Chapter Text
The month is August and it is snowing.
Irregular, to say the least. Downright strange, to say the most.
You know it's midsummer; the calendar tacked to the refrigerator screams its assurances in bright red letters, but anything goes in Gravity Falls. Weird weather is barely worth batting an eye at in a place like this and in spite of the unusual occurrence, you still find yourself quite taken by the sight.
Snow flurries from the dark grey skies overhead, falling in a blizzard of static. When you look up to watch it, the patterns it creates leave you dizzy. Disoriented. The sting of the chill permeates the house walls and bites at your exposed skin with fervent ferocity. It chews on your fingertips, leaving them numb and tingling. Your breath fogs with every exhale, passing from your lungs in miniature storm clouds as it meets the marginally warmer air of the house.
Outside, in place of scorching heat and healthy earth, a thick, crystalline whiteness blankets the ground for as far as your eyes can see. Through the frosted glass of the kitchen's bay window, every inch of the outdoors is smothered by the stuff. The firs that border the edge of the lawn haul its bulk in their branches, bowing under the weight, and still it flitters further down through their protective shelters to gather in piles about the tree's wells. The lushness has been swallowed easily, burgeoning life asphyxiated beneath its weighty embrace and smothered into submission.
There isn't a single thing untouched by its frigid fingers.
Not even the familiar cerulean star formations in the stained glass transom have escaped; each depiction of the night's sky gathers extra, makeshift constellations with every droplet of snow that lands there.
The eerie quietness that a snowfall always brings settles in the air just as densely as its body does on the dirt. Nothing makes a sound. Not even the wind as it ruffles through the tips of the distant treeline.
It sullies the beauty of the sight with a sinister stain, like the vacuum of space; endless nothingness filled with flakes of distant nebulae.
And like a lonely astronaut cast adrift of their tether, you stand alone in its intimidating presence.
The house around you bears no signs of life, no proof of existence. Just unoccupied furniture and darkened corners. The kitchen of the Pines' home is rarely so quiet. No part of the place withstands peace for long, too full of life to hide the true nature of its occupants from visitors. But right now, there seems to be nobody else in the world but you and mother nature.
Your reflection meets your gaze in the glass as you give up on surveying the falling drifts, your own face staring back at you. Gone is the rash and in its place is dull, plain skin, unmarked by the hands of a lost lover. You're you again, face tired and etched with the ghost of grief. No relief fills you at the sight. Only regret persists; the loss of the marks is the final nail in the coffin, the complete and total erasure of a shared personal history. A memory settled into its final resting place and sunk six feet below.
But as you struggle to see past your own self, the empty house exhales. A sound echoes out from somewhere behind you, a small, barely audible expelling of breath.
Under any other circumstance you're sure you'd have missed it, but in the silence it sounds deafening. You don't turn to look. It can't actually belong to the house and an expectant warmth surges through you at the prediction your mind automatically makes about its owner. The hour is early, the sun barely visible behind the tree tops and dark clouds. No one else would be awake enough to have found you.
It must be Ford.
You're sure that he's going to tell you off for exposing yourself to the cold so uncaringly. Chastise you for putting your health at risk and maybe, just maybe, if you're lucky enough, he'll impose upon you the faux burden of wearing one of his own thick sweaters as punishment. But when you turn to face him, a smile on your face and an appeasement on your tongue, there is no Ford waiting for you. There is nobody waiting for you. The kitchen is just as empty as you left it.
The grin slides from your lips as confusion bubbles within you, but curiosity quickly fights it off. If it isn't Ford, then who else could it possibly be?
You take a few steps forward in search of the source of the sound. You duck down to check under the kitchen table but there isn't anyone hiding there. There's no one crouched by the back door, either. The kitchen is of a decent size, however its hiding spots are limited: the pantry is clear of fugitives when you open the door and the cupboards are too small to fit even a tween in their depths. For a moment, you stand with your hands on your hips as you observe the space again, yet no one reveals themselves. You question the empty air and though your voice is distant in your own ears, you know you speak the words aloud.
Only silence meets you.
Just as you start to wonder if you're going mad, the intake of breath comes again, only louder this time.
No, not louder.
Closer.
Wet and rattling, a heaving sigh that sounds like it belongs to the lungs of a habitual smoker drowning in swamp water manifests right in your ear.
You flinch away from it, jolting as though an angry wasp is buzzing right beside you, but when you turn on the spot you find the room is still empty. Fear quickens your heartbeat. The oppressive sensation begins to bleed into you as your eyes rove over the kitchen again, only to meet with no answers. Around the blockade of fright in your throat, you call out for Ford. When no one answers, you try for Stan and then for the children, but the nothingness persists….
Until abruptly, music pierces the stillness.
You jump as the echoing tune of an old opera song begins to serenade you. From somewhere deeper within the house, several rooms over, crooning vocals warble strangely. It sounds odd. Clear yet muffled, like whoever is singing has their head wrapped in cotton wool and all the instruments are being played underwater. The music is vaguely familiar; a distorted rendition of a vinyl record you've overheard Ford play before.
Your brain tells you that it must be him, it has to be him, there's no one else it could be, but something in your gut warns differently…. The urge to investigate becomes insistent, if only to prove to yourself that you're being paranoid, and so you pad cautiously into the hallway to determine where the music is coming from.
Your chilly, bare feet thump softly on the wooden floorboards as you step out of the kitchen into the foyer, and you strain your ears. On the opposite side of the entrance hall, the sitting room's door is wide open and you can see that there's no one in there, either. It's as empty as the kitchen and music is still muffled, still distant. There's no way it could possibly be playing from this room.
Carefully, you cross the foyer to stand at the foot of the stairs that run up alongside the wall attached to the sitting room, to see if perhaps it's one of the kids in their shared bedroom; maybe they've stolen Stan's ancient record player for themselves and they're playing a prank. It wouldn't be the first time they'd made you the victim of their games.
But it's as you crane your neck to peer up the stairs that another sound catches your attention.
Right at the end of the oak paneled hallway, the door to Ford's study creaks ajar. The quavering vocals grow slightly louder and marginally clearer as you watch the dark wooden door slip open. A sliver of amber light spills out into the darkness of the house. You take a step backwards away from the stairs until you're standing in the centre of the hall, your eyes trained on the study's entrance, and you watch it closely for any other signs of life.
No one's hands appear on the frame, nor does the shadow of a figure lurk in the gap…. Strange. The key is still in the lock, you can see the gold fixture glinting in the interior light, and yet it's open. Without fail, the study remains locked at Ford's behest unless he's in there, and sometimes even then. You'd expect to at least hear him moving around, though perhaps the noise is lost underneath the abrasive opera tenors. Regardless, you ought to check that no mischief is afoot in there and then close it up yourself before anyone has to face Ford's wrath for touching his things without permission.
A cloying feeling of apprehension worms its way under your skin as you take a few more steps down the hallway. With every inch of ground you cover, your guts begin to squirm more and more in disquietude, as though something inherently animalistic is warning you to stay away. But you push past it, convinced of the task you need to take care of; between the sensation of jangling nerves and the ire of Ford, you'll take the former any day of the week.
Walking down this section of the house feels strange, however. You don't recall the hallway being quite this long. It feels as though it stretches on for double its usual length. The picture frames on the walls are repeating themselves, you can tell even though the subjects of each one are hazy in their depictions, and when you glance back the way you've come, the rest of the house seems darker than it had. Further away and lost to the shadows.
The fluttery sensation of concern grows in your chest. Last time you checked, the Pines residence was a madhouse, not a funhouse. Although it takes longer than it should, you manage to reach reach the door and the music's volume grows with every step, confirming your suspicions that its source lies further inside. You take hold of the doorknob, the metal cold on your skin, and ever so slowly, ever so carefully, you push the door open all the way.
The operatic soundtrack swells to peak volume upon your entry but despite the increase, it remains murky as though you have a head-cold. Sound doesn't quite permeate your ears correctly. The light inside the study is soft but it dazzles you for a few seconds all the same. When your eyes have adjusted and you're able to take in what awaits you, a chasm even icier than the weather outside opens in your belly.
There's a stranger in the study.
A man.
A man that, although you're sure you've never seen him before, feels somehow recognisable to you.
Barefoot and dressed in naught but a pair of brown corduroy slacks, his bare back faces you. His upper body is hunched over, bent forward at the waist, and his arms are wrapped around his sides as though he's huddling for warmth. The planes of his bony shoulder-blades cast angular shadows in the lighting, sticking up awkwardly and flexing as he shifts on the spot. Between them, the nodular length of his spine stands sickeningly proud in a slumped, off-kilter line. Every vertebrae presses up from beneath the depths of the man's pallid, yellowy skin, each bump making its presence known. You can even see the shape of his ribcage from behind, the skin stretched tight over the bones and accentuated by the pose he's in. His head is hung low, too low for you to even make out the back of his hair from where you stand, and instinctively, you try to rock up on your tiptoes to get a better look. But whoever this is, he's far too tall for you to manage it. Head, shoulders and then some above you, the stranger towers over you even from a distance.
Broad, but emaciated. Frail, and yet threatening.
You see his torso flare as he takes a breath inward and then releases it. Even over the music, you hear it: the very same wet, gurgling growl of a gasp that had echoed in your ear just moments earlier. This is who they must belong to. You're not sure how it's possible to have heard them so close and yet seen nothing, but there's no mistaking it.
This is the owner.
Dread seeps into your bones. It makes your legs feel heavy and your head light. Nervous, you swallow thickly against a wave of anxious nausea that doesn't quite feel like it belongs entirely to you. Whoever this is, they're not supposed to be here. And scared as you are, there are other people in this house. Children. You know you can't let this man stay. Against your better judgment, against the warning sirens that blare in your mind, you open your mouth to tell him so.
"You can't be here," you tell the figure over the music. Your words leave you weakly, wobbly and unsure, and you try to clear your throat but the next command sounds even frailer: "Leave."
Despite their lacklustre delivery, the man's breathing shudders again as if in response. He heaves another wheeze that stretches his ribs and pronounces his skeletal figure. His fingers twitch where they rest at the opposing sides of his back; long, bony things with swollen joints and blackened tips, broken nails raking at his washed-out skin to leave reddened welts in their path. The man breathes again, this time in almost a sob, and when you take a step backwards in apprehension, he flinches.
Ever reliable, your somatic response kicks in and you freeze. Your heart kicks so wildly in your chest that you worry you might drop dead if it doesn't slow down. In a fit of panic, you turn your head ever so slightly to angle your voice behind you without taking your eyes off the man and call out for help from the first person that comes to mind: "Ford!"
The stranger's head raises slightly at the mention of the name, the motion unnatural and jerky. You think you glimpse mousy brown hair, lank and unkempt, before it lowers again. Just as you pray that the man is going to remain still, his body writhes again. His shoulders begin to twitch in the same way his head had, each blade cracking and popping in jagged jumps until they've shifted the bones under his skin enough to straighten upright.
He moves like a poorly captured stop-motion puppet, each gesture accompanied by a sickening crunching sound that you can hear clearly even over the haunting record's lyrics. Without a slump, the man is taller still at his full height. So tall that the top of his head brushes the rim of the light fixture and makes it wobble. His arms withdraw from around himself and quiver stiffly to his sides, his wrists bent at awkward angles and his unnaturally long fingers spread wide.
The record crackles, the volume dipping momentarily, and in the pause, the figure chokes out a single word:
"Br-oth-er."
His voice is wrong. It sounds like several people speak at once, each overlapping the other in a wheezy groan. The tone is deep and drawn out. Stilted and slimy. Spoken through a mouthful of meat.
Your breath hitches in terror and your knees grow weak, the weight in your legs turning to lead.
In the corner of the study, the old record player returns to its volume for a brief moment before the tenor's voice begins to skip. The record sticks underneath the needle, repeating the same garbled Italian over and over and over and over. The abruptness of it only serves to make you flinch again. Stupidly, your gaze snaps over to the device.
Just for a moment, you take your eyes off of the man.
Mistake.
It all happens so fast. There's another crunching sound and when you look back toward him, he's launching at you from across the study. In the blink of an eye, the man has pivoted on his feet and lunged the distance towards you. Your eyes can't seem to comprehend his face at all, the entire thing a blur as he comes at you so quickly that your brain barely has the wherewithal to react.
But your body does.
The instant you register his movement, you bolt. You turn tail with a frightened shout and sprint out of the door as fast as you can, your legs pumping underneath you. The man takes chase like wolf with a rabbit; you hear the sound of him thundering on the wooden floor, right behind you, right at your heels, and you will your body to run as fast as it can carry you.
Before you, the hallway appears to extend even further than it had on your trip down here. A straight, narrow line that offers no hiding place and no way out. The doors are all gone. Sealed up. No matter how far you run, no exit appears. Nowhere to go. You're trapped.
You're going to die.
You have to keep running.
At your back, you hear the picture frames shatter as they're knocked from the walls by the man, the creature, the whatever-it-is. It bellows a thunderous roar at your insolence, at your refusal to be caught. Its breath tickles the back of your neck. Makes the hairs there stand on end. You sense it swipe a hand out, feel its nails catch the edge of your shirt in a near miss, and you keep running. There's a roaring in your ears and a great and oppressive pulsing in your head. Over it, you can hear the wheeze of the man-thing looming in, closing the distance.
But the hallway
stretches
onward.
Endless.
The man makes another sound, a terrible, triumphant squeal of delight. A delirious cackling laugh. Someone in the distance, a woman, wails.
You expend precious energy on a scream for Ford, a prayer for his help, but it's the second and final mistake you make. Your pace falters with the effort and in the misstep, your feet tangle with themselves.
You trip.
The fall seems to happen in slow motion. Your arms flail outward, useless, and your ankles roll painfully. Your legs buckle. Your body tumbles forward. The ground rises up to meet you. Something hard and sharp hits the crown of your head and you realise this is it.
This is it.
It's got you.
It's over.
Consciousness hits you like a train.
You wake with a panicked shout, all of your senses returning to you at light speed. Your eyes fly open to blinding sunlight and you have barely a moment to register that you're falling in the real world, too. Rough ground hits your knees as you collapse downwards onto them, the friction making your skin burn hotly. Somehow, you have the forethought to brace yourself just before you hit the floor; you lift your hands up to prevent your nose from being shunted into the back of your skull, barely saving yourself from an undoubtedly nasty injury.
As though you're drowning, you gasp and splutter desperately, chest shuddering and lungs heaving right into the rug below your face. It takes several long moments for you to catch your breath. You remain doubled over on the floor until it returns to normal, body wired taut with tension and panic. Every muscle screams with the effort of keeping you upright, your arms shaking and your wrists jarred painfully from the impact.
Once you think you can trust yourself to move, you give in to the need to relieve them of their endeavour and rock over to one side, splaying out on your back with a soft grunt.
Gradually, as your breathing calms itself, your other senses begin to return.
Birds sing from outside, their waking calls twittering a soothing soundtrack, and the warmth of the sun soaks into your skin where you lay.
You cast a glance around the room and take stock of what you see in the hopes of grounding yourself: Tall bookcases line the edges, so densely packed together that they practically become the walls. They're filled toe to tip with thick tomes, their spines catching the dawn and reflecting its light.
There's a forest green chaise longe to your right hand side, its legs half on-half off the very same Persian rug that you're flattened to. In front of it sits the skull of a large prehistoric creature, the top of it draped with a small, chequered dining cloth, and a now long forgotten cup of something rests there. Turning your head to your left, you almost leap back to your feet again as your brain registers a menacingly big figure nearby. But you settle yourself as you realise it's nothing but a baby grand piano; all sleek Honduran mahogany and ivory white keys, complete with a neatly tucked in stool.
Just as in your dream, you recognise that you're in Ford's study.
A pang of worry hits you as the memory of the wicked man surfaces and you sit upright quickly, head oscillating to check every corner for any sign of him. Dark spots cloud your vision with the motion, tired body struggling to move with too much speed, and you blink rapidly to rid yourself of them in fear that they may give your assailant something to hide behind.
Thankfully, however, you find nothing ominous waiting for you.
Dawning daylight filters in through the two large, sash windows at the furthest end of the room. Ford always forgets to draw the curtains in here, usually too caught up in his work to pay them any mind, and it works in your favour today. There's nowhere for another person to conceal themselves. The sun stretches right across the study, illuminating the entire place and chasing away any lingering shadows to give you a clear picture. The waking world is much brighter than that of your nightmare.
With a shaky hand, you wipe away sweat from your brow and aim for a plan to get up off of the floor.
In the centre of the room stands an enormous desk, its surface covered with books and papers and leftover mugs. The wood that is visible between the debris glows cherry red in the strong light and you shuffle yourself towards it on your backside, reaching up to grab at the empty spaces on the edge and haul yourself to your feet. You lean your weight on it to assist your weak legs with the effort as you stand up, peering cautiously over the top to check behind the mess, just in case.
Yet only Ford's large leather chair awaits. No creeps or monsters.
You heave a sigh of relief and perch your hip against the lip of the desk, sagging slightly with the resolute reassurance that you really are alone. No threat has crawled out of your nightmare to follow you home.
Since your arrival here, they've been mostly murky and nondescript, just a lingering feeling of anxiety accompanying empty blackness whenever you've gone to sleep. You'd been relieved at first, assuming them suppressed by Ford's fancy elixir, but apparently that doesn't appear to be the case. He'd dosed you again last night yet here you are…. Wandering like a lost cat.
And although it may not be the first nightmare, it is the first to have felt so…. real. So interactive and realistic. The top of your head still stings slightly from where that thing had touched you, a phantom sensation that lingers uncomfortably. The last one with Ford, the one in which he'd devoured you alive, had felt visceral enough but this seems like something different.
It's also the first you've had that's led to sleepwalking. You're not particularly inclined to go adventuring at night at the best of times anyway, which makes it all the more unusual. You know for a fact that you hadn't fallen asleep on the floor of the study last night and it's disconcerting to find yourself waking in a new environment.
Very kindly, Ford had offered you his own room to stay in on the second day of your temporary house arrest. He had assured you that he rarely got much use out of it himself anyway and that he'd feel terribly impolite if he imposed a quarantine on you and relegated you to the couch for its entirety. Not that you mind. It's a nice gesture and you hadn't particularly looked forward to nursing a bad back for weeks on top of everything else. And though you won't admit it, it is more than a little thrilling to stay in a space that you know he's slept in….
But that's beside the point.
The real point is that you know you went to sleep in his bed last night. Not his study. The study that stays locked. The only key to it is on Ford's carabiner and he keeps that clipped to his person at all times. While you've taken his bed, he's sleeping down in the lab, so there's no way you could have pinched it off him in the night. He's securely behind a multitude of safety controls and an entire story of dirt down there, not to mention the fact that the only entrance to the lab that you know of is through the study anyway.
Which begs the question: how the hell did you get in here?
A glance at the door shows it to be closed tightly and once you're sure you won't topple over again, you carefully make your way over to it. But you find that the latch is turned flat, which means it's still locked from the outside. Odd. You look down towards the bottom of the door to try and see if perhaps there's any way you could have jimmied it open from there and as you do, you notice that there's something stuck to the bottom of your foot.
Lifting one reveals that the soles of your feet are caked in mud. It's dry and dusty now, but still there. There's a crispy leaf stuck to your heel like leftover toilet paper and you pluck it off, nose wrinkled in disgust. A thought hits you at the sight: did you sleepwalk outside? Very quickly, your brain puts two and two together and you look over at the sash windows suddenly. Now that you're a little more awake, you note that one of them is open slightly.
No way….
The bottom section of the leftmost window is pushed up, held aloft by its internal hidden mechanism, and you can see from here that the curtains waft in the gentle breeze that filters in from outside. Quickly, you hurry over to it and find that there are two solid footprints outlined in dirt on the floor below them. There's even a smear of filth on the window sill from where you must have hauled yourself through.
Holy shit. You didn't just sleepwalk outside, you must have broken in here from out there.
"What the fuck is happening to me?" you murmur aloud, staring down at your still-trembling hands.
It has to be linked to your illness, but how you're not quite sure. Ford doesn't keep anything of interest lying around; the study holds all of his books and papers, his ongoing work for journals and academic research, and a few dogeared files. Nothing of note to you specifically.
It seems strange that you'd go through such effort whilst unconscious to find a way in.
A chime rings out, deep but soft, and you jump again, glancing around the room. Your eyes land on the antique grandfather clock that sits on the wall between two bookshelves. Its golden hands signal the time it's announcing: 8AM. There's no time to figure out the reason for your impromptu walkabout now. You should get out of here. It's still early but there's no telling if Ford's up already and you don't want him to find you milling around his private space in your skivvies with your feet covered in mud. Any conversation on your dream activities can be had in private when you're more suitably dressed and looking less like a red-handed criminal.
Using the hem of your pyjama shirt, you wipe away the mess on the window ledge and the dirt on the floorboards. It doesn't appear that you've tracked mud into the rest of the study, thank god, which means your escapades should go unnoticed provided no one actually catches you in here.
Once things are clean again, you twist the latch on the study door and slip out into the hallway. The lock clicks back into place automatically upon closing it and you're met with complete silence from the rest of the house. Everything is still and quiet, just as it should be. No heavy breathing or horrible opera music.
You're pleased to find that the real hallway remains the correct length when you pass down it. The closet door exists exactly where you remember it being the last time you checked, and all of the photographs on the walls are reinstated to their proper clarity; each cheery face of the Pines family grinning down at you while you wander by them.
At the end of the hall, the space opens up again into a small foyer; the very same one from your nightmare. But unlike the barren, impersonal space in your mind's eye, this one shows signs of life: Shoes are neatly arranged on either side of a muddied doormat, heavy work boots snuggled beside old trainers and glittery pink sandals. Evidence of the house's occupants.
There are scuffs on the bottom of the front door, the oak damaged from where it has been kicked shut behind whomever has entered. You poke your head up to peer through the tiny window that's set into the upper-centre of it to check the weather and you're even more pleased to see that there's no snow on the ground outside. Only plain grass and sunshine awaits.
As quietly as you can, you sneak up the staircase. The sound of your footfall is muffled by the striped carpet runner that cascades down the centre of them, swallowing any warning of your approach. On the bright landing, you pause in order to take stock of the situation up here.
Gravelly snores emanate from behind the door of Stan's bedroom, the first one you meet when you arrive at the top of the stairs. To your left, a short way down a shallow corridor, is the children's shared room. Unlike the other plain doors up here, theirs hosts a handmade sign. The nameplate is a collaborative creation between Stan and Ford, a gift to welcome the younger set of twins back to the Falls this summer. The brothers had shown it to you just after it had been finished, eager to get immediate feedback on it before the kids had come to stay, and you'd awarded them with the exact sentiment they'd hoped for. It's adorable. Neat script in Ford's elegant hand is burned into the wood and Stan's painstakingly careful etchings of stars and trees sit around the corners.
You hover halfway down the hall to see if there are any signs of life stirring beyond said sign, but nothing comes. There's no bickering or laughing from within.
Everyone seems to still be asleep.
You're relieved. Not only because it means there's no one around to witness your bizarre bout of sleepwalking, but also because it means that no one has destroyed the bathroom as of yet. Sharing a house with so many people means that things rarely stay in order for long. Besides, you're not keen to suffer through another freezing cold shower after the others have hogged all the warmth again.
Ducking out of the short hallway, you pass Stan's room, then Ford's (or rather, yours) beside it, and follow the sharp curve of the landing around to the right. At the end of it sits the bathroom, and you duck inside quickly before shutting the door softly behind you.
The faint scent of bleach hits your nose the moment you step inside, the bathroom still clean from the thorough seeing to you gave it yesterday. It had been a priority to make it so; the rest of the house is yet to receive the same treatment, lagging behind with your absence and lack of energy, but there's only so much lived-in 'charm' you can take. A dirty bathroom is where you draw the line, no matter how shitty you still feel. It's far easier to find the effort to keep things clean in the house you're paid to do it in.
The light in here is low. The sun struggles to fully permeate the blinds that cover the thin hopper window that sits up high on the wall to your left. It overlooks the grounds, the glass warped to obscure the occupier and save their privacy, and you pause before you open the covering.
Though you're confident that you're wide awake, there's one way to be absolutely certain. You strip off your clothing and, reliable as clockwork, your rash reveals itself to still be firmly in place. Familiar green hand prints glow gently up at you, effervescent and uniquely pretty in their own way. A bit of conflicted relief washes over you: Definitely not dreaming and definitely still a walking memorial to your fling with Ford.
As much as you loathe being unwell, you've grown slightly attached to the marks. It's like a weird, warped form of Stockholm Syndrome, where you've become fond of knowing that he has touched you even though the memory remains torturous in many more ways…. Which is nothing like Stockholm Syndrome really, but the point still stands.
It's nice to see them.
Glad to be sure, you cross the room and raise the blinds just enough to let in some sunlight. Once you're able to navigate around in here with more ease, you ignore your exhausted reflection as you step past the mirror and make straight for the tub.
You lean around the shower curtain and twist the stiff silver knob on. The head spits out water immediately; a high powered, fast concentration that begins to steam quickly. One of the bonuses of staying with the Pines family is that their house is much nicer than the old cabin you live in. Their plumbing doesn't rattle or take ten minutes to heat up. All the fixtures are new and the tiles haven't aged to an off-grey colour yet. It's a welcome change.
You clamber into the tub and duck under the powerful spray, sighing with relief as it hits the top of your head. Under your feet, the water grows murky whilst it melts the muck off your soles and you splash around slightly to ensure that everything gets cleaned away.
The tension in your muscles begins to relax as the heat sinks into them, calming you. There's little more comforting than a nice hot shower and the quietness of the house only serves to add to that brief serenity. The events of the past few weeks have been driving you insane and you're willing to savour every moment of potential peace that you come across, no matter the horror that has precluded it.
On top of the time you've spent tucked up in your own cabin, you haven't been able to leave this one yet either and you've found yourself starting to go a little stir crazy. In comparison to the relative isolation you'd spent the worst of your illness in, it has been nice to have some company for a change. It certainly beats talking to yourself all the time. But you're barely more than a few days into living with the Pines family and it's turning out to be a new experience, to say the least. Startlingly different in ways you hadn't expected.
The transition has been jarring.
You're used to living alone and you've adjusted yourself to that. Before you'd moved here, in the city it had been the same. Just you and a few plants for company. Tranquil and calm, in control of your own space. Living with a family of four (five including Waddles) is anything but. A more average family would be hectic at best, but living with the Pines' has proved in barely a few days that they're much more than that. Each member of the family is a hurricane in their own personal way and every day feels like you're living on the edge of a well-meaning storm.
Mabel has been desperate to involve you with as much as possible to keep your mind off of your ill health, bless her heart. She'd jumped at the chance to have a 'sleepover', even after Ford had reiterated to her that your stay was for medical necessity and not luxury. Arts and crafts, movie nights, even boy gossip if the fancy takes her (which it often does). While you don't mind in the slightest, it's certainly a change to quiet nights in front of the TV by your lonesome.
When your time isn't occupied with her itinerary, Dipper has enjoyed teaching you the rules to his overly complicated board game and wringing you for information on your Bies encounter. Thankfully he, at least, gives you room to breathe in between each one.
The amount of things two lively kids can pack into a 24 hour period is, frankly, incredible.
Stan, on the other hand, simply seems grateful to have someone else take on the role of designated adult around the house. He seems very happy to have you back in the fray to tidy his messes and you're pleased to fill the void. While your efforts are lacklustre at best, extending mostly to picking up stray bits and pieces you come across, it's been good to have found some purpose again.
You've missed it, and them, more than you thought possible.
But living with Ford, however…. That is something else entirely.
Nursing your injured heart is tough in such close proximity to the problem. Where the separation with him had been agonising in its own right, living under his nose is a different kettle of fish entirely. For the most part, he's kept himself contained to his lab or his study for the majority of the day, working hard to uncover the lost information he needs to find to cure to your ailment. But when he isn't there, when he comes up for air or fuel, it's fucking unbearable. Not because he's a hellish housemate, but much the opposite.
It's the domesticity of it all that really makes you suffer.
The first time you'd seen Ford in his pyjamas, you'd almost keeled over and died on the spot. Making coffee first thing in the morning, you'd been caught off guard when Ford had wandered through the door of the kitchen in a plush blue dressing gown and matching stripey PJ's. The collar of them had been turned up to hide his throat, his hair wildly disheveled and his eyes heavy with sleep. He'd looked so soft, so unguarded and relaxed, and you'd gripped the counter top so tightly that the skin of your knuckles had burned over the bone.
He'd seemed surprised by your presence, like he hadn't expected you to be there despite being the very reason for it in the first place. When he'd recovered, he had bid you a good morning with a voice still raw from rest, his typically deep tone so husky with sleep that you'd had to suppress a shiver and turn away to make yourself look busy.
This entire thing is a disaster.
Whilst you'd meant it when you'd promised yourself that his friendship is more than enough, your deeper feelings haven't changed no matter how much you will them to. Even with the knowledge that things are over before they've even really begun, the infatuation creeps in at the most inopportune moments. Its claws leave scars on your heart every time you try to pull them away and the lingering feelings are rapidly moving towards something much stronger than a crush.
Something that you don't particularly want to delve into, if you're honest. Something that's bound to get worse if you don't do anything to stop it. The sensation is sickly, heavy like grief but simultaneously airy enough to soothe the pain of carrying it around all the time. It follows you everywhere, permeates every move you make, every thought you have of him.
You've wondered as of late if it's a side effect of this bond-thing, unknowable as it is. Perhaps the feelings are exaggerated and overblown, worsened by whatever alien bacteria is tying you to him…. A much more honest part of yourself knows, though, that they outdate the contraction of this illness by an inordinate amount of time.
Eighteen months, you've worked for this family. Seventeen months, you've been enamoured by Ford. One of them, you've been in love with him.
It's pathetic.
You berate yourself every time you're reminded of it, of the depth of the feelings. As it turns out, friends can't have sex and stay friends, not really. Not when it comes to you and Ford, at least.
Well, one of you can. Ford himself seems absolutely oblivious.
While he's the same, awkward idiot you've always enjoyed, he's stoutly rectifying his transgressions of the past few weeks with the hope of maintaining said friendship. There's a vague air of apprehension between you at times but it has lessened dramatically since the argument in the lab three nights ago. Since moving into the Pines' residence and being forced to spend so much time with him, he's made it clear that he's trying to do his best to get on your good side again. And while you are still angry at him for everything, it's not like he has to do too much to make you forget your hang ups for a moment.
Giving you his bed, checking your vitals on regular intervals, pulling out chairs for you at dinner time. Little things.
He's even been making you tea, for god's sake.
Everyone prefers what you make to that of their own attempts and you don't mind at all. But several times now, Ford has made you your own cup without being prompted. He makes it horribly, possibly the worst you've ever had, but you've pretended to drink it down to the dregs on every occasion purely because how could you not? He'll hand it to you wordlessly throughout the day when he comes up for air from his lab, watching for your reaction every single time, and you can't bear the thought of wrinkling your nose at his efforts.
You'll hum into the cup and smile at him brightly like an Oscar winning actor, and he always nods with a self-confidence that's typical of his skill set, happy in the knowledge that you seem to be appeased. He never sees it when you empty the remains into a potted plant's dirt the moment he's gone, but what he doesn't know won't hurt him.
To make matters worse, there's no one in the world for you to talk to about it all. There's no way to get it off your chest. No one can know of what transpired that night except the two of you involved and that pivotal point of information is the compounding factor for your growing affection. Things were bad enough before, but since the sex…. It's become all consuming. Every feeling you have exists solely within you, untouched and unexamined, swirling around like a raging fire. You're slightly concerned that eventually, they might all burn a hole in you if you're not careful.
Maybe even a six-fingered, hand-shaped hole….
Enough.
That's quite enough of that line of thinking. The skin on your body is starting to prune with how long you've been zoning out under the water and the steam from the heat is making you dizzy. It's high time you get out of here.
You flick off the water and clamber out of the tub, reaching over to pluck a towel from the row of hooks on the wall. It's your own personal towel, specially provided by Ford for the very specific reason of avoiding potential cross-contamination with anyone else; not that you'd be so inclined to share towels if you were in good health anyway.
You scrub yourself dry and turn to redress when you're abruptly reminded that you haven't brought any clean clothing in here with you. Everything is still tucked away in your suitcase, awaiting unpacking after Ford had graciously helped you collect some bits from your cabin the other morning. Your head had been so scrambled from the nightmare that you must have completely forgotten to grab anything. No matter. It still doesn't sound like anyone is up yet; you can cover yourself with your towel and leg it back to the bedroom before anyone sees you. The sunlight streaming in through the hallway window on the landing will hide your rash anyway and you're confident you won't be caught short.
Wrapping the towel around your modesty, you make a quick detour to brush your teeth and gather your pyjamas before you head out. You swing the bathroom door open wide, ready to dart for safety, only to be met with the very scenario you've been lamenting all morning:
Ford.
He's standing right outside the bathroom door, one hand raised like he intends to go for the knob. A tiny, startled 'oh!' slips from his parted mouth as you very nearly run straight into his chest. Without thinking, you let go of your towel and bring your hands up in order to cushion the potential hit. Lacking support, the material around your body slips slightly when you let go of it and the upper hem of the towel slides downward. At the same time that you yelp and go to clutch the sheet, Ford's eyes go wide behind his glasses, panic written all over his face, and he jerks forward as though he hopes to catch it for you.
There's no need. You manage to prevent it from falling too far and his hands hover uselessly in the space between you. His movement in reaching to help you has brought his face down to your level and the two of you stare back at each other, eyes big with surprise, both equally taken aback.
Awkwardness begins to seep into the cracks of the unexpected moment. Almost instinctively, unintentionally, his gaze drops to where your towel is wrapped around you. It's a natural glance to follow a moving object, nothing more you're sure, and his eyes linger on your exposed skin for just a moment too long. It fills you with a momentary rush. A charge of misplaced satisfaction to have his attention on your body. But it ends as quickly as it came. He catches himself, his cheeks turning a healthy rouge as he turns his head to look away and he clears his throat, straightening up again.
Without his eyes on you, you can take in his form properly. He looks as handsome as ever: his hair is astray and he's dressed in his striped pyjama pants with a thick, cream turtleneck yanked on over the shirt. You can see the edges of it poking out from beneath the hem. His entire visage is rumpled with recent sleep, like he's freshly roused from a cat nap, and it makes your heart skip several times over.
This is exactly what you meant about living in such close quarters with him….
Another beat of tension passes with your silent observation and then the both of you speak in sync in an attempt to smooth it over:
"Apologies, the lab shower is on the fritz!"
"Sorry, I didn't think anyone else would be awake!"
Ford winces minutely at the clash of words and looks back towards you, briefly meeting your eyes before he seems to bottle it and decides to train them somewhere behind your head. You can see him visibly wracking his brains for something polite to say, and to save him the effort of the social interaction, you reply stupidly through a tepid laugh, "Don't worry about it! I forgot to lock the door, at least you didn't just walk in, right?"
No one in this fucking house knocks, you've discovered. It's extremely annoying.
But it doesn't appear to help in the slightest. Ford's face gets redder and tension creeps into his shoulders, cinching them up higher to his throat. His gaze remains resolutely on the bathroom behind you and he offers a weak, stilted laugh in response, a full octave higher than normal.
"Right…." he mutters, looking uncomfortable at the thought. He shifts his weight on his feet and takes a small step backwards; half a retreat, half an attempt at giving you space to pass.
It's both an invitation and a request for you to leave.
Sheepish, you clear your throat and nod, stepping around him. "I'll, uh, I'll put some coffee on downstairs whenever you're ready," you mumble, face growing warm. Without waiting for his reply, you dart across the landing as quickly as you can manage whilst still hefting your towel up and throw yourself into the safety of Ford's bedroom.
The door shuts behind you and you lean back against it, body sagging with relief. You sigh, long suffering and put upon, and rub a hand over your face. Nightmares, sleepwalking and running into Ford whilst you're half-naked. What a way to start your day. It had slipped your mind completely to inform him of your earlier walkabout and if you're honest, you're not sure you'd have brought it up anyway in that moment. You're not convinced he'd have taken on board anything you'd have said.
Besieged, you look up to the heavens and groan. "Give me a break already," you whisper, hoping whatever entity is responsible for the mess of your life might be listening for once.
Nothing answers, however. You're graced with no sign of ethereal acknowledgement or understanding. Just the same lonely room you'd gone to sleep in. With a huff, you toss your towel onto the bed and begin to flit about the room to get changed into something more acceptable than your birthday suit.
Unlike the mishmash of textures in the lab bedroom, Ford's proper bedroom is plain and simple: The walls are made of the same timber that lines the rest of the house, polished and well-manicured, but bare of personalisation beyond a few scattered shelves. A large chest of drawers sits beneath the broad window to the right-most side of the room and an antique wardrobe is pressed up against the joining wall. It's filled with some of his clothing, you'd checked when you'd first settled yourself in here, but nothing else of particular interest. A large four poster bed is pushed up against the side that borders Stan's room. The navy sheets are still dishevelled from your restless stay in them, pushed back and half hanging off. Beside it, a small writer's hutch takes up space and just like the desk in his study, the hutch holds a couple of piles of books on it, but not much else.
The only giveaway that this is his room comes in the form of scattered bits of paraphernalia dotted about the place. Varying pieces of his discoveries are littered throughout it. Presumably, they're things Ford either wants to keep for himself or that he's deemed to be safe enough to store in here rather than the confines of his laboratory. They range wildly in nature, from what look to be old, engraved stone tableaus to pretty purple crystals; half-finished devices to hand drawn schematics; the bleached bones of small creatures and little dried flowers.
Each one speaks of a different adventure, and once you'd been quite certain none of them posed a risk to you, you'd taken the time to be nosy and examine them. Ford hadn't told you not to touch anything lying around and you're sure that if he'd been concerned for your welfare, he'd have been much stricter about you staying in here. They're sweet little trinkets, evidence of his existence resting side by side with yourself in the same space.
It's nice. Quaint, even. Being surrounded by his things, trusted enough to stay in his personal space. You've cleaned in here before but never long enough to actually take in much of the room. A quick hoover and dust at most. By his own admission he might not use the bedroom much, but it isn't as though he never stays in here.
The first night you'd climbed into his bed, the scent of him had filled your nose and assured you that he'd at least slept in the very same sheets recently. There's no doubt in your mind that he hadn't had the forethought to change them to something fresher before your stay; it's your job to take care of things like that after all, and Ford's focus so rarely touches upon such domestic things. You're sure you'd have been mildly grossed out at the thought of sleeping in anyone else's second-hand bedding, but sleeping in Ford's is perversely close to a verifiable treat.
That said, you are a little perturbed by how accustomed you're becoming to his scent. You don't typically get close enough to him or anything of his to smell it all that much and at first, you'd assumed it to be just a normal noticing of something new. With the passing of the last few days, though, you're not so sure anymore. It's becoming heady to your senses, almost addictive in nature, like you're drawn to seek it out from anything he's been around or on.
You're aware that Ford is neglectful of himself and if he's caught up in excessive work, sometimes he'll go days without showering. It makes sense that he might be a little pungent at times (and sickeningly, you don't particularly mind if he is) but you don't think you ought to be able to pick it up so easily. Even earlier, when he'd stood nearby, you're sure you'd been able to catch a whiff of that familiar chemically, outdoorsy aroma wafting through his PJ's…. Weird. Not to mention, entirely inappropriate and absolutely unbecoming of someone who is supposed to be getting over their stupid infatuation with him.
You hang your damp towel up once you're fully clothed and open the bedroom a smidgen to check for any signs of the man himself. You're not particularly in the mood to be the one running into him wrapped in a towel this morning. You're sure your heart would give out in that scenario and it's barely hanging on at this point as it is.
You find the landing clear of occupation when you step out of the bedroom and you pause where you stand. The sound of the shower running is clear and you surmise that Ford is securely distracted enough for you to make your escape. But briefly, unhelpfully, your mind wanders to the thought of him under the spray, in the very same space you'd been in minutes before. The images fly to you, uninvited and indulgent. Ford soaking wet, his thick curls plastered to his head, his body glistening with water and soap….
You're not sure where such ideas even come from but they're invasive and surprisingly well realised considering the fact that you've never actually seen him without clothes before.
God, stop it! you think abruptly, giving your head a rough shake. Get a fucking hold of yourself, idiot.
The coast is clear for you to make a hasty exit downstairs and you need to seize the chance while you have it. Take advantage of the peace as it lasts, before the rest of the family wakes up and finds you lingering around like some yearning Victorian spectre lamenting your lost husband.
Someone still needs to make the coffee, after all.