mangled pieces of what might have once been a map lying around in a jumble near the base of his skull, and put together what was being suggested. When he had, he couldn't help but be overcome by a painful empty sort of hurt, swiftly followed by an ember of frustrated anger sparking up in the place just above where his heart sat and slowly warming up the rest of his chest.
It was pointing NNW, and from where he was currently that would be up towards Oregon. Oregon, where Stanford was currently living right now.
"Yeah, thanks." Stan spat out bitterly. "It's not like I don't already know where I want to be, though. It's not like that was some big mystery that needed solving. I don't have any trouble recognizin' what it is that I want, I just can't get it that's the problem! I don't… I can't jus' have it, I have to earn it back, and I'm…" He tightly closed his eyes and pressed his forehead into the dirt, overcome a sudden surge of grief that had wrenched itself from his gut like a flush of cold floodwater coming to put out the struggling heat in his chest. The pressure behind his sternum was building up unbearably in a torrid of blistering hot steam and icy breathless despair. "I-I'm too stupid to know how to get it back. I'm too rotten, and incompetent, and dishonest, and a burden, and I… I-I can't earn it."
Something between a scoff and a whimper seeped from his lips. "I want to, though. I… I wish I could. I wish there was something I could…I could do. T-there is. There is something, earning enough money to make up for what I lost him with that scholarship, but I-I just can't do it." Stan's cheeks flushed at the admittance. The shame of his own helpless and incapability caused his eyes to sting in a bitter self-loathing, and his voice trembled feebly. "I've tried. I've been trying. I've been trying, but I just keep messing up and wasting year, after year, after year. I…heh… I-I… I don't understand what's wrong with me. I don't know what's wrong with me."
An acidic, painful smile ruthlessly tore its way across Stan's face. "M-marilyn, she… she couldn't even stand bein' around me for more than six hours. My own paren-… t-they think I'm just a lying, cheating, useless good for nothing. Maybe it's time I just accepted the fact that it's not the rest of the world that's the problem. It's me. It's… it's always been me. I'm not-…I'm…" He shook his head in a weary acceptance and let out a sullen huff of air through his nose. "I'm not good enough. I'm not good enough to deserve him. I'm not good enough for him to care about me, and I never will be."
The tension in his body slumped away even more, leaving his form melancholy and lifeless on the barren desert ground. "I-I don't deserve him. I don't deserve anyone. He's my own twin brother, the person who's closer t' me, who knows me better than everyone else. If even he doesn't think I'm worth carin' about, then who possibly could?"
Stan's head crept slowly upwards again like a faded, dreary pine perking a little in the light of the early dawn, and he stared in a hopeless surrender at the unwavering needle pointing directly across the impassable distance between him and where he wanted to be; who he wanted to be with. The scarlet-tinted image of his brother's face intently studying his own flashed across his mind's eye.
'Who are you?'
"I'm your brother Poindexter. Doesn't that mean anything to you?"
The surrounding desert was deathly silent. There was no answer.
Stan watched the compass expectantly, still doubting, still looking to find any excuse to just throw in the towel and give in to the infinitely easier path that death was presenting to him. But the needle of the antique, brass compass remained steadfast, even now. It didn't wobble. It didn't falter. It didn't spin or turn to point in another direction.
"Well, I guess it means somethin' to me, anyways."
Stan sighed deeply, and a mirthless, but acquiescing, smile softened away the anger and misery that had previously overtaken his features. A tired determination began to sink into his bones like the tall mast of a ship descending into the curve of the horizon. "I guess you're right. Even if I'm not worth fussin' about, even if all I've ever done for Ford is cause him trouble, I… I-I want to do better for him. I wanna be there if he needs me, even if it's just for something small. Even if Ford's not the type to make mistakes, even if there's probably nothing I can do to help him… I want to be there as a safety net if he ever does stumble and needs someone there to catch him. If I can just do… maybe do one thing right in my life, I want it to be that, 'nd…" The chilling water in his chest receded again as the tides retreat with the turn of the moon, and his heart started painfully scorching in a low, dark blue burn.
"And I can't do that if I die here!" Stan's right hand shot outwards with a wild and furious energy as it clawed itself into the dirt in front of him. He gave a small grunt of determination and panted heavily as his body began to lurch itself out from underneath the top of the tree that was pinning him down, inch by inch, heedless to the protests of his screaming muscles and aching head. The razor-sharp leaves of the desert plant scraped deeply into his back, tearing his shirt to shreds and releasing a steady stream of warm blood. The shallow scratches marked his progress like red lines on a ruler. His vision swam and blurred with the exhausting force of his effort, but Stan didn't allow himself to stop or catch his breath. The Light that had been captured and held within the compass was shimmering, quaking in cadence with the fire surging throughout his head, chest, and limbs, and it drove him forward with a maddening purpose and intensity. He reached out his hand to grasp at the small brass antique, slowly crawling his way, closer, and closer, and closer, his fingers spreading out and curling slightly in his intent to ensnare the promise that he was making to himself. The promise that he was making to his brother.
A large, black boot suddenly appeared within Stan's field of vision and slammed down hard on his right hand. A rasping, wheezing cry ripped itself from his lungs as the bones creaked and cracked under the acute pressure. His dislocated thumb squealed in agony.
"Oh, you have got to be kidding me right now. WHY ARE YOU STILL ALIVE?!" Stanford's warped and irate voice echoed chillingly from somewhere above him, and the heel of the boot twisted itself and ground down even more deeply. For a few moments, Stan could only gasp and choke from the shock of the harsh pain. "Boy, you'd think that running a guy over with a car would be enough to put him out of his misery for good, but you just keep crawling away from death like some kinda masochistic cockroach or something. Are you really so incapable of realizing when you're finished?"
Stan glanced up to meet the yellow eyes of his 'subconscious' looming far above his prone form. The younger, and yet somehow more unfamiliar face of his twin was twisted by menacing shadows, and his mouth slowly curved downward in a disgusted and frustrated sneer.
"Look, under different circumstances I might actually be a little impressed with your tenacity, but at the moment it's pretty annoying." The expression on his brother's face spread into a caustic and impatient grin. "After all, I'm a busy guy, and as entertaining as it is to watch you pathetically struggle for your life, I do have some other places that I really need to be right now. So, if you wouldn't mind just hurrying up and kicking the bucket already, I'd really appreciate it."
"Y-you…" Stan grit his teeth and shook his head in anger and confusion, hoping that the movement would dispel the murky, afflicted agony that was clouding and overpowering his thoughts. Hadn't he… gotten rid of this guy already? What was it still doing here, and why could Stan still see it? What even was this thing, really?
"If… 'f you're actually my 'subconscious'..." Stan ground out between his labored, faltering breaths. "'hen... then why are you trying to kill me, huh? You're saying that you're the one who tried to run me over, but h-how could you have even driven the car? I mean… yo-you're not real, so you shouldn't have been able to move it at all. Unless… 'nless this is all just an illusion too. But I, i-it feels so real… my side. I… you're… it doesn't… just a hallucination, so you can't…."
"Whoa there buddy." His 'subconscious' interrupted, its smile curling into something more genuinely venomous as it held up a pacifying hand. "You might want to slow down before you blow a fuse or something. You've been telling yourself that all of this is happening in your head, remember?" It tapped the side of his brothers temple for emphasis. "So don't stress yourself out too much trying to make sense of it. As for why I'm attempting to finish you off in the first place…"
It shrugged its shoulders. "Meh. Honestly, it's not like this is personal or anything, I just don't want you getting in the way of the future plans I have for your brother is all. And hey, it's not like I didn't give you any other options either. Heck, I even offered to help you out of this mess and save you from your untimely demise, if you would've just gone along with what I'd asked and kept away from Stanford for the rest of eternity. Yeah, that's right, it could've actually been that simple. I could've driven you out of here hours ago. We could be chilling out at some local bar right now instead of just sitting here and waiting for you to finally expire, sipping a few margaritas, shooting the breeze, talking trash your incredibly naïve and easily influenced brother, maybe even planning a party for when the end of the world gets here in a few years, it would have been a blast. But no. No, you just couldn't stand the thought of 'abandoning' him even though he obviously has no qualms about leaving you behind in the dust. Even though he hasn't spoken to you in years because clearly everything else that's going on in his life has taken a higher priority than figuring out whatever's happened to his loser of a brother."
"You…y-you're wrong."
The imitation of Stanford's smile now twisted itself into something especially cruel. "Heh. Am I now? Tell me Stanley, why hasn't your brother tried looking for you yet? If he actually cared about your well-being, if your life was worth even half as much to him, as his life is to you, do you really think that he'd continue to hold onto this little grudge even after all this time. Face it, you just don't mean that much to him, and you never have, and you never will. Your imbecilic stubbornness and blind loyalty have screwed you over even more than they've screwed me over, and that's really saying something."
"H-he… the… " Stan glanced over to the compass. The memory of needle pointing to him while the brass instrument had been tucked between their two chests and enclosed within his brother's six fingers, set his heart beating in a steady and sure rhythm. He closed his dry lips together firmly. His brother was, and had been, aloof and angry with him for a lot longer than he should have been, even accounting for the severity of Stanley's mistake, but it didn't mean that his life was worthless or unimportant to Stanford. And now that it was someone else saying it instead of his own terrified insecurity, he was able to see that clearly. Even if everything having to do with the beach lit by the crimson light of the dying sun had just been a dream, even if all of his interactions with Stanford had been imagined products of his own desperate wishing, despite the creeping doubts that persistently plagued him, he knew deep down, at his very center, that all of that had been based off from something that was inherently true. He didn't need to defend himself against this thing's accusations. In this case at least, he knew what was real, and what wasn't.
His 'subconscious' didn't seem to notice that it had temporally lost its captive audience's attention. "So, now that you've become a thorn in my side and ruined my schedule for today, you've forced me to resort to plan B, which just so happens to involve your immediate demise. When you think about it that way, the responsibility for the outcome of this situation really doesn't rest on my shoulders. I tried to present you with an alternative that would have been mutually beneficial for both of us, but you just wouldn't listen. You might want to take this moment to kiss your life goodbye while you still can, because you're going to die here Stanley, and you don't have anyone but yourself to blame for that." The heel of the boot punctuated the end of the sentence by once again grinding itself down into the bones of Stan's hand, causing another hoarse scream to erupt from his lips.
"And as for you." Stanford's voice took on a more sinister and offended note, and the yellow eyes seemed to lift up a little to glare in absolute contempt at something, or someone, that was beyond Stan's field of vision. "You can't even begin to imagine what you almost cost me with that little stunt you pulled back there, and I promise you that you're not going to get away with that scot-free either. You want to play with the big boys, fine then. The next opportunity I get to pilot Sixer's body around, I'm going to make sure that he puts a nice biiiiiiiiig scratch right through the runic circle on your back. Let's see how high and mighty you are without those magic symbols powering your stupid little needle."
Stan's 'subconscious' turned its head back down to once more fix its piercing gaze upon the wreck of a man below. Stan found the frosty and unaffected apathy plastered on his brother's likeness to be as haunting and unwelcoming as a bed of old rusty nails covered by a deceptive layer of pure, white snow. "So Stanley Pines, what's it gonna be. Should I waste my energy offering you another chance to take me up on my advice, meaning that you'll turn your back on Stanford for good, or should I just run you over with the car for a second time?"
He thought about spitting on the boot that was currently crushing his hand into a meat patty, but his mouth was far too dry to really even make the attempt, and even if it hadn't been, the inside of his head was spinning too dizzyingly to let him aim properly. So instead, he settled for the next best thing. Stan closed his eyes for a moment and breathed in deeply, savoring what might very well be his last middle finger to someone who was in a position of authority over him, as he carefully gathered up what little shreds remained of his waning strength. The heat of the sun seared into the back of his neck, but it felt almost cool compared to the rebellious, boiling outrage surging through his veins. Somewhere in the distance a small beetles wings were buzzing about noisily in the otherwise perfect silence.
"Well? Are you going to give me an answer, or have you done me the favor of dying alread-"
Without warning Stan quickly opened his eyes again, cutting off whatever his 'subconscious' had been about to say as he lunged forward in a reckless abandon. His left hand careened past the imitation of his brother's foot and crashed clumsily into the compass lying just beyond. The feeling of sun-warmed brass under his stiff, curling fingers, sparked a satisfied and defiant smirk that gradually smoldered its way across his face. Before the last embers of his failing energy dimmed away for good, he turned his head up to deliver a closing remark to the malevolent yellow orbs that were softly glowing in his brothers shadowed face.
"Heh, whatever the hell you really are, you can take your offer 'nd shove it right back up your ass."
"So that's your final answer, huh." Stanford's brows furrowed as the thing scoffed a little. The daylight flickered slightly, and as it did, the mimicry of his brother's face dissolved away and transformed into someone with a much thinner face and darker complexion. There was a blood red mark that looked like a bullet hole resting just medial of his temple. Stan felt as though he recognized this person, but couldn't place exactly where he'd seen him before.
"Ya really think you're intimidating me ya stupid yellow whatever?" Stan spat out fiercely in a bust of bull-headed confidence. "Y-You're just an illusion, just a product of my own mind. This isn't real. You can't actually do anything to me."
"Oh, don't tell me that's your reasoning behind this decision." Stan watched on forebodingly as the heavy pressure of the boot on his right hand lifted suddenly, only to quickly smash down again on his left wrist with an even more brutal force and intensity. His aching throat choked back another raw scream as a few of the small bones gave a muffled snap under the assault, and he dug his fingers so savagely into the compass that the metal groaned under his grip. He wasn't sure why holding on to the instrument felt so important to him, but the energy in his body was so utterly and completely spent at this point, that he knew that if he released it from his grasp now then he wouldn't have the strength necessary to grab it again.
The body that the yellow eyes now inhabited shook its head in a slow, pitting condescension. "What's the matter, huh? I thought you said this wasn't real, so how come it's hurting you? Yeesh. You stupid meat-sacs are so oblivious sometimes."
The boot poised itself again, but this time it touched down lightly on the ground next to Stan instead of crashing down upon him. He gazed in a blank, pain blurred, half-lidded exhaustion as the form belonging to the shining golden presence turned away from him, and began stiffly and awkwardly walking back towards the car as though all of its joints had been coated in a thin film of ice.
"Well…" The unfamiliar, increasingly high-pitched voice intoned, fading gradually as it moved farther and farther away from Stan. "if you're so sure that this is all a dream, then you're about to get a very unpleasant wake-up call, though, maybe that's not the right phrase to use since I doubt that you'll ever be waking up from this. I have to admit, I have actually no idea how you managed to dodge me before, but this time I'll be sure to do a much more thorough job of making you into road-kill."
The footsteps of the retreating figure stopped, and a grating, chilling laughter echoed throughout the empty desert landscape as the yellow eyes turned back to him for a moment to make some sort of terrible, inside joke. "Your ex-wife might still miss you, but my aim is getting better."