goodguygrifter | (no subject)

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Well, Stan's been crammed deeper up the ass end of nowhere before, but that doesn't mean that creeping, uneasy feeling doesn't get worse the deeper he gets into this damn forest. It's dark, it's spooky, it's -

It's exactly like the kind of forest you used to see in those old monster movies, actually. The kind he and Ford used to sit in front of, enraptured, arguing over how many pieces the monster of the week was going to tear the ditzy teenage protagonist into.

Maybe it's not the forest that's giving him such a bad case of the heebie jeebies. He can admit that to himself now that he's almost there. His car rolls to a stop and he sits there while the engine ticks cool with his hands still in their old, familiar grips on the wheel. He gets out. He shuts the door.

"No problem," he mutters to himself, watching the door of that weird, creepy little cabin like he really is in one of those old movies and something's about to jump out and grab him. "It's only been nine years. And ten months. And fourteen days. And he doesn't even want you here. That's no, no reason to, to uh..."

The doorknob of that weird, creepy little cabin door is under his hand. If his hand moves a couple more inches, he'll open it. He'll open the door, and then he'll -

You'll what? he thinks to himself. You'll what, genius?

"Aw, shit," Stanley says, and takes one step back, and then another, still looking at the door like it's about to bite him.

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Looks like his brother is awake, kind of. Kinda' sounds like he wishes he weren't.

Good, Stanley thinks vaguely, swallowing and blinking up at the ceiling. It makes time go by faster, pretending you're trying to sleep. The blanket pulls underneath his back as Ford starts to shift around and Stanley takes a second to breathe, pull himself all together.

"Get a move on, lazybones," Stanley says, and thinks of high school, briefly. He hadn't been in any of the school plays but he'd snuck into their practice sometimes just to be there, because the kids in drama class were cool. Well, not cool, but none of 'em gave a shit, which everyone knows is pretty much the same thing. Stanley thinks, briefly, of what it'd sounded like whenever someone new came in for the rehearsals. They had the script right there so they always said all the right things, but there was none of the... Something. None of the something behind it. Oomph, he guesses. All the words were right, but none of the new kids ever had any clue what those words were supposed to mean, and none of them cared.

Stanley is saying, he thinks, all the right words. Fuckin' good enough.

"Up and at 'em," he continues to the ceiling, and sends out an elbow to nudge at the Ford shaped lump somewhere off to his side. "The sooner you get your ass movin' the sooner I get to find out if you got any coffee. If the answer's no I'll be givin' that fat head a' yours a whole new set of scars."

Stanley makes a point and a habit out of never regretting anything that's come out of his mouth. He tracks a crack over its familiar path up the ceiling to where it runs into a wall, and wonders whether to break that habit, now. Maybe. Probably. Probably it'd be okay, just a little.

That nudge to the ribs earns Stan a grunt of protest from his brother, who (in true "fuck off I don't want to get up yet" fashion) simply turns over and flips his pillow over his head as if that will somehow block out all of existence until he feels like dealing with it.

Then Stan goes and makes that well meaning albeit tasteless joke, and he has to uncover his head just so he can look over his shoulder and give his brother a squinting, bleary eyed look.

"Of course I have coffee." He sounds mildly irritated, as if offended that Stan even had to ask. His voice sounds hoarse, rough with sleep, like the words are scratching his throat on the way out.

"How do you think I've stayed awake the past five days."

Alright, technically it was a combination of coffee, pure concentrated dread, being in a state of near-constant alarm, and the occasional shot of adrenaline into his thigh when things got really bad, but still. The point is, he has coffee, which he will never drink again for as long as he lives because he has so much sleep to catch up on.

Sighing, Ford drags a hand up to his face and scrubs at his eye with the heel of his palm, resigning himself at last to the fact that he is unfortunately awake and that he should probably get out of bed and do things people do when they're awake. Like eat, and get a goddamn shower because between the cold-sweat and dried blood, he feels like a walking bio-hazard right now.

Stanley hears the noises of his brother slowly waking up beside him and thinks about how weird this is. It'd be a dream if it weren't so real. It'd be real if it wasn't so much like a dream. Stanley listens and doesn't think and finds himself wondering: Was he always like this? Was he always like this and I just didn't know?

He thinks back a second, trying to remember how long it'd taken Ford to get out of bed, before. Being sure of that part, at least, isn't hard. He hauls himself up, swings his feet onto the floor, and ducks his head, ruffling his hair to distract himself from the way his head kinda' wants to float off his shoulders and up out a window somewhere. On the drive here he had a few breaks for naps and that woulda' been enough but then - well, fuck, life got in the way, didn't it?

So. Life happened, and after that there'd been the about-a-day he'd spent sure as shit not sleeping, and now he's not so sure he's set up the right way to deal with the conversation that's coming. Hey, why not be fair; he probably never will be.

But, hey, it doesn't matter. There's coffee. If Ford can just up and decide sleep is for other, lesser mortals, Stanley can can do it too. "Five fuckin' days," he mutters, facing the wall rather than his brother and not sure just which of them he's talking to. "Sheesh. The crazy probably helps, don't it."

Stanley laughs low and bitter and stands up, stretches his back out and feels a scar or two pull at their regular places and speaks, probably still addressing the wall ahead. What was it he used ta' say? Yeah, Stan knows this one. His lines in this part go somethin' like: "Did you get lost in there, poindexter? I think your big, strong brother might haveta' dive in to the rescue."

Ford would take more offense to being called crazy if his brother didn't have every reason to believe that was the case. He knows, objectively, how this all looks. It's far more easy to believe that he's simply lost his mind and suffered some sort of catastrophic mental breakdown than it is to consider that maybe his frantic ramblings from before might hold some truth to them.

He can't blame Stan for thinking the way he does. Hell, after everything he was just put through, Ford has to wonder himself if he isn't a little less sane now than he was before this whole mess started. It wouldn't surprise him all that much, really. After all, sleep-deprivation is a form of torture and for the past however-many-days he's been doing it to himself. You probably have to be just a smidge unhinged somewhere to put yourself through that willingly.

Sighing once more (as that seems to be his primary means of communication at the moment) Ford props himself up on his elbows, then begins the tedious process of sitting upright and swinging his legs off the side of the bed.

"There are worse things than missing sleep, Stanley."

Like what would happen to him if he didn't.

Dragging a hand down his face, Ford takes a moment to remind himself just how badly he needs to shave, before pushing himself to his feet. He's a little unsteady, as what little blood he has left in his body all goes rushing to his head, but at the very least he stays on his feet.

He blinks against the black spots clouding his vision before glancing around the room, as if trying to remember where he put something. Before long something in his brain clicks, and he reaches into his back pocket to retrieve his wallet.

"Here." Hopefully Stan is a good catch, because Ford's just gonna carelessly toss the thing at him. "I need a shower. Go get yourself something edible."

Because while technically everything in Ford's kitchen can be consumed, that doesn't mean it's at all palatable.

Stan does catch, nonplussed, and takes a look inside the wallet, counting everything inside in seconds. Once that's done, though, he looks right back up at Ford because he can't believe what he just heard. He can't believe it.

"The- sleep? You think that's the worst thing goin' on here?" His mouth hangs open, because he's still working his way through that, that itsy bitsy little fact. That his brother - that any human being can be so fucking thick. His voice is rising slowly, sounding higher and louder, and he sounds like onea' them sitcom wives really workin' herself up to rip her hubby a new one because he threw his tighty-whities on her new flower arrangement, or whatever. But that don't matter. It really fuckin' don't.

"I called a couple loony bins while you were takin' your hundred year nap," he says, slipping the wallet into a pocket and thinking, yeah, guess that talk I didn't wanna' have is happening now. It's coming out of his mouth without him even thinking about it, and it's happening now. That's fine, it's just fine with him. "Told 'em I was a doctor callin' to consult. Know what they said? They said you're a danger to yourself and others, Ford. You know what happens when people start sayin' shit like that? You know where people go?"

That talkin' to the wall and not looking too close at Ford and sayin' all the right things shit, that plan's fucked off to parts unknown because there's a switch on Stanley's brain right now, one that switches his already scrawny self control right off and it feels like Ford went up to that switch and just fucking stamped on it.

"They go where I'll never fuckin' see 'em again! And that's if someone found you! If I hadn't walked in on you in that fuckin' bathroom you'd be-" It's meant to be a push a shove to Ford's chest because the idiot deserves it, because Stan is so goddamn pissed off, he is angry, but somehow his hands end up twisted all around in Ford's stiff, awful shirt, dried blood flaking off it over Stan's skin and he has to take a breath, swallow hard.

"You fuckin' son of a bitch. You didn't fuckin' th-think of that, did... did..." Stan's hands won't move from Ford's shirt and he stares down at them and swallows again, feeling big, heavy breaths moving through his chest.

Not for the first time in his life, Ford has no idea what he just did wrong. All he knows is that whatever he said must have been exactly the wrong thing, because suddenly his brother is grabbing a fistful of his shirt and looking like he's ready to throttle him.

"Stanley!" He sounds shocked, which he is, because his groggy brain is not awake enough to put all the pieces together and figure out how they went from zero to sixty in three seconds.

His hands move up to close around his brother's, as if to keep them from deciding to move up to his throat and strangle some goddamn sense into him.

"Calm down."

That's fucking rich, coming from him, but he's not sure what else to say - what can he say? What can he possibly say that will make any of this better? It's sure as hell not the truth, that much is apparent.

"I'm fine, I'm not--" Dead, lobotomized, a mind-slave to if not The Devil than certainly A Devil. "I'm fine. Everything is--things could have gone better but everything's fine."

Funny, how after you say a word a certain number of times it stops having any meaning. Ford's probably exhausted his use of the word "fine" for the next thirty years.

He hates that it works even a little, but Ford's hands over his do help. His brother's here, for the first time in forever he's here, and the reminder steals some of that precious anger away from him. It's gone from his tone now and from his expression and leaves whatever it is that's under there totally exposed, and Stanley swallows again. "You know what else they said? They said, uh, you can't be alone. People like you, they, uh. They seem totally normal 'till, 'till they, uh. Till they're cuttin' the shit outta' themselves in f-fuckin' bathrooms."

Stan sniffs, makes an effort to keep at least a little of his dignity together. He was done with that last night, it was stress crying, he got it out of his system. His fists are loose in Ford's shirt, and he keeps them there.

"You're actin' n-normal now but, uh. But it could, the second I turn my back, an' you wouldn't even tell me. You didn't even want me to know." This is the hard part, the very hardest and most confusing part, and Stan stares into his brothers face, trying to figure out what's goin' on behind there and failing, failing completely. "God, all of this. Just, all of it. Why didn't you just ask me for help? I'm your brother."

He can get through this conversation without losin' it. He can. See him doin'- uh, almost, almost doin' it? Stanley blinks hard a few times and clenches his jaw, taking sharp breaths through his nose. That's right. He is keeping a handle on his shit.

When Stan puts things that way, when he frames what happened in that light- well, Ford has to admit, it sounds bad. Real bad. Knowing what he does about what he was doing, what he had to do, it didn't seem all that...concerning, to put things lightly. It just felt like an unfortunate but necessary evil.

But Stan? He didn't know anything. Still doesn't, really. All he knows is his brother up and decided to carve himself open on a whim and damn near bled himself dry in the process and--

--and yeah, okay. Maybe Stan has every right to be so torn up about this. Maybe Ford needs to stop trying to dance around the truth and just - just tell Stan his reasons, explain why he really did what he did. Even if he doesn't believe him, even if it just further convinces him that he's lost his goddamn mind - his brother deserves an explanation.

"What--" He pauses, swallows thickly. Between the dry mouth and the growing tightness in his throat, it's hard to get words out. "What would you have had me say?"

He lets out a short huff of a nervous laugh, the sound more incredulous than amused.

"Well Stan, I've pissed off a demon and if I don't put this plate in my head he's going to take over my body and make me regret ever being born"? Is that it, would that have been better than trying to keep you in the dark?"

Oh, but there was probably a gentler way to say that, to make such a gut-punching reveal. So much for breaking things to Stan gently.

Well Stan doesn't understand it, but hearing it isn't much of a punch to the gut. It might be the opposite. It might be that it loosens something inside him. Not by much, but a little. It ain't like he don't know his brother's nuttier than a fruitcake factory, at least by now. What he hears is that Ford told him what's goin' on in his head, finally. Little late, but he did. Stanley takes a few seconds to swallow and to breathe and whadda ya know, it maybe comes a just that little bit easier. "Didn't you hear me? Use your ears, pointdexter. I'm your brother. Look at me. You think I pulled this face outta' a cracker jack box? No, you-"

He can't ask. But he's got to. He's got to, don't he? "You don't, uh. You don't trust me? Is that what this is? You didn't think- You didn't think you could count on me to even ask? You'd rather just-" Stanley starts to gesture toward the bathroom but stops just short of knocking Ford's hands off his to do it, and instead just gives a little twitch in that direction. "Do that to yourself? Than even talk to me?"

And there it is, an armor-piercing question if he ever heard one. Immediately, Ford wants to protest. He wants to push Stan in righteous indignation and ask him how he could even ask such a thing, but he doesn't because he realizes with no small amount of dawning horror that he's not so sure of the answer himself.

He feels sick, suddenly, like there's a ball of ice twisting around inside his gut. Of course he trusts Stan, of course he does - that's his brother, the person he's known all his life, the person he came into the world with. Of course he - how could he not trust him? What a stupid question, god, why would--

Ford realizes, absently, that he still hasn't answered his brother's question. He's just standing there like an idiot, struck dumb by the realization of just how fucking far he's sunk. He's standing there meeting the eyes that are an exact copy of his own and trying not to let his heart escape as it leaps into his throat because fuck, fuck fuck--

"I..." Alright, there's a word. He can do this. Just a few more and he'll have a full sentence. "I don't know who I can trust anymore, Stan."

Funny, how those words sound like an apology.

Oh, he thinks.

His grip on Ford's shirt lets go. His hands slide away. One hand twitches and he kind of wants to make a fist with it, kind of thinks maybe he should punch Ford now. Right in the face. Owes it to him, doesn't he, after that shit Ford pulled last night.

The shit he pulled before even talking to Stanley. Because he doesn't trust Stanley. And, gee, just fuckin' wonder why that could be?

His hand, half-curled, relaxes. He takes a couple steps back, lets his knees go loose, and sits heavy back on the bed. "Oh," he says distantly, to the carpet.

"Yeah, I mean. Yeah. It's, uh. Not like I have a great, uh. A great track record there, huh? I mean- I mean, it's the smart thing. There's, uh. A little joke I got. Only two types a' people trust Stan Pines: schmucks an' future schmucks. You may be nuts now, but I guess you're still smart. "

Yeah, that handle Stanley's keeping on his shit? Turns out that handle's gone. He musta' lost it somewhere. 'Cause if he had it, that sound he just made woulda' been a laugh. Stanley leans forward, takes a couple more rough, heavy breaths, and covers his face.

Edited 2015-12-18 03:09 (UTC)

Goddamn it. God damn it. This isn't - it's not supposed to go like this. This isn't how things are supposed to work out, things were never like this between them before. It's not - it's just -

Everything has gone so wrong, and Ford doesn't know how to fix it. He doesn't know how to make things better, so what fucking good is he. Being smart, being clever, having all the answers - that's what he does. That's his job. It's the expectation he's had to constantly meet every day of his life ever since he brought home his first A+.

But now - what fucking good is his IQ if he can't even use it to figure out how to make things okay again?

"Stan--" He reaches forward, wanting to put a hand on his brother's shoulder, to apologize, to do something, but he thinks better of it.

Instead, he draws his hand back, lets it hover hesitantly in the air as he swallows against the tightness in his throat.

"Stanley, please, you don't--I didn't mean that the way it sounded."

Story of his fucking life: always saying the worst possible thing at the worst time.

"It isn't you, it's..." He hesitates, deciding to scrap that thought. "You don't know what's been going on these past few months, Stan. You don't know what I'm up against, what I've been through."

If his voice shakes a little near the end, well, that's his business.

"It ain't me, it's you, huh?" Stanley straightens up a little, swallowing and swiping the back of a hand across his eyes. "Hope that don't mean you wanna' see other people, 'cause I ain't leavin'. I don't care what kinda' demons an' shit are eatin' you up. Or if you don't trust me anymore, or, or how much you don't want me here."

He swipes his hand across his eyes again, defiantly, but it doesn't do any good. Fuck it. A wet face ain't the worst thing about this conversation, anyway. "Let me guess. What you been through has a lot to do with the kinda' shit the Twilight Zone wouldn't touch. Freaky shit no one but you's seen and no one would ever believe."

He looks up to scowl at his brother and then stops. Then he just plain looks at him. Blood dried all to hell over his shirt, bags under his eyes the size of a small city and, shit, he's probably about one good push away from falling over and passing the fuck out again. If Ford turned around, Stan knows the head he'd see would be at least one quarter bald.

"Sit down, you sorry bastard. I don't know what you been through but, I mean, that don't mean you can't tell me. You might not trust me and I sure as hell won't believe you but, um. That don't mean we can't still talk, right? We can, uh, we can at least- Can't we do that much?"

There's another question he really didn't want to ask. Another question he had to. 'Cause if they don't have that, well- well, they have to. Ford will sit down. Ford will talk to him. He just, he just will. And never you fuckin' mind it if Stan looks scared now, watching Ford. What's there to be scared of?

He knows how it sounds, he knows Stan has every reason not to believe a word of his story. He knows, but it still hurts a little. Or maybe a lot. But then, Ford supposes he can't ask Stan to trust him when he can't extend the same courtesy.

But then...maybe Stan's right. Maybe it would do them both some good to talk about this. Even if his brother doesn't believe him, just...just having someone to listen to him would help ease some weight from his shoulders.

Ford glances aside, rubbing at the back of his neck as he studies the floor.

"...Yeah." He says, before adding a bit less quietly: "Yeah. Let's...we can do that."

And so there he goes, sitting back down next to his brother on the bed. They're close enough that if he leaned over a little, their shoulders would brush. He's not comfortable with the close proximity, really, but he just--he needs to let Stan know that he still trusts him that much, at least. Enough to be near him, let him be close.]

"I...where do you want to start?"

He figures Stan will be asking most of the questions here - not that he'd mind, if he didn't have to, you know, answer them.

It's weird, sittin' like this. There's somethin' there, something telling him not to get closer, but not to pull away, either. He wants to lean in, bump their shoulders together like he used to, and he doesn't want to, either. There's something pulling him in, something pushing him back. It seems like one of the types of forces all them science classes he'd never paid attention to probably tried to explain. Might be something Ford could explain, if Stan felt comfortable enough here to ask. If he could figure out the words.

"When did it happen?" Stan lets his hands sit in his lap not touchin' his brother at all, keepin' from making any gestures either, because then the two of them might touch accidentally. That feels dangerous now in a way it didn't before, with his hands twisted all into Ford's trainwreck of a shirt. Those old useless science classes might have an explanation for this, too, why he suddenly feels like there's something there. He doesn't have a clue what, but something, and there's no telling what'll happen to the two of them if Stan gets too close to it.

"Your uh, your-" And Stan is really trying here, he's trying, so he don't say 'weird shit' and he doesn't say 'tiny demons tellin' you to carve out your fucking brain, Ford, do you know what the back of your head even looks like', and he doesn't even say 'hallucinations'. What does that leave him?

"The stuff you see. The stuff you drew in your little book. When did that, uh, when did that happen?" How long has this been going on, Ford? How long since I coulda' come and saved you?

He had known going into this that Stan wouldn't be asking any easy questions, but even so, Ford hadn't expected him to hit him with such a hard one right off the bat. Dragging in a deep breath, Ford mulls over the question for a moment, before breathing out a hard sigh.

"About six years ago."

He doesn't look at Stan when he says it, he doesn't dare to. He just keeps his eyes fixed on the far wall, and pretends that keeping his attention focused on it helps him think.

"Six and a half, give or take a few...look, the exact number isn't important. The point is, ever since I moved here to Gravity Falls, my eyes have been opened to a world no one else has even noticed. I know it's hard to believe, but right here, right now, we are living alongside things that--things that don't belong in our reality."

He reaches up to try to smooth down his hair a bit, figuring it couldn't hurt to neaten himself up a little. Maybe looking less disheveled would help make him look more credible, instead of like a deranged lunatic.

He ain't a shrink. He never has been. Stanley knows what's in people's heads a little, you got to, you gotta' be able to read people right, but his brother needs a whole lot more than that. At the very least, his brother needs someone who went to school for this shit. But anyone who did would toss him into the nearest padded room and throw away the key, so it's Stan or it's no one. He takes a breath, reminding himself of this. He's all his brother's got, and that don't mean as much to Ford as Stan mighta' thought, but it's better than nothin'.

Then his eyes are drawn by the movement of Ford's hand, and he watches Ford's try at it for a moment before he snorts. "Don't bother. Ma never could keep that bird's nest a' yours straight, an' you got no chance. There's too much- Um, too, too much, uh-"

Blood. The word he's looking for is blood. Not something he normally goes all wimpy and stammery over, but it's Ford's blood, and Stanley was actually doin' a really good job forgettin' all the shit that led up to this moment until he thought about that shit dried all through what remains of his brother's hair. Stan waves his hand meaningfully instead of drawing any more attention to the word by saying it, stopping that hand abruptly when it gets too close to any part of Ford and settling with a frown it back onto his lap.

"And no one ever-" No, we're not mentioning that they're all in his fuckin' head, Stanley, not right now. We're playing along. "You were able to keep anyone findin' out you knew? Even your fancy nerd lab partner?"

It's odd, really, how Stan is somehow more torn up about that head wound than Ford himself is. You'd think it was just a nasty scrape and nothing more, judging by how little it seems to bother him. But then, it's likely the same cold, clinical sense of detachment that got him through the self surgery in the first place that's helping him stay calm now

The pain will ebb. The blood will wash out. The wound will heal. Its scar will fade.

These are the thoughts that are keeping him steady while he checks the urge to feel the scorched seam in the back of his head and make sure it's not leaking.

He very nearly does just that as he tries to fix his hair, his hand straying close enough to feel how warm the skin around the incision is. A little inflammation is to be expected, considering the less-than-stellar conditions in which the surgery was preformed. He'll have to take some antibiotics later, make sure he doesn't get an infection.

It's not until Stanley starts to trip over his words that Ford remembers that, objectively, his head-wound is pretty jarring. Even if he's psyched himself into being nonplussed about the situation, he still has sense enough to know that Stanley does not feel the same - and so he stops fussing with his hair and lets his hand drop back to his side where it can't draw any more attention to the ugliness at the back of his head.

Out of sight, out of mind, right? Right.

Thankfully, Stan recovers from his fumble and moves on to a new subject - one Ford would have preferred to stay away from. He can't help but grimace at the question, his expression twisting slightly as a cocktail of guilt and regret settles heavy in his stomach. He lets out a deep breath, deflates a bit, then bows his head and rubs at his eyes with a thumb and forefinger.

"If only."

God, but he wishes he were the only one who knew about all of this. He really does - but no. He had to go and drag Fiddleford into this ugly mess, and by doing so he's ruined the man's mind if not his life.

"There was an incident. Fiddleford... he saw things. Things the human mind isn't equipped to deal with."

He laughs, the sound pained and humorless. He didn't even know it was possible to fuck up quite this badly, that he could somehow ruin someone's life without even trying.

"After what happened, I doubt he'll be at peace with the world until the day he dies. Maybe even longer."

Ford himself certainly wouldn't be.

Edited (Oh gosh I'm so sorry I'm being so nitpicky about the wording) 2015-12-20 20:53 (UTC)

(ooc: no worries, I've been there with the editing and wanting to make sure it looks perfect, etc <3)

Yeah. It's just the scars and the blood that's makin' Stan trip over his words. Must be. What those scars and blood mean, what they mean about Ford, about what Ford's done, what he might do-

Yeah. That's small potatoes.

And the rest of this, what's he gonna' do with this? He still wants to talk to Fiddlesticks but he's starting to think he'd get even less sense outta' him than he's getting out of Ford. Maybe Ford's already been in a looney bin and doesn't remember it, maybe this mystery nerd got out with him. Maybe Stan's been watching too many weird late night movies.

Stan sighs. "So that was, what'd you say? A couple months back? What have you been doin' since then?"

He turns and leans back a little to look Ford over, and his expression can't be anything other than suspicious. No other freaky scars anywhere, at least that he can see. "Been fightin' any other, uh, demons lately?"

Stan is only trying to help, Ford knows. He's trying to be supportive by asking what's been happening - what he thinks has been happening - even though he doesn't believe a word of it. He's just trying to piece together what's been going on his brother's world, regardless if those things happened in reality or not.

Ford appreciates that, he really does. Stan is making an effort to be there for him, despite having every reason to just turn his back and walk right the hell out the door without looking back. It would serve me right, he can't help but think. It would serve me right.

That's what makes it worse, in his mind. Knowing that his brother is doing him a courtesy he doesn't deserve, and yet still finding himself frustrated with him anyway for being so damn skeptical. He knows it's rich coming from him, considering he just flat out told Stan that his ability to trust anyone - even him - has seen better days, but still. He wants his brother to take him seriously. He wants him to hear what he has to say, tell him what he's been though and not have his experiences invalidated by doubt.

He wants someone to tell him he's not crazy because he's scared out of his goddamn mind that maybe after all, he really is.

"...Have you ever had someone try to steal your eyes, Stanley?" It's oddly calm, the way he says it, though he he won't look at Stanley when he does.

He just keeps staring right on ahead, before glancing down at his hands and realizing he's been fiddling with the cuff of his sleeve, buttoning and unbuttoning it in a half-hearted effort to expel some nervous energy.

"Because I have. I know you don't believe that--"

He drags his eyes up from his hands, turning his head just enough to look at his brother out of the corner of his eye.

"--I know you don't. But it - regardless if you think it actually happened or not, it's real to me and I--I just."

He lets out a sudden, shaky breath that he can't quite pass off as a sigh, try though he might.

"...Do you think I'm crazy, Stanley?"

It's a question he already knows the answer to - the real answer to - but all the same he can't help but want to hear his brother say otherwise, even if it's just a comforting lie.

(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.

Edited 2015-12-21 13:26 (UTC)

He thought it would make him feel better, hearing Stan say that. And for a fleeting moment, it does. Hollow though they are, those words ease some of the tightness in his chest and gives his tired lungs room to breathe.

But that's all they are, really. Words. Words that don't really mean anything because they aren't true, he knows they aren't, but they're still valuable to Ford because they're coming from Stan. They're coming from his brother, who despite everything - despite distance and the passage of time and all the bad blood left simmering between them for ten long years - is here by his side when he needs him most.

Ford holds tight to that thought, repeats it in his head over and over like a prayer as he tries to will away the heavy, heartsick feeling that's twisting his stomach into knots.

Hearing Stan tell him everything he had hoped to hear was supposed to make him feel better. It was supposed to, but instead it just confirms what he feared most.

Stanley is right, he knows Ford better than anyone. Better than Ford knows himself. The ten long years they've spent apart hasn't done anything to change that. But Ford, he knows Stanley too. He knows his tells, his quirks. How his voice changes when he lies.

Everything his brother is saying, everything he wanted so badly to hear him say, it's all a lie. A lie meant to comfort, one said for his own benefit, but a lie all the same. This isn't what bothers Ford, though. This isn't what makes him feel like he's going to be sick. Stan is only trying to help, to comfort him, to protect him from what he really thinks.

It's not the lie that bothers Ford. It's not what Stan thinks of him, either. It's that it's Stan who's thinking it. Stan, who knows him better than anyone, better than he knows himself. It's not the accusation that he's insane that's making his throat tight and his heart constrict painfully in his chest; it's the fact that if Stan believes that about him, then God help him, it's probably true.

His eyes close of their own accord, his head bowing as his shoulders wilt beneath the weight of Stan's arm. A wobbly smile tugs at the corner of his mouth, and he lets out a short, shaky laugh that tapers off into something else entirely at the end.

"...Thanks for trying, Stanley."

He swallows around the knot in his throat, then sucks in a steadying breath before he can get away from himself again. Once was enough. He doesn't want to make a habit of crying in front of his brother.

No. No no no no no. It wasn't supposed to- It was supposed to work. Why didn't it work?

"You're not," he tries again. His voice sounds weak and whiny even to him, but he can't really stop it coming out. "Ford Pines acts crazy sometimes, but that's just 'cause he's so much smarter than anyone else. Everyone knows that."

But when people know you're lying, it's time to stop. Then, lying just makes things worse. It's gonna' make things worse now, that set of facts which a deep-down part of him insists in its stubborn little kid's voice is true, has gotta' be true, even though it ain't and it can't be because, fuck, just look at Ford right now. Just look at him.

It's gonna' make things worse, anyway, unless Stanley can run right over it with somethin' else, because if he talks fast enough he'll be able to distract Ford from the fact that he said it.

"Look," he says, his arm on Ford's shoulders still desperately, stubbornly in place, as if that'll help. "Everythin' will look better after a shower and somethin' to eat. Just- I cleaned up the bathroom a little. It was, u-uh- I mean, I've cleaned more blood outta' worse places, it wasn't even-"

Ford doesn't know about that part of Stan's life. He doesn't know, but he will if you keep talkin', Stan, stop talkin'.

"That'll help, I'm sure of it," is what he turns his words to, and jiggles Ford's shoulder with an easy-looking smile. "Come on. This day'll get better."

Edited 2015-12-23 12:47 (UTC)

...More blood out of worse places, huh?

Ford doesn't like the implications behind those words. He doesn't like it at all. He wants to ask, to find out what his brother meant by all that, but he doesn't. This isn't the time to be asking deep, probing questions that he more than likely won't like the answer to. There is a limit to how many sore subjects they can slice open and let bleed like an infected wound, and they've already hit it. Any more talk about difficult topics, and Ford might just lose the faltering grasp he has on his composure - or what's left of it, at any rate.

So Ford ignores that cryptic statement, tucks it away in the back of his mind where he can pluck at it later on when he's not already three steps away from tearing up again. Preemptively, he takes off his glasses and rubs at his eyes with a thumb and forefinger, as if to push back any errant tears that might try to well up when they know they aren't welcome. Then he drags in a deep breath, fills his lungs until they start to ache a little, and holds it for a moment or two before letting it out in a shaky sigh.

Okay. Okay, he's good. He's got this. He's fine.

"Yeah." He grimaces, not liking how tight his voice sounds. "Yeah, you're probably right."

He doesn't sound like he believes any of that, not really, but he can at least pretend.

Clearing his throat, he blinks a few times then replaces his glasses before Stan can notice how glossy his eyes look. He tries to stand, but the weight of Stan's arm around his shoulder keeps him in place - both because he's not exactly at his strongest at the moment, and because he just...doesn't want to lose that familiar, comforting weight.

Stan watches the floor, pretending, as you do, that nothing weird is goin' on at all while his brother tries to keep himself together. Just because they both mighta' got a little weepy once or twice don't mean they can't keep right on actin' normal about it. He swallows, and it's about when Ford doesn't make it up that Stan looks up and over at him. "Oh. You should probably, uh, first I gotta' find you somethin' to eat. Yeah. Keep your strength up and all that shit."

He stands hurriedly, and it's when his arm's sliding off Ford's shoulders and his hand's about to follow that he stops, hesitating. "I don't, uh. I don't guess you can walk all that way, huh?"

It's not that he doesn't trust you by yourself, Ford - or, well, it's not that he wants to say he doesn't. His voice is hopeful, too, 'cause he can't quite swallow down the idea that Ford will say 'yeah, of course!' and spring up and decide to follow Stan around for the next... For the next maybe-forever until it's safe to leave him on his own again. It might be that easy. You never know. Right?

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