(ooc: I'm pretty sure I write these better when I haven't slept in a day or so. This post is proof.)
For a second, a solid, relieved rush of a second, Stanley's on familiar ground. He ain't had anyone after his eyes, nah, but guys have gone after other things - some which would've ended up with him waking up all groggy in a tub of ice, some which would've ended with him not waking up at all - and you don't have ta' look all the way to the little green men from planet x to find the kinda' guy who wants to do somethin' like that. But then Ford keeps going and, of course, the brief rest stop in the state of sane is shrinking far and farther behind Stan with no chance of turning back.
And, also of course, the next place his dear old bro steers the conversation to is some place worse, and some place almost terrifying. Something about that phrase, it's real to me, shakes him, maybe 'cause of all the vulnerability in there, and Stan doesn't know what to do here. Shrinkology, aka the fine science of payin' people to lay on couches and tell you about their mothers, seems to Stanley a very educated and very clever set of professional lies, but for not the first time in this conversation Stanley pleads with himself to come up with something because he isn't trained, he doesn't know any of that shit. Either something happened or it didn't, and if you do lie about it you decide how to do it based on that. He doesn't know anything about this 'real to me' shit.
In Ford's words are an unprecedented amount of vulnerability, the sort of thing people only say out loud if it's pitch black and dead still and you don't know if even the cockroaches are around to hear. Hearing it now from quick, clever Ford feels like his brother's just stuck a knife into him and started tryin' to carve out all the squishy parts, the ones that haven't been let out to the light of day in so long that they're startin' to grow mold and little spots of rust. Stanley stares at his brother, wide eyed, stuck.
"...I think you're the smartest guy I ever met," he says, faintly but with confidence. It's true, one of the truest things he knows but it is not enough. Because somehow that knife Ford stuck into him has pulled out all Ford's little squishy parts too, and Ford may not think of Stan as much of a brother anymore but Stan feels a rush of something, seeing all Ford's vulnerability and desperate need spilled out onto the bedspread between them, something that feels warm and powerful and pulls the lie right out of him.
"And the sanest, too. I think you're the sanest guy I ever met in my life. And I've known you, let's see, approximately one hundred percent of that time. I've known you since before we were people. If my own brother were crazy, don't you think I'd know it?" He grins, leans right over into Ford's space to look at him one face to another, and swings a fist around to try and cup Ford's shoulders in his whole arm, tries to pull him close because that force that held him together-apart from his own brother, it doesn't matter now. It will, Stanley knows it will, he can feel it lurking, ready to push that distant pull between them again and send Stanley to freezing each time he even thinks about bridging that couple inch gap, but for now it don't matter. The force of Stanley's lie, the full strength and momentum of his belief in it, has pushed that distance aside, if only for a little while.
no subject
For a second, a solid, relieved rush of a second, Stanley's on familiar ground. He ain't had anyone after his eyes, nah, but guys have gone after other things - some which would've ended up with him waking up all groggy in a tub of ice, some which would've ended with him not waking up at all - and you don't have ta' look all the way to the little green men from planet x to find the kinda' guy who wants to do somethin' like that. But then Ford keeps going and, of course, the brief rest stop in the state of sane is shrinking far and farther behind Stan with no chance of turning back.
And, also of course, the next place his dear old bro steers the conversation to is some place worse, and some place almost terrifying. Something about that phrase, it's real to me, shakes him, maybe 'cause of all the vulnerability in there, and Stan doesn't know what to do here. Shrinkology, aka the fine science of payin' people to lay on couches and tell you about their mothers, seems to Stanley a very educated and very clever set of professional lies, but for not the first time in this conversation Stanley pleads with himself to come up with something because he isn't trained, he doesn't know any of that shit. Either something happened or it didn't, and if you do lie about it you decide how to do it based on that. He doesn't know anything about this 'real to me' shit.
In Ford's words are an unprecedented amount of vulnerability, the sort of thing people only say out loud if it's pitch black and dead still and you don't know if even the cockroaches are around to hear. Hearing it now from quick, clever Ford feels like his brother's just stuck a knife into him and started tryin' to carve out all the squishy parts, the ones that haven't been let out to the light of day in so long that they're startin' to grow mold and little spots of rust. Stanley stares at his brother, wide eyed, stuck.
"...I think you're the smartest guy I ever met," he says, faintly but with confidence. It's true, one of the truest things he knows but it is not enough. Because somehow that knife Ford stuck into him has pulled out all Ford's little squishy parts too, and Ford may not think of Stan as much of a brother anymore but Stan feels a rush of something, seeing all Ford's vulnerability and desperate need spilled out onto the bedspread between them, something that feels warm and powerful and pulls the lie right out of him.
"And the sanest, too. I think you're the sanest guy I ever met in my life. And I've known you, let's see, approximately one hundred percent of that time. I've known you since before we were people. If my own brother were crazy, don't you think I'd know it?" He grins, leans right over into Ford's space to look at him one face to another, and swings a fist around to try and cup Ford's shoulders in his whole arm, tries to pull him close because that force that held him together-apart from his own brother, it doesn't matter now. It will, Stanley knows it will, he can feel it lurking, ready to push that distant pull between them again and send Stanley to freezing each time he even thinks about bridging that couple inch gap, but for now it don't matter. The force of Stanley's lie, the full strength and momentum of his belief in it, has pushed that distance aside, if only for a little while.