Author's note: I'll try and update this once a week, or maybe every couple of days if possible. This is my first time writing a fanfic, by the way, so any tips or helpful criticisms you could give me are very much appreciated.

Chapter 1

Through perseverance many people win success out of what seemed destined to be certain failure. - Benjamin Disraeli

Stanley sat slumped over the edge of the boat, his arms dangling loosely above the shining sea that was stretched out all around them. The sunlight was especially merciless today, unbearably bright and heavy, weighing down on him like a pile of hot stones. The sheer intensity of its rays pierced through the back of his eyes, and scrambled his thoughts, leaving him in a breathless daze.

It was a hazy day, hot, white, and windless.

He felt… sleepy, but not in a pleasant way. His brain kept tempting him with the idea of just slipping all the way off the vessel, and into the enticingly cool water below as a nice little wake-up call. He might have gone through with it too if it hadn't required him to sort of stand up, or otherwise move large portions of his body around. Stanley wasn't sure if he was up for that sort of strenuous activity at the moment. Already the task of lifting his head a little every now and then in an effort to catch bits of 'whatever it was' that his brother going on about in the background, was proving to be quite difficult.

It was something about navigation, he thought. Something about masts, and sails, and derricks. Probably stuff having to do with fixing up the glorified pile of beach debris that the two young boys had the nerve to call a ship.

Maybe….Or maybe Stanford was rambling about something else entirely. He wasn't really sure.

Moving was too much effort. Trying to pay attention was even worse. And as such, it didn't take long for Stanley to abandon what little self-discipline he still had, and succumb completely to the sweltering, drowsy boredom that hung thickly in the air around him.

Pressing his cheek hard against the rough grain of the wood, and stretching out his arms, Stanley tried getting the tips of his fingers to reach the crests of the waves that half-heartedly slapped against the sides of the vessel below. It entertained him for a few minutes, till he blearily realized that despite his best efforts, every single one of the waves that came his direction was somehow slipping past him.

Obviously, the oddly lurching brine just wasn't in the mood to be touched. Stanley let out a small sigh of disappointment at that and then settled instead on simply letting his arms sway back and forth in time with the rocking of the boat.

Back and forth. Back and forth. Forth and back. Now spinning in itty bitty circles with a little swishing noise sound effect. Now in wider circles.

His… well, he wasn't quite sure what he was doing by that point, was suddenly interrupted by what appeared to be two blue sneakers standing on top of the water before him. Slowly looking up, he was greeted by Stanford's disapproving pout.

"Hey, have you been listening to a word I've said"

Nope.

"How are doing that," Stanley asked, fueled both by his desire to change the subject and a genuine curiosity.

"Doing what?"

"Standing on the water like that."

Stanford's expression morphed to one of puzzled bewilderment, and then in the next beat to one of mild annoyance. "Are you playing pretend or something. Look I told you, just because we fixed the frame doesn't mean the Stan'O War is going to be able to tread water anytime in the near future. In order to make this old girl seaworthy we're first going to have to attain the parts necessary to repair the pulleys on the foremast, then we'll need to..." Stanley felt his attention drifting away again, this time to a point on the horizon behind Stanford's big nerdy head.

It was strange, he thought. The water in the distance didn't even look blue; it looked more white, or gold. It shimmered and gleamed like it was just a wider, bigger version of the sun trying to blind him with its boiling glare. He squinted at it for a moment, and then for another moment, and then he began to feel something strange unfolding in his chest.

The ocean surrounding them was empty. There were no other boats out, no shoreline in sight. The water was vast, and lonely, and uncomfortably warm. And it dawned on him with a slow, melancholy clarity, that he felt the same way.

He was sad. His heart was burning, and heavy with grief, and he didn't really understand why.

There was a sudden loud "Hey!" followed by the sound of fingers snapping, and his brother's face came back into focus, now just inches from his own. Stanford frowned, his sharp eyes studying Stanley with a worried scrutiny "Hey, are you all right? You seem really out of it." He placed a sweaty hand against Stanley's forehead "I think you might be getting heatstroke."

The words were meaningless to Stanley. They didn't explain why he suddenly felt so sad. Why the world seemed like such a lonely and distant place. Usually Stanford was his anchor, but right now Stanley felt like he was slipping away from him somehow. Like he was being washed out by the blinding whiteness above and around them.

Wait. No, wait. He hadn't been to the Jersey beach in years. Why was he suddenly there now?

"See, this is exactly why you shouldn't just rush us out of the house haphazardly every morning. I knew we were forgetting something." Stanford closed his backpack with a frustrated zip.

With every breath he took the left side of his abdomen pulsed in furious agony. The air was too heavy, too thick. How was he supposed to breath in this stuff? He couldn't breath.

"Water bottles. And it was on my checklist too."

He was hot. He was hot, and tired, and sad. And he didn't know why he was sad.

"If you had just let me finish going through it instead of trying to... Are-…Are you crying?"

But Stanford was here with him, wasn't he? So why did he feel alone?

Stanley noticed a hand on his shoulder and turned his head up to meet his brother's concerned stare. Hot tears leaked out the sides of his eyes. Hot like boiling oil. Hot like the fire raging in the core of his heart.

It was what his mother liked to call his free spirit. The internal flame that kept him going; that fueled his anger and pushed him forward even when all he wanted to do was lie down and give up. As he looked into Stanford's eyes now it felt like an inferno. The muggy air around him was practically chilled in comparison.

Now more than ever, he realized that he didn't want to drift away. He didn't want to let go. He needed Stanford. They needed each other. Didn't they?

"Hey…" Stanford put on a gentle smile, but he wasn't doing a good job of hiding the edge panic in his voice. "Hey, it's ok. It'll be ok, alright. The water bottles aren't that big of a deal. We'll just go ask old lady Wilson for something cold to drink, she seems nice enough." Stanley felt one of his arms being maneuvered around Stanford's sharp, boney shoulders, "She lives right on the shorefront so it won't be too far of a walk, alright. Just across the beach, then across the stree-

"Don't…. leave me. Ford…. promise me… you won't leave me. I don't wanna be alone."

"Huh?" Stanford paused and turned to him, not quite catching Stanley's quiet, tear choked murmuring.

Stanley suddenly felt very exposed under his brother's fixed gaze. And very confused. Like something had gotten out that wasn't supposed to have gotten out, and was still getting out, and wanted to get out. He hesitated, flushed and disoriented, before wiping his cheeks, turning his head away, and continuing, "Even if I say otherwise…. I … I don't wanna be alone."

Stanley was facing away from his brother, so he couldn't really see his reaction. He wasn't sure he wanted to see his reaction. Half of him hoped that his brother hadn't been able to make out what he'd been saying at all. The other half…. he wasn't quite sure what the other half wanted. Maybe an echo? An acknowledgement that Stanford was just as afraid of losing him, as he was of losing Stanford?

Neither half got what they'd wanted.

Stanford's voice was warm and placating "Don't be ridiculous. I'm not leaving you, we're going there together." He squeezed the wrist of the arm slung over his shoulders for emphasis.

He was squeezing both of his wrists somehow, Stanley noticed. He was squeezing them far to tightly. His fingers were hard, and sharp, and burning hot.

No….. That wasn't right. Something was wrong.

Where was he?

"Come on Stanley, lets get moving" Stanford grunted as he tried to get both of them into a standing position. Stanley's legs however were determined to be about as uncooperative as physically possible, and the pair toppled over the side of the boat, and into the white-hot sand below.

Why couldn't he move his legs? Why couldn't he move his arms? He was handcuffed to something?

He was so hot. His mouth was bone dry, and he was thirsty, and the world was tilting and blurring around him.

He was so hot.

He was so hot, and so dizzy, and it wasn't enough. It wasn't enough to have Stanford say that he wouldn't leave him, if that were even true (and some bitter, frightened voice in the back of his mind told him that it wasn't). He wanted to know that Stanford needed him too. He wanted to know that he wasn't just the lying, cheating, parasite that his father, that everyone, claimed him to be. He wanted to be wanted. And by Stanford more than anyone.

Why was it so hot? So hard to breath? He wasn't thinking clearly.

There was movement beside him. There was a pair of hands on his shoulders. Someone was shaking him. Someone was trying to get him to sit up. Stanley couldn't sit up. Stanley didn't want to sit up. The inferno inside of him was burning its way through every thought in his head. Someone was talking to him, yelling at him. Stanford was yelling at him. But he was… far away.

They were both far away. Separated by the blinding, blazing, brightness of the ocean. By the sun, and the single sailing ship on the horizon. They were drifting apart, and there was nothing Stanley could do to stop it. He was drifting away from his brother, and towards something else.

There was a dull pounding ache near the back of his head. A dry, searing heat. Cramped muscles, chains, handcuffs. The loud buzzing of some obnoxious insect.

And why, why, WHY, did it feel like he had taken a knife to the gut?!

Oh, that's right. He had. Hadn't he.

Stan Pines, infamous conman and crook, awoke with a start; temporarily disoriented by the wall of pitch black that greeted his open eyes. He made a move to try and sit up, but found his body trapped in a curled back position that he couldn't get himself out of. Even if this hadn't been the case Stan still wouldn't have been able to get up, as he'd soon discovered upon lifting his head a few inches, only to have it collide with something hard, unyielding, and searing hot, directly above him. Actually he was surrounded pretty closely on all sides by that same something, save for the itchy, felt-like material beneath him which was only annoyingly hot.

Stan panted heavily for a moment or two, thoroughly confused and still struggling to shake off the last remnants of his dream. After his breathing had evened out a little, he closed his eyes, gathered his bearings, and attempted take stock of his current situation.

He had been stabbed in the gut on his left side. He was lying horizontally on his left side. His hands were cuffed behind him. His legs were chained together. And both were wrapped around each other, rendering him almost completely immobile. The back of his head felt like it had been personally victimized by a crowbar…. Oh, and if all this just wasn't enough, he was locked in the trunk of a car, in the middle of the desert, in what had to be over 95 degree heat.

Stan let out a string of curses under his breath. What the hell had he gotten himself into this time.