Ford watches, waits, tries and fails to not get his hopes up. He waits for the answer to his question, waits for his brother's eyes to turn yellow, waits for that dark, twisted laughter to bubble out from his chest and fill up the room.

He waits. He holds his breath. Then, his brother speaks to him. His brother speaks to him, and all at once a wave of relief comes crashing down over him with enough force to knock the breath from his lungs and make him forget how to fill them back up again.

All that air comes out in a deep, shuddering sigh as his eyes fall shut of their own accord and he slumps forward, his head bowed as he buries his face in his hands.

"Oh thank God." His voice is thick, watery. He repeats the phrase a second time for good measure, more quietly, then a final time in a near-whisper.

He needs to pull himself together, he knows. He needs to stop being so goddamn emotional about this and just suck it up, be glad that it's over for now and just get over it, but he can't. He just - he can't do it. He needs a minute, maybe a lot of minutes, to just get everything out of his system. It makes him feel weak, spineless. A nasty voice in the back of his head that sounds suspiciously like their father is quick to remind him that he's sitting here crying over a dream like some sort of little kid.

He'll feel properly ashamed of himself later. For now, he's too damn relieved to pay mind to anything else.