Chapter Text
Ford walked down the streets under the heavy press of strangers. After years on the run, he found that sometimes it was good to go someplace highly populated and blend into the crowd. His connections with the resistance had led him to this parallel Earth dimension. As of that moment, he had not found what made it parallel to his own just yet but it looked pretty normal to the author.
Christmas Eve in New York City. There was an extra feeling of excitement in the air as it was the end of a millennium.The beginning of a new time but it all whizzed past Ford in his exhaustion. He's been running from bounty hunters for days now. Little sleep and less food had been available. Everything hurt and he was hoping to get to the safe house in the very near future. He needed rest. He needed to get warm.
He looked up at the street signs and observed the gently falling snow. It would have been picturesque if Ford wasn't feeling so run down. He thought of childhood winters in Glass Shard Beach. His mother always tried to make Hanukkah special for him and his brother. She wouldn't always remember to say the blessing and light the candles every night but they would always have them lit by the end of the week. His father was unimpressed as he always was. Gifts generally consisted of needed items; socks or school supplies. Nevertheless it was still a magical time and one in which Ford would rather be than where he was now.
Ford sneezed. Then he sneezed again and again.By the time he pulled himself together, there were several people looking at him. Ford was never good with attention. He pulled his hood a little higher and turned down a street.
People were laughing and chatting around him. A little girl giggled as she ran past Ford. She was holding her father's hand and he was smiling. Ford watched them for a moment before turning to look in the window of a small café. A young couple was smiling and chatting at the table by the window. They looked happy and warm. A small pang of regret shot through Ford's heart. His motto of "trust no one" had been problematic at best lately. He was lonely. The adventures had been exciting and fun at the beginning but now he longed for something akin to stability or at least one constant in his life.
He sneezed again before hurrying on his way. He just had to make it to the safe house and he could focus on refreshing himself. Ford didn't often have permanent bases of operation. The loft on Lottocron Nine had been a fluke he had lucked in on. Most times when bouncing from world to world he had to make due in the cheapest hotel rooms and hostels or, when cash ran out or just wasn't considered legal tender in his current dimension, beneath urban overpasses or in the rural wilderness. That's why Ford considered himself very lucky when he could find resistance contacts in a new dimension and would graciously accept a space in one of their safe houses. There were such places all over the universe to house people in the rebellion. It was never anything beyond the basic; always inconspicuous but they had clean beds and running water and blessed secrecy from anyone looking to harm Ford. Sometimes they ran low on space and people had to stay together but Ford was usually glad for the company. Perhaps he would have some companions in the safe house this time.
Luck wasn't on Ford's side. The apartment was a small studio, shabbily decorated with a timeworn couch and a small television set on a small table. Behind the couch was a simple kitchen table with mismatched plastic chairs. There was a small kitchenette and a bathroom with only a tub and a toilet. Nonchalantly Ford tossed his rucksack onto the couch. A Murphy bed folded out of one wall and an old alarm clock sat on a table near where the bed folded out. Ford set it up and went to search the kitchen. There wasn't much there and Ford was too tired and sore to cook. He was rather surprised that he had little appetite. He supposed he was more tired than hungry. A long nap would do him some good and when he got up in a few hours he'd make himself a nice if not sparse meal from the preserved foods in the pantry. He removed his clothes and collapsed into bed. He was unconscious in moments.
When Ford woke up it felt like his head was pounding. He vaguely remembered waking up hours before, shaking from the cold. He had grabbed a blanket that felt like it must have weighed a hundred pounds from the small linen closet and thrown it on the bed before collapsing back into it.
Now he was shaking and sweating, his breath came in short wheezes and every inch of his body hurt. As hard as he tried, Ford couldn't push the blankets off him. He squinted at the alarm clock on the bedside table. Ford almost couldn't believe what he was reading. It was a quarter past three in the afternoon on December 25th. He was relatively sure he had first laid down around noon the day before.
Ford tried to take a deep breath in preparation to push himself out of the bed but it only triggered a coughing fit. Ford could feel the mucus rattling around in his chest but the cough was dry. His whole body shook and his eyes watered. Gasping for breath between fits, Ford wondered if it was ever going to stop.
Finally, the fits subsided and he felt exhausted again. His ribs were throbbing almost as bad as his head and his mouth was so dry his tongue felt like sandpaper. The sheets stuck to his sweaty skin and Ford had never been so hot and so cold in his life.
The realization that he could be dying came to Ford and it made him feel somewhat bitter. He had survived so many hazardous dimensions and bounty hunters and even Bill Cipher but a germ and improper self-care seemed to be what was going to end this grand adventure. He was scared and very sad. It had never occurred to him that all this time he could die alone. No one would know to mourn him. Stanley would never know what happened to him.
That thought was so painful to Ford and he was surprised that it could cause such an emotional reaction. Stan had always been the caretaker. He'd bring Ford food while he worked on a project. He made Ford lay down and sleep. He reminded Ford that there was more to life than science and academics. There were beaches to walk and waves to jump and salty kisses to steal under the cover of the pier. It had been so long since Ford had missed Stan this deeply and he would give anything to have his brother with him now.
The author tried to push himself up again but his muscles protested and he was just too weak. He collapsed back onto the bed and lay there trying to breathe.
"Stanley." He whimpered as tears collected in his feverish vision. "Stanley. Stanley, please." He begged the empty room.
That's when he heard the door open and the heavy footfalls. Through the fever fueled haze, Ford swore he saw Stan. Stanley, in his greaser style white shirt and jeans and that ever-present smile, walked over to the bed and placed his large hand on Ford's forehead. Ford struggled until he could free one arm. He grabbed Stanley's wrist, intent on pulling his brother close but once his hand encircled that wrist he knew it couldn't be Stan. It was far too thin. The vision of Stan before him melted into the familiar form of Rick Sanchez.
Rick looked down at Ford with an unreadable mishmash of concern, exasperation and disquiet painted across his features.
"Of course you caught it, idiot." He said. Rick moved his palm from Ford's forehead to his cheek, checking the severity of the fever he knew Ford had. Rick had worn his gloves but even then the late December cold had bitten through the faux leather. He had taken them off before reaching out to Ford and he figured the frigidity of his hand must have been soothing to the sick man. When Rick's cold fingers touched Ford's cheek, he sighed and tilted his face into the touch.
"Rick..." He croaked. He hadn't realized how raw his throat felt until now. Another coughing fit racked his body and he clutched his ribs under the blankets.
"You were expecting maybe Neils Bohr?" Rick said. A rough kind of grimness colored Rick's regularly biting humor as he looked Ford over. He spoke and while it was directed at Ford, it seemed that Rick was more talking about the man than to him "You have got it bad, huh?"
Rick looked at a device in his hand before turning to step away from the bed. As Rick started to pull away Ford gripped his wrist tighter.
"No." He said. He was scared. If Rick left he wasn't going to survive. He needed help. Rick stood over Ford, his dark eyes studying the man's bleary, confused own. He didn't smile or do anything else to put Ford at ease, just spoke calmly and without question. It was almost like the tone Rick used to dominate Ford but this was perhaps more gentle, even forgiving.
"If we don't do something to cool you down you might be looking at brain damage. I'll be back."
The tone calmed Ford. He slowly let go of Rick's hand and rested it on the mattress. A quick thought that he might be better trained than he thought ran through his head. He nodded to Rick and closed his eyes. God, he was so tired.
Rick sighed. Ford couldn't tell if it was the result of irritation or perplexity. After giving Ford a last once over, Rick walked to the other side of the tiny apartment. He pulled off his leather jacket tossing it on the back of the couch and pushed the sleeves of his dark teal roll neck sweater up to the elbow. Rick passed through the kitchenette, leaving the device on the table and ducked into the bathroom. Ford heard the water turn on in the tub. The sound was distant as if Ford were hearing it through a long tunnel. A few minutes later Rick was back at Ford's bedside.
"Can you walk?" He asked plainly. He pulled the sheets back and away from Ford's body. He had not been expecting the man to be nude beneath. Rick faltered, not because of the nudity. He had seen Ford naked many times before that. It was the state of his ailing form that bothered Rick.
Ford was pallid and sweating. His muscles bunched and jumped under his skin as shivers wracked him. Ford had brought his knees up into his chest and while he was not gasping, Rick saw the careful slight way Ford's chest moved just to sustain the wheezy rattle of his breath. It looked painful. While his body was pale, almost to the point of greyness in Rick's opinion, Ford's cheeks were red. A sheen of sweat dappled his brow and on top of everything else, it looked like Ford could use a shave. Ford looked at Rick and his hazy eyes were filled with tears. Watery irritated eye, Rick hoped.
Rick had seen this smart powerful man laid low on several occasions. Hell, most of the times it had been Rick who had brought him to his knees. But honestly, Rick had never seen Ford look so pitiful. Here and now Rick saw something in Ford he had never had the privilege of witnessing in him before. Vulnerable, genuine humanity.
Ford slowly and painfully uncurled himself. He pushed himself up laboriously and swung his legs over the edge of the bed. His body wobbled slightly and he cursed before looking up at Rick and reaching out to him.
"If you help, I think I can." He said in a low voice. This was the most embarrassing thing he had ever been through. All his weaknesses on display. Ford almost wouldn't blame Rick for walking out on him. Without a moment's hesitation, Rick turned and sat down on the bed beside Ford. He slung Ford's arm around his shoulders.
"On three. One, two, three..." Rick stood, hoisting Ford to his feet. Ford groaned as he pushed himself up, leaning heavily on Rick. His legs wobbled but he soon got them under him again. They stood there a second to let Ford find his footing before Rick began to guide Ford to the bathroom. Once there Rick sat Ford on the toilet and turned away to check the water.
"Piss if you gotta. When I'm sick nothing helps more than a good long sleep then a good long piss. Don't mind me. Nothing I haven't seen before." He said diplomatically. He moved about the room as if Ford weren't there. He found a few worn but clean towels and then took the step out the door to the kitchenette. Ford could hear the opening of drawers, the clink of glass and the hush of the tap.
Ford did relieve himself. He was mortified but glad he hadn't done it in the bed. The porcelain of the toilet felt blissfully cool against his back. Feeling the tears from earlier he wiped at his face with a bit of toilet paper. Everything felt hazy and dreamlike. He listened to Rick move around the apartment and before he knew he was doing it he spoke.
"I'm sorry."
Rick leaned into the doorway at the sound of Ford's voice. He wore an expression of confusion laced with a cautious weariness. He had expected to see when he looked in that Ford has been a stubborn enough he-man to try and stand up to piss; that he had missed the bowl or was about to go toppling over and yet there Ford was just as he had left him. He left the glass of water on the kitchen table and entered the bathroom. He turned the water off and slowly moved Ford from the toilet to sit on the edge of the tub. He looked back at the toilet a moment, inspecting it for anything that might be out of the ordinary.
"What did you do now?" Rick asked in a voice that suggested that he wasn't looking for an answer and was just jerking Ford's chain. He held the man by the forearms to steady him. Ford looked up at Rick.
"I made you come here. How did you know? How did you find me? " He asked as he searched Rick's face for something. They had only met up a few days ago. He wouldn't have thought of leaving Rick a clue for at least a few weeks.
"One leg at a time." Rick instructed. He gently lifted Ford's leg over the lip of the tub. Ford took the hint and did his best to be as accommodating as he could. Rick lowered Ford into the water. It wasn't cold, as Ford expected, but tepid. Ford gasped as he slid into the water. It felt good but his body was still so overheated. Rick gently pushed Ford to lay down and went about wetting and ringing out one of the washcloths.
"You opened your big fat mouth and said you had a connection in dimension CT-78." He explained "I didn't think you'd be dumb enough to actually come here but... you're good at doing stupid sh*t."
If he hadn't been ill he would have gotten very haughty at Rick's name calling but he was docile and weak. He wouldn't fight Rick.
"Why? What's wrong with this dimension?"
For just a flash, Rick seemed honestly surprised by that question.
"You don't-?" Rick sighed hard and scratched the top of his head. "Of course you don't know. You just jumped without looking."
Rick folded the wet washcloth and knelt to press it to Ford's forehead.
"This dimension had a second and a third bubonic plague outbreak in the last two hundred years. Global. Killed a lot and I mean a lot of people. Everybody who survived passed on ridiculously high immune systems. In response, the germs got stronger. To natives of this dimension, this is just another flu season. But to you, it's a case of the superflu."
The way Rick was touching him felt off to Ford. Touch wasn't a foreign thing between them but it was always sexual and rough; never like this. Rick was actually caring for him.
"They must not have known when they sent me here." He said. "They knew it was a parallel of my own dimension but not why." He was feeling a bit more coherent now. "How did you know I needed you?"
"Bunch of geniuses, I see. Should've known they weren't very bright. I mean they call themselves 'The Resistance' for Christ sake. Not very original. It's like going into a McDonald's but it's just called 'The Burger Cookers'. Don't know why you bother, Rambo." Rick had sent himself off on a tangent again. He left the washcloth on Ford's forehead and walked out of the room to his coat, still talking. His wet fingers left drops of fallen water on the lenses of Ford's glasses. "Must be nice to have pen pals as nutty about that nightmare realm stuff as you. You're a weirdo, Stanford. You're sure as sh*t a weirdo. But you don't feel as...tinfoil hatty as some of those resistance guys."
Rick fished something from his coat then circled back, stopping at the kitchen table for the glass of water and the handheld device he had left there.
"I mean if you've all got a boner for rebelling you could focus on something that exists, like the Galactic Federation. Buncha bureaucratic killjoys. Better than trying to nuke the theoretical lint trap of the multi-verse..."
Rick reentered the bathroom. He closed the lid of the toilet and sat the water glass and the mystery device on it. He also had a baggy in his hands, filled with capsules. Not all of them matched but most of them were tablets of a bright orange color. Rick fished out two of those and left the baggy on the back on the toilet. Rick knelt again and reached out a long arm to put the pills in Ford's mouth. In a pavlovian response, Ford opened his mouth for Rick. If he hadn't already been flush with fever the author would have been flush with embarrassment. Though it was no secret that Ford's mouth was very familiar with Rick's fingers.
"Bill Cipher is real." He mumbled around the pills, a mildly annoyed look on his face.
"Uh-huh. I'll be sure to tell the Easter Bunny when I see him at the DMV." Rick brought the glass to Ford's lips. "Drink up. Hydration."
Ford begrudgingly took a sip of water to wash the pills down but as soon as it passed his lips he drank greedily. He reached up and steadied Rick's hand. He drained the glass before letting go of Rick. The towel on his forehead had slid down and he reached up to readjust it.
"Thank you." He said softly not looking at Rick. This was hard for him. He was a grown man. He shouldn't need this type of babying. On the other hand, there was no way he would fight with Rick today after all he'd done. Rick sat down on the toilet and looked at the little box he had brought into the room. He nodded his head considering something.
"Your fever's dropped by two degrees already. Not broken, but it's a start..." He said. Rick didn't acknowledge Ford's thanks in an attempt to save Ford's pride. Ford craned his neck to try and see what Rick was looking at.
"What is that? How do you know?" His mind was working more smoothly. It was a relief to finally feel more like himself.
Rick held it out to Ford to see. It was a black square of plastic with a tiny keyboard and small screen on the front. To Ford, it looked like it had been hastily rigged together out of preexisting parts, messy yet effective. Ford read the word 'BlackBerry' printed at the bottom. The screen displayed a readout of heart rate, body temperature and other vitals.
"If someone with next to no self-preservation says they're going to germ dimension, you'd be a dick not to track em." He told Ford. He stood andbent at the waist. Rick gently pulled Ford's glasses off. He held them at an angle so the light could catch the metallic glint of a microchip attached to the arm. Rick looked at Ford with a little gleam of mischief in his eye.
"You always forget to take your glasses off when you go to sleep." He said knowingly. Ford blinked at Rick then looked back at his glasses. That felt a bit like intimate knowledge. He pulled the towel off his forehead and rewet it before wiping down the back of his neck.
"For once I'm glad for a bad habit." He said. Ford ran the washcloth over his hair to wet it then ran his hands over the light beard that he had started to grow while on the run.
"Yeah, I figured if you were going to put your ass in the fire, you'd need somebody to pull it out. That or if you died I figured you'd want to be buried in a dignified position. Couldn't leave you in a puddle of your own vomit." Rick shrugged. He twirled Ford's glasses by the arm idly "Not that you're out of the woods yet. Those pills will help but you need sleep and lots of it. Guess I should find some food for you too. Can you swallow solids, you think?"
"I think so. I've no appetite but that's to be expected I suppose." Ford reached out his hand for his glasses. "Please. I can't see." He said before another coughing fit took hold of him. Rick knelt and waited for it to pass. Once Ford had calmed down, Rick favored him with languidkind of fondness.
"It's okay." He said. He slipped the glasses on Ford's face. "You know where everything is."
Ford gave Rick a haughty look.
"I do but I don't believe I'm up for any of that. Has my temperature gone down?" Ford tried to discreetly cover himself as that comment had reminded his body what happened when Rick was around usually. The spirit was apparently willing but the flesh was very weak. Rick noticed the shifting of Ford's hands, a conspicuous effort at being inconspicuous. He gave a snide half smile and looked at the vitals tracker. He shrugged.
"You're down to one hundred. I think that's the best you're gonna do for right now. Should hopefully break in the night now that you've got some meds in you." Rick stood and gave Ford that flirtatious look again. He couldn't help himself when it came to making the seemingly straight-laced Ford blush. He held out a hand. "Want me to take you to bed now?"
Ford ignored Rick's flirtatious looks and innuendo-laced words as best he could. He hoped the flush from the fever was enough to hide his blush.
"I hate to ask more of you but would it be alright if I sat here a bit longer and you could change the sheets? They felt pretty disgusting after I've sweat in them for so long. I'm sorry to be such a bother." It seemed like a simple request but Ford still didn't like making it. Rick co*cked a hip to the side in a coy play at defiance.
"Jesus, you really get off on the woe is me stuff. 'Sorry to be a bother'. Says the guy croaking like a frog and not able to stand. Thinks the sheets are a big ask." Rick joked. He sensed the joke not landing and dropped it. "Fine by me. But you will stay here, drink the glass of water I'm about to give you then once you are in that bed you're going to eat every bite of whatever food I put down in front of you. Got it?"
Ford rolled his eyes and gave an exasperated sigh.
"Yes, mother." He said and gave Rick a half smile. "And if you still carry a lighter, I don't think a shave will be too strenuous on me."
Rick studied Ford's face, searching for the missing information that linked Rick's lighter to Ford getting a shave. He found none.
"If that's what you want... sure, weirdo." Rick chuckled and turned to leave the room. Ford reached out and gently took Rick's wrist in his to halt his progress.
"Before you go, I want to apologize." Rick rolled his eyes and began to say something but Ford stopped him.
"For Gear World." Ford looked up into Rick's eyes. It had been years now and Ford had been thinking about it all that time. "I could have handled the situation more diplomatically and..." He paused looking away. His thumb ran over Rick's pulse absentmindedly. "It would be remiss of me not to admit to you that I had thought about the possibilities of a romantic and vocational alliance between us. Unfortunately, I don't believe our morals correlate properly for a working relationship and as for romance.... Well, I've been in love and while I would be distressed if something happened to you I didn't feel that the situations have the same variables." He sighed. He hoped Rick would understand.
Rick could feel the damp and warmth of Ford's hand sinking into his skin. A water droplet fell from Ford's finger and rolled down the inside of Rick's wrist and down his palm. The words had been unexpected and it was their blatant open honesty that struck Rick. It hurt. It was embarrassing and it hurt. Rick had been under the impression that Ford truly didn't care about what had happened that night and in what had passed for his kind of socially inept mercy had spared Rick the indignity of bringing it up. It was somehow both terrible and vindicating to know he wasn't the only one who thought about it. Rick swallowed hard, trying to concoct some kind of meaningful rebuttal.
"Fever's got you carrying on and you still sound like a computer manual." He said in an attempt at being mild. He cleared his throat and considered his words carefully. "But, uh, yeah. I was the one that tried to mess up our thing. I was going through some sh*t. I shouldn't have let it happen. S'not what you signed up for. So...my bad."
Rick wouldn't go as far as to say Ford had a right to be mad but looking back on it, Rick realized how stupid and impulsive he had been. Rick was no stranger to being stupid or impulsive from time to time, this much was true. Though only with years of reflection and a visit back to the Mystery Shack as Oregon Stanford had asked of him that Rick really got it to stick that these two Stanfords were most definitely not the same thing. It had been a weekend, just a weekend of good food and better comfortable company and Rick found it much easier to leave that time. In any case, the man holding onto Rick now wasn't a bad guy but Rick absolutely understood when he said that anything beyond their arrangement was not a good idea. Ford let go of Rick and tried to make it look nonchalant.
"For being the more learned, they are none the less fools." He quoted. He looked up at Rick with a half smile before sliding down in the bath and covering his eyes with the wet washcloth.
De Montaigne, Rick noted to himself. He privately wondered on how it was a philosopher Ford was quoting and not a scientist. Perhaps Ford had more facets, in his overly nerdy way, than Rick was giving him credit for.
Ford stood on the beach. It was night and it was day but it was mostly night. The squeaky sound of old swing set chains seemed to echo everywhere. He stood on the beach in his black interdimensional travel gear. The ocean in front of him had the sun setting and the moon rising at the same time. One to his right, the other to his left. It was unsettling. The Stan-O-War was broken in the water, half beached. Not worn down by time or water but violently and angrily smashed. Then the crying started. A child's wail. Distressed. Scared. Familiar.
Ford turned and he was standing in front of the pawn shop. There were no lights on and it was all quiet, so still that Ford could hear his heartbeat. Ford looked into the window in the door. He could make out what looked like flipped shelves. The cash register lay on the floor, coins and money spilled everywhere. His big six-fingered hand wrapped around the doorknob and his mother's phone psychic sign flipped on. He looked up at the glowing sign with its bright blue eye. The electric hum of the neon seemed to grow louder and louder and then it stopped. Silence. Then screaming. Screaming from in the apartment. Terrified, painful child's screams. And Ford knew who it belonged to.
"Stanley!" He breathed as he ran through the door. The pawn shop was in worse shape then he had seen through the door. Everything was broken and covered with dust as if it had been like this for a very long time. He rushed past and up the stairs to the apartment. The screaming stopped as he came through the door. Like the shop, everything was ripped apart. Flies circled a rotten bowl of fruit and the whole apartment smelled like decay and excrement. The only light on was a shaky one coming from the room that had once been his and Stanley's. He could hear muffled whimpers coming from the room.
Ford didn't remember crossing the room but suddenly he was standing in front of the slightly ajar door. He pushed the door open. The light came from a flashlight on the floor, its light slowly dying. Another wrecked room but this time there was someone inside. Stanley, as Ford remembered him as a child, was curled up in a corner whimpering, his face in his hands. The little boy's clothes were ripped and dirty. From what Ford could see, Stanley was covered in bruises and cuts.
"Stanley. Stanley, what happened?" Ford asked as he stepped into the room.
"You left me, Sixer. You left me here." Stan answered in an empty pathetic way between sobbing whimpers. "Then Ma and Pop didn't want me. I was alone. And he came." Stanley started crying harder. His little body shook. "He hurts me, Sixer. He hurts me so much."
Ford felt sick to his stomach. How could he have known this would happen? He didn't want to hurt Stanley. Not his Stanley.
"I'm here now. I won't leave without you again." He said quietly as he approached the child. He knelt and placed his big hand on little Stanley's back. "I'm here, Stanley. Come with me. I won't let anyone hurt you anymore."
Stanley stopped shaking. He stopped crying. His little hands slid away from his face. One eye, the familiar comforting soft brown Ford had always loved now haunted and ringed in red, looked back up at Ford. The other was gone, reduced to nothing but a raw empty socket.
"It's too late for that, Poindexter." He said softly. Thick black blood poured down Stanley's cheek like perverse tears. Ford tried to pull away in horror but those little hands gripped his coat, so much stronger than they should have been.
"You left me here! You threw me away cause I wasn't good enough for you, Sixer!" Stanley wailed as he dragged Ford down to the floor. His eye socket drenched Ford with blood. Stan's teeth went sharp as he howled, animal-like, into Ford's face. His remaining eye drained of color then glowed flashing gold, the pupil morphing into a serpentine slit. "You let him hurt me! You said you loved me! You lied! It was supposed to be you and me forever!"
Ford screamed as he woke up. He sat up in bed, panting and crying, his whole body shaking as he looked around the small safe house. Rick was sitting on the bed beside him. The towel he was holding fell to the floor when Ford shot up, the ice cubes inside clattering to all points of the map. Rick started in surprise and grabbed Ford by the shoulders.
"Don't! Don't! Don't!" He panted as he pulled away from Rick.
"Woah, woah! Settle down!" Rick said in a voice as soothing as he could through his confusion. He struggled to hold onto Ford as he pitched and fought like a wounded animal. It was amazing how strong the man was even in the throes of his malaise. "It's, it's me, it's Rick! You're freaking out! You're dreaming!"
Ford buried his face in his hands as he slowly got his breathing under control. At last, he uncovered his face slowly. He let Rick hold his shoulders as his eyes swept the room one more time. His fingers gripped the front of Rick's shirt. He leaned his forehead against Rick's shoulder. Tenderness was foreign between them but now Ford was too weak and tired for all of that.
"Oh, God. Oh thank God." He said as he caught his breath. "It wasn't a dream. It was a nightmare."
Rick immediately put his arms around Ford when he collapsed into him. It was a move of instinct. Not knowing what to do, Rick helplessly patted Ford's back. The sweat was pouring off his skin in buckets. Rick decided to do the one thing he knew both he and Ford might be able to benefit from. Focus on science.
"It's the fever. The heat. Your hypothalamus is trying to burn out the sickness and it's making your amygdala go haywire. It's all chemicals, Ford..." He told the man. It was his dominant voice run through levels of concern and dismay.
Rick's arms felt good around him. With some trepidation, Ford slid his arms around Rick and held on. The dominant voice and those thin strong arms were a comfort he hadn't known for so long.
"Yes. Yes, you're right." he said after a moment. "It just... Felt so real."
"I know. I know but you gotta try and get some rest. I won't lie to you. Things are a little touch and go right now." Rick said. He could feel Ford trembling in his arms. He didn't know if it was from illness or fear but all Rick wanted was to make it stop somehow. Ford pulled back just a little and gave Rick a sheepish look.
"Will you stay close until I fall asleep?"
"Yeah, yeah sure." The words fell from Rick's mouth in a jumble. He had seen Ford angry and wanting but there was something about seeing the man frightened that was startlingly intimate. Intimate in a way that Rick had not been prepared for. Rick sometimes forgot that people as smart as he and Ford were still susceptible to flights of irrational emotion.
Rick gently pushed Ford back down into bed and retrieved the washcloth from the floor. He twisted a few more ice cubes from the battered tray he had on the bedside table and wrapped them up, pressing the compress to Ford's overheated head. After a moment he took a fragment of a cracked cube from the tray and slipped it into Ford's mouth. Ford's throat was still scratchy and inflamed by the sound of his voice and the labored way he was forced to swallow and Rick figured it couldn't hurt.
Ford looked up at Rick with a searching look. He accepted the ice chip and its coldness felt heavenly in his mouth. When had Rick softened? This was a man he did not know but not a man he disliked. One of Rick's hands was resting on the bed beside him as the tall man pressed the cold cloth against Ford's forehead. Ford covered Rick's hand with his. He craved a more intimate touch but he knew he was too weak and he didn't want to get Rick sick.
"Thank you." He said softly before closing his eyes.
Rick did as he was asked, the awkward feeling of being responsible for someone's comfort passing once Ford, at last, fell to sleep. He didn't sleep much himself, electing to stay sitting up in the chair beside the bed and nodding off between the changing of ice packs and hourly checks of Ford's vitals. Ford's fever broke by morning.
Ford mostly slept for the next two days and Rick occupied himself with the few channels the tube tv could pick up. Rick neglected to mention the business with the fever dream and honestly how much the whole ordeal had left him shaken as well.
The pantry was well stocked with nonperishable food and other supplies and Rick only woke Ford to feed him or to give him the orange anti-viral pills from the plastic sandwich baggie. Ford noticed that Rick was taking them too and when he groggily made mention of it, Rick irritably explained that he had to make sure he didn't catch anything either.
"In fact, I'm not risking going outside. I'm just as quarantined as you, pal. You may have decided to play the aliens in your personal reenactment of War of The Worlds but community theater was never my strong point." He grumbled.
Ford knew how hard that must be for Rick. He was a free spirit and an avid wanderer. This was a sacrifice and Ford wondered when Rick had become so selfless. He surveyed Rick's new style. Absent were the ripped jeans and dirty t-shirts with snide phrases. He looked his age and good at that. The blue of his shirt made his wild hair stand out but also his dark eyes didn't look so angry. He looked good. Ford remembered thinking when they first met that he wouldn't have approached Rick's sort in a bar but now...well now Ford would have made the first move and offered to buy Rick a drink. Ford realized he was staring and looked away quickly.
By the third day, Ford's ever racing mind began to get the better of him. Rick had refused to make much small talk with Ford under the pretense that that had always been their arrangement and there was no need for them to change that based upon their circ*mstances. It wasn't too bad as Ford was unconscious more often than not but when he was awake, the quiet drone of the tube tv made the most noise in the apartment. Rick seemed content in this or at least as Rick could be with his near permanent expression of dispassionate indifference. Rick was doing a job and Ford could tell.
Ford had decided he'd had enough and told Rick as much. That he was going to start climbing the walls if he had to remain in bed a moment longer. He had even swung his legs out of bed and tried to stand but wobbled and collapsed back down as soon as he had reached his feet. Rick acidicly reminded Ford that he wasn't shaking off a bug but rather battling a flu virus the likes of which his immune system had never seen before. That Ford had to stay in bed as much as possible to give his body a fighting chance. Ford was resentful but saw Rick's point. Though he was obstinate in the fact that Rick either needed to start talking to Ford or find something appropriate to occupy his waking hours. Rick crossed his arms and stuck out a thin hip at a defiant angle.
"Fine. What do you want?" Crosswords, sudoku or something?" he had finally relented. Ford considered something in an unsure way, opened his mouth then hesitated. Rick quirked his eyebrow at an unhappy expectant incline.
"Well, I have always been a fan of.... Dungeons Dungeons and More Dungeons. I found designing a campaign to be very relaxing actually." Ford said a little sheepishly. Rick put his fingers to his temple as if he had just developed a migraine.
"As if you weren't nerdy enough." He sighed. Ford persisted, defending the role-playing game as a contest of wit and skill and Rick sarcastically begged Ford to spare him. He asked where he was even going to find that stuff and Ford wilted at that. In college, all his DD and More D materials had been borrowed from others or mail ordered from specialty magazines. He told Rick as much and Rick took that as an absolute victory. He grumbled that he'd find Ford a coloring book eventually and told him to get his panties unbunched about it.
Sometime in the next hour, exhaustion, which was becoming an annoyance that Ford couldn't shake, returned. Ford didn't sleep often so the way his body demanded it now felt like a betrayal. Ford had no say in it however and before long the dark softness of sleep overtook him.
When at last Ford did wake it was that groggy kind of illusionary time travel that a long nap in the middle of the day was known to cause. Ford looked around, trying to get his bearings. When his gaze reached the bedside table, his eyes fell on a tidy little pile of literature. Ford tilted his head to read the names on the spines of the books.
There was a Dungeons, Dungeons and More Dungeons basics book and a thicker volume called "Tome of Foes". On top of that was a stack of graph paper, a few pens and markers and a set of polyhedral dice, none in the same color.
Ford pushed himself up and picked up the books as if they were gold. He placed them in his lap with reverence then looked up to see the back of Rick's head as he sat there watching tv.
"You found them." He said with a smile. When Rick turned his head Ford's smile melted into a skeptical look. "Do I want to know where you got these from?"
Rick rolled his eyes and looked back at the tv.
"Don't worry about it. Santa came late this year. Merry Christmas." He said. Ford set to work, thumbing through the books. The art and familiar spell and ability titles greeted Ford like old friends.
"This is spectacular. I should be able to have a campaign ready by lunchtime tomorrow. It won't be very detailed of course but complexity is not often the friend of single player sessions..." He said excitedly. Rick swung his arm over the couch and turned to look at Ford suspiciously.
"Excuse me. But you aren't implying that you want me to engage in your pathetic high concept fantasy garbage." He said warningly. Ford looked back, gobsmacked.
"But..well yes. What good is writing a campaign if you don't play it? Come on, I'll even write your character sheet for you." Ford replied with a sincerity that bordered on naive. It was painful to look at.
"Spock, I got you that stuff because you asked for it. I did not sign up to play Barbie dolls with you, ok?" Rick waved his arm in an airy gesture of dismissal and turned back to the trash tv he was occupying himself with. Ford protested a little longer but Rick resolutely ignored him. Finally, Ford decided that if half the fun of DD and more D was making the campaign then he could at least have half of a good time and it was certainly better than sitting in his bed twiddling his thumbs.
Once Ford began he fell back into the swing of things quite easily. He plotted out a maze and other battlefields on the graph paper, going back and feverishly adding corridors and obstacles as they occurred to him. He worked ceaselessly, enjoying the complexities of battle triggering traps and encounters. Ford stopped when Rick insisted he eat or take his medicine but other than that Ford was engrossed in his work. For a long time, the only sounds in the room were the low hum of the tv and the scrape of Ford's pen as he worked, occasionally stopping to cough wetly.
Sometime after the sun went down Rick looked over his shoulder to see Ford laying back in the pillow sleeping deeply. He had papers scattered all around him on the bed and floor like drifts of lined snow. One of the books was open and draped over his bare chest. Rick stood and looked the sleeping man over. It was the most peaceful he had ever seen Ford. Rick pulled the book from Ford's grasp and laid it open on the side table. He took Ford's glasses off and put them on the open page. Rick watched him a moment longer before returning to the couch where he had been sleeping.
When Rick woke up the next day after sleeping in, he looked over the couch to see Ford was already awake and scribbling madly on more paper. He had a look on his face of enthusiastic pride and was completely lost in his work. Rick could almost appreciate it from the point of view of a fellow tinkerer.
Rick slept in his underwear and now blinked thickly trying to remember where his pants had ended up. He couldn't see them. Rick coughed none too quietly and Ford at last looked up. He smiled and Rick was taken aback by how genuine it was.
"Greetings." He said happily.
"How long have you been up? You doing any better?" Rick asked, a bit distracted by Ford's exuberance.
"Oh much better. I was having a bit of trouble balancing this paladin's offensive and defensive spells list but I just got my finger on what the problem is..."
"That's not what I...f*ck it. Nevermind." Rick stood and crossed the apartment to the coffee machine. "So how's Narnia?"
Ford began to ramble on about the terrain he had chosen for the region of Integernia the quest was taking place and on whether magic should be sorcery or incantation based. Rick mostly tuned this out. He took out the medicine and popped his two pills, swallowing them dry. He poured a glass of water for Ford and brought the medicine to him. When he made it to the bed and Ford continued to leaf through the sheets searching for his notes on special abilities, Rick made an impatient motion hoping Ford would get the hint. Ford only managed to shut up long enough take the mouthful of water to go with his pills then he continued on undeterred.
"Ok, ok I get it. Hell!" Rick snapped. Ford didn't seem upset by Rick's tone but more like he had just seen Rick for the first time this morning.
"Yes well, in any case. It's shaping up to be an incredible campaign. The first dungeon is finished already. And I've even made a few basic level five characters to start with." Ford explained, organizing his papers. He held out a stack of nearly two dozen filled in character sheets. Rick took them and flipped through dubiously.
"Why so damn many?" He grumbled. The coffee machine burbled and Rick desperately wanted caffeine.
"Well, I figured it's better to have a few. I can always use them as NPCs. And it saves us from having to reroll if there's a total party wipe." Ford's tone was studious and earnest. Rick gave him a withering look.
"Us? I told you I'm not playing!" He said sourly. The coffee maker beeped and Rick walked to it. He cut off Ford's protests and very rational arguments with short stubborn 'nope's and 'no way's. This continued as Rick poured a cup and sugared it heavily then returned to Ford's bedside. Rick's responses had becomes more theatrical and playful the more he said them and Ford found himself chuckling and his well thought out arguments devolving into his own niggling tongue in cheek pleas of 'come on!' and 'you just have to!'
Rick, who was still holding the stack of character sheets in his hand, tossed them onto Ford's lap. He was smiling as he sipped his coffee.
"You're just going to have to get used to disappointment." He said sagely. Ford sighed and crossed his arms over his chest. His tattoos made an optical illusion as they folded into each other. He was also smiling.
"Alright, if you say so. I figure that's for the best anyway." Ford said in a faux voice of resignation "It's a bit of a doozy. I'd be surprised if you could make it out of Lady Arachobith's spider cave alive. You'd have to be a genius to think around the traps and puzzles I've built into this dungeon..."
Rick quirked an eyebrow and his smile grew bigger, more sly.
"You're baiting me into playing your stupid little game and you're not being subtle about it, you know I know that, right?"
"That's what I'm doing, yes." Ford folded his hands in his lap. His tone was plain but there was something in his deliberateness that was downright flirty. Rick looked into the man's face then, still a little pale with sickness save for two blooms of red high on his cheeks and saw a natural puckishness he thought stuffed shirt Ford was incapable of. Rick rolled his eyes, perhaps pretending to be a bit more exasperated than he was.
"Jesus Christ fine! What do I have to do?" He said. Still unable to locate his pants, Rick snatched up his sweater and pulled it on. Ford looked flustered and surprised.
"Really? You're really going to play? You aren't going to tell me no again?" He asked. Rick brought a chair over from the kitchenette and sat.
"I could change my mind. You want that? Quit pestering me, alright?" He warned. Ford complied and started to set up.
At first, things had started very slow, with Rick going through the stack of character sheets with names like 'Asgolt Qhegless' and 'Helm Noravor, wielder of Heartsbane' and tossing them each aside in disgust. He finally settled on a human thief named 'Zayne Pharrows' saying it was because it sounded the least stupid and made up. It did sound stupid and made up, Rick reasoned, but less so than the others. It didn't stop Rick from asking if he could rename him "Buttsmin, the well hung!" But that only earned him an admonishing look from Ford and a request to take things seriously.
But once Rick made the concerted effort to not pipe in with snide remarks every two sentences and started actually making decisions when they were presented to him Rick caught himself enjoying it. Granted all of his decisions seemed to be in an attempt to throw Ford's plans off the tracks. Rick hadn't even left the tavern the story started in without incurring the wrath of a group of kobolds with several choice words about their mothers. Rick had grinned up at Ford still sitting up in bed hoping to see a look of shock and anger but Ford just nodded his head curtly, said "Hm. Chaotic Neutral." Then he rolled a few dice into the shoe box top they were using as a dice tray and told Rick that two of the lizardmen had bitten into his ankles and what was Zayne going to do about it?
The afternoon had devolved into laughing, joking chaos. Ford had a plan for every one of Rick's tricks and Rick caught himself up in the competition of it. He solved every puzzle and snare Ford had put into the dungeon and took risky chances at every opportunity. Rick was delighted to see what a well of creativity and personality Ford could be when he wasn't thinking about the real world problems he often piled upon himself. He gave each character a voice and mannerisms, some of which were over the top enough to make Rick laugh out loud. Rick added 'at ease' to the list of emotions he had never seen in Ford until this week. Between sips on his flask, Rick urgently awaited the next monster or booby trap, though he didn't say it in so many words. He wasn't even angry when his character was ripped limb from limb by The Terrorasque, the legendary gargantuan beast living in the lowest level of the cave. It was a bad roll and Ford just looked so proud of what he had created that it couldn't rain on his parade.
Rick's blackberry went off to remind him to give them both pills. With little ceremony, the tall man stood and walked into the kitchen to retrieve the medicine.Ford couldn't help himself but watch the globes of Rick's buttocks move under the tight white fabric of the man's underwear. He felt his co*ck pulse and he remembered the last time they'd been together. Ford had been kneeling on a chair backward as Rick thrust into him. One hand gripped the beat up upholstery of the back of the chair furnished in the cheap motel room. The other hand was reaching back and gripping Rick's ass cheek to pull him deeper. He had panted and moaned with each thrust as Rick growled filth into his ear.
Ford was fully hard under the blanket by the time Rick came back with his pills and water. Ford could just make out the outline of Rick's sex beneath the thin material. He smirked at Rick and opened his mouth expectantly for his pills.Rick smiled back and placed the pills on Ford's tongue. Ford sipped the water handed to him and watched as Rick laid his lanky body laid across the bed, his head cradled in one hand.
"We still playing or what?" Rick asked and nothing was sexier to Ford than that. Ford pushed through his embarrassment and deflected the innuendo-laced comment by looking at the clock and saying matter of factly that no one was playing anything because they had made it to the end of the dungeon, Rick's character was dead and they had been playing five hours now. Rick almost did a double take at that. Now that he realized it, the sun had gone down and he did remember Ford distractedly turning on the bedside lamp so he could read his notes but Rick was still astounded how the time had flown by. Outside the lamp's yellow glow, the rest of the safe house was plunged into the pale dimness of overcast winter twilight.
"Maybe that's why I'm so hungry..." Rick wondered aloud, stood and made his way back across the room. Ford had a smug look on his face as he cheerfully packed up the game.
"Maybe next time you'll be a little more open-minded when I make a suggestion." He said in a slightly superior tone. His eyebrow quirked in a sexy beckoning way.
Rick who was had walked to the kitchen, turned to shoot back a barb but the look in Ford's eye stopped him. He hoped Ford couldn't see the look of lust and stupefaction on his face in the darkness. He elected to bark a quiet laugh.
"Hm. Maybe I will." He said.
