goodguygrifter | (no subject)

Stan places a fry next to one of Ford's and then Ford asks that question and the fort will have to fend for itself for a while. Susan - because she really is a doll, Ford was right, Stan likes her - doesn't push it when Stan tells her he doesn't want any coffee, although he kind of does want some, a little. She just backs off with a little wink at them and goes to do whatever it is she's doing back there.

Then Stan sits back, rubbing his palms up and down over his knees. He could pretend, with that interruption, that Ford never asked, and he does think about it. He looks up at Ford, takes a breath, and looks back down. He could say yeah, too, and he really fuckin' wants to.

He doesn't know what to say, how to decide, so he doesn't. He just opens his mouth and lets whatever comes out come out.

"I missed you so damn bad, you know that? And I kept thinkin' about your, your degrees and your fancy college and your grant money and whatever kinda' place you set yourself up in, even when it got bad and I needed to hear your voice for just half a second, even then I kept thinkin' about it, and all that time you-" Stan finally looks up at Ford when he waves at him, gesturing to his face, the back of his head, pretty much at all of him. "You needed me even more than I needed you."

"Ha," he murmurs, eyes sliding right off of Ford and onto his plate. He takes a fry and stabs it into one corner of their little fort, knocking it half over. "All that time, it was on me. Wouldn't you fuckin' know it."

"But I'm here now." That dark, low tone gone as suddenly as it came, replaced by the look on his face as he looks up at Ford again, a look a little something like hope, or maybe fear. "I'm here and you're here and we're, ya' know, we're here together. So, I mean, yeah. A-aren't they? Don't you- I mean, ain't this- This is how you want things to, to be, right?"

The way Stan words things, the way he treats everything that's happened like it's soley his fault - well, it doesn't sit well with Ford. It sinks down heavy in his gut, drops hard like a stone and makes something in his chest twist unpleasantly. He's not sure what to call the feeling, other than bad, but if he had to wager a guess he'd say it was guilt.

"Well," He begins, only to pause to clear his throat before he can really say anything substantial. "I could do without the whole "begrudged by a dream demon" thing, but other than that--"

He shrugs, then favors Stan with a weak smile.

"Can't say I imagined things turning out this way, but...I'm glad they did."

He looks down at his hands then, watching as one plucks the decorative tooth-pick from his burger and sticks it in what's left of Stan's french-fry fort.

"I dub thee Fort Stan."

Well good, they can both sit here bein' guilty together. Guilt at not being here, and guilt at wanting, almost as much as he wanted to just see Ford again, to make him feel like shit. Real shit, he wanted to see his brother get down on his knees and fucking beg his forgiveness, and he never did get farther than that whenever he went there in his head because sometimes you just don't wanna be reminded every time you try to work yourself up into a good righteous snit that you can't even do a revenge fantasy right because those end with actual, you know, revenge, not all that other stuff he always tried not to think about too loud, even in his own head.

And he's still bitter, a little, it hasn't all gone away except now he knows, or at least has a good idea, just what his brother was doing while Stan was sitting to himself thinkin' all that shit.

But even with all that going through his head, Stan can't hear his brother saying that without a little smile coming to his face too, it just happens, he doesn't even think about it. The smile goes a little crooked as he looks down again, watching the toothpick-flag go in to the still-standing corner of their little project.

"It's not much of a fort," he mutters, reaching out to push at that fallen corner of it with the tip of a finger. Then he cuts his eyes at Ford, up and away, and if his voice is too casual, well, who's going to call him on it? He's just talking about a bunch of food, after all. "But maybe, uh. Maybe we could start to fix it up again, huh? You and me?"

They're not talking about the fort. They both know they're not, but Ford's not about to be the first one to mess up the good thing they've got going on here by actually directly saying what he means - something tells him they're already treading on dangerous ground enough as it is.

"I don't know, Stan. It's going to need a lot of work." Ford looks down at his brother's plate, his eyebrows raising as he appraises the mess.

He only pretends to think the project over for a moment or two before looking back up at Stan, and if his voice is a little more hesitant than it was before, a little less confident, well, hopefully Stan won't notice.

"But I think...I think we can salvage something from this mess."

He looks down suddenly, gesturing back to the sad pile of fries as if to emphasize that the fort is what they're talking about, even though they both know it isn't.

"I can't promise it'll be anything like it was, but it - it'll be something, at least. It'll be something."

"Something." Stan looks up at Ford, still looking kinda' scared because that don't sound good, does it? What he hears is something that sounds a lot like 'probably not'. "What kind of, uh. What kinda' something are we talkin', here? Are we turning this into a uh, a crappy little motel or a dive bar or a nice little timeshare condo or what?"

He picks up the burger again and he's eating without anything that even kind of looks like enthusiasm but if he's going to need a minute to think anyway, he's got to. All this food's in front of him and he can't let it go to waste. While he does he thinks about it, about just how far he can stretch this little metaphor-thing they've got working for them.

"'Cause I thought you wanted to, uh, make the whole fort up again. But now it sounds like you, like maybe you kind of, uh. Don't."

--Damn it, okay, maybe this metaphor thing isn't working out the way he hoped it would.

Ford looks down at his neglected plate, and finds that at he's lost his appetite. He settles for taking a drink of his coffee instead, before setting it back down on the table so he can use the mug to warm his hands. Rather than look back up at Stanley, he just stares down at his drink and rolls the mug a little between his palms, watching the liquid inside swirl around.

"I just don't want you to get your hopes up too high, Stanley." He admits quietly. "I know things are looking up right now, but because of my ah...situation, I don't know if I should commit to any long-term plans."

He risks a glance up at his brother but quickly loses his nerve and looks back into his coffee.

"I don't...I don't want you to be disappointed if something happens to me and the project falls through."

Stan looks up at Ford just then, his look all sharp and kind of disgusted, because Ford obviously don't realize when it's time to drop the metaphor thing like a hot potato. "Now you really do sound like you're buildin' a condo. I don't care about projects, Ford, without you there is no 'project'. That's why I'm here, that's why I skipped town with no money an' drove halfway across the country for you. I thought I'd never get the taste of gas outta' my mouth. If it's this one guy that's holdin' you back, okay, we'll deal with him. We'll put our heads together, kick his ass, and then... Then we can come back to this."

He doesn't like the idea of coming back to this. When someone's just said yes, when they're happy, that's when you seal the deal, the last thing you do is get 'em all convinced and then fuck off and give them time to think. He doesn't like the idea of that, leaving Ford all that time to think about it, only coming back to this once Ford don't need him anymore.

So he don't think about it.

"We'll take your guy out and then we'll talk, huh? We'll come back to it and just, just see what you think."

Maybe it'll take a while. Stan finds himself hoping it'll take a while, beating that guy, and hopefully doin' it until whoever - whatever, right - did this to his brother is black and blue. The longer it takes, the longer Stan can pretend to forget that you never ask to get paid only after the deed is done. Giving Ford what he needs and then going back and asking him for something? For this? Well, Stan can keep from thinkin' about that for just as long as he needs to.

Edited (dw told me it used the right icon darn it) 2016-02-01 09:28 (UTC)

Something about the way Stan says it, the way he thinks everything will be just fine once they kick the ass of the guy responsible for this clusterfuck of a situation - well, it makes Ford smile. It's not a happy smile, exactly. In fact, it seems more rueful than anything, but the fact that it's a smile at all has to count for something, right?

"Taking out Bill is a lot easier said than done." He says quietly, in an effort to let his brother down gently. "Believe me, I've tried."

He looks back down at his coffee again, then takes another drink. As much as he'd like to get some sleep, he knows what's going to be waiting for him if he does.

"Nevermind he's in another plane of reality where I can't even touch him, he's practically invulnerable to harm. One of the perks of being an ancient, supernatural being who can heal himself instantaneously."

If Ford sounds bitter about that, well, who can blame him?

Okay, so that's... not what he's used to. It still reads like something out of a book, or a really weird movie. It's still weird. But that's just details, right? When he first got here and thought Ford just got in bad with the local mob, maybe he wasn't wrong. Stan starts finishing off his fries, staring off into space because he's thinking about it. "A bully's a bully, Ford, don't matter if he's an Invincible Creep from the Eldritch Beyond or what. So he's too tough for you? I dealt with plenty of guys too tough for me, and I'm still around. You just gotta' figure out what matters to 'em. So this, uh- Bill? Really? Bill? Well, look, you just gotta' figure out what he wants."

Ford can't help but cringe, his shoulders tensing as he stares into his coffee and tries very hard to think of a way to break thinks to Stan gently.

"What he wants is to find a way into our world so he can rule it." He begins, absently tearing open a sugar packet and pouring it into his cup as he gives Stan a minute to let that information sink in.

"But since I've taken that opportunity away from him...I imagine what he wants most right now is my head on a pike."

He says it offhandedly, a little too casually, and it almost comes across like a joke. Almost being the key word, because as he speaks Ford unconsciously reaches to touch the back of his head, feeling the still-aching seam they welded into his skin. It's a little hard to take that statement as a joke when they're both well aware of the extremes Cipher will go to just to make him miserable.

Stan blinks. He's going to get used to being thrown for a loop every other sentence whenever Ford tells him about this stuff, but he's not used to it yet. That does kinda' put a wrench in Stan's whole plan, yeah, but before he's got a chance to follow that thought up any his eyes are following Ford's hand to the back of his head.

"Um," he says, and he sounds like he don't really want to be saying this, but he says it anyway. "So. About that head thing. I think it's about time I got an explanation for that."

He thinks about it a second, watching Ford's face and thinking about what the back of the guy's head looks like right now. Maybe he shouldn't admit this, but he's started to get used to it. "Hey, when we leave, maybe I should walk behind you. We can't exactly tell what's-her-face that you cut yourself shaving."

Edited (icon nonsense) 2016-02-02 02:56 (UTC)

Ah jeez. Ford knew this question was coming eventually, but that doesn't mean he's prepared for it now that it's finally being asked. Rather than answer straight away, he stalls for time by taking a slow drink of his coffee.

"That's probably for the best. Susan's not much of a gossip, but in a small town like this, news travels fast."

He tries to smooth down his hair even so, despite knowing full well that it won't do much to hide the angry red line at the back of his head.

"And a story like this...well, nothing out of the ordinary ever happens in Gravity falls." He takes another drink of his coffee, not to help keep himself awake, but to wash the bitter irony of his words out of his mouth.

"It looked pretty ordinary to me. I've seen guys do shit like that, Ford. Not exactly like that but, you know. Close enough. I never thought one of those guys would be you."

He echoes Ford's strategy of buying time by putting something in his mouth, because even though he hasn't been hungry for a couple minutes now he don't want Ford's money to go to waste by not eating. And don't think he don't notice that Ford hasn't been eating almost at all. That food's coming with them, and it'll stay with them until Ford does eat it. But, yeah, it ain't like they don't have other stuff to think about right now.

"But you say there's more goin' on here than I understand, so I guess you got a reason for, you know. Doing that. I learned my lesson, Ford. I'm trusting that you know more about this shit than I do. But you gotta' actually tell me. I mean, how I found you-"

Stan's look goes distant when the image of walking into that room comes up in his mind, all that blood everywhere, Ford's blood, and Ford in front of the sink and in his hand- Stan shakes his head. "I want to understand, Ford. I need to. I can't keep remembering that and thinkin' you were just- You know? You gotta' explain it to me."

Alright. Okay. There's gotta be a way he can word this that won't sound - well, awful. He knows he has a habit of wording things in the absolute worst way, but if he really puts his mind to it, surely he can tell Stan what he wants to know without getting his hackles raised - right?

"It's a long story, Stan." He begins, as if that will somehow make what he has to say next any easier to hear.

"There's a reason I haven't been sleeping lately, and it's - it's not just because of the nightmares." He holds his mug a little tighter, feeling distinctly uncomfortable for having to admit that. It's not like it was some huge secret - Stan saw it for himself - but actually admitting it out loud feels like a blow to his pride.

"Bill...he has no physical form in our world. He needs a vessel, a body he can possess and take control of. Long story short, he had free-reign of mine until a short while ago. I pulled some strings, made sure he couldn't get into my head so long as I was awake. But as soon as I lost consciousness..."

He shrugs, leaving the rest up to Stan's imagination as he takes another drink of his coffee.

"I tried to solve that little problem by just not sleeping, and it worked for a little while." He smiles a little, a humorless chuckle tumbling out of his chest. "Sleep deprivation is a form of torture, you know, and I did it to myself."

He rolls the mug between his hands again, a gentle little back and forth motion meant to help him dispel some nervous energy.

"I guess that says a lot about what was waiting for me if I ever went to sleep." He can only imagine what Stan must be picturing right now, but he takes a small measure of comfort in knowing that whatever it is, it's probably nowhere near as terrible as the truth.

"It didn't take me long to figure out that keeping Bill out of my head was as simple as getting blackout drunk every night. Turns out demons hate hangovers as much as we do."

He smiles a little, trying to inject a little humor into the story. He's not sure if he succeeds, but hey, at least he tried.

"So killing your liver is a plan, alright." Stan leans forward, chewing on the scars inside his mouth. He's not trying to be sarcastic here, and unlike Ford he isn't looking to make a joke out of it. What he is trying, and trying very hard, to do is keep a good face on for this. Which isn't something Ford makes easy, because sleep deprivation is a form of torture, and because you know what else is a form of torture?

Stan finds himself staring at Ford's neck, at the scars he can't see, and looks back down at the table. He smears circles onto the table with his finger, and thinks that he can guess how those scars got there, now. And he ain't gonna' ask. There's some shit, Stan knows, that just don't need to be talked about.

"You know, now that I'm here, maybe all we need for you to get a safe night's sleep is a bag of good sized zipties. Or, hell, a couple pairs of fuzzy handcuffs, but I don't guess we'd find too many of those in a dinky little town like this. But, uh, anyway, go on with your story. I don't think you got to the-" No matter how much of a good face he's trying to put on this he can't call any part of this 'the good part', he can't. "-the end yet."

Stan's attempts to lighten the mood with humor earns him a faint smile, even if Ford doesn't feel much like laughing. It's the thought that counts, and besides, the idea of thwarting Bill with fuzzy handcuffs of all things is objectively pretty damn funny.

"There's not much else to say, really." He admits with a shrug. "I kept looking into ways to keep him out of my head, and eventually I figured out a permanent solution."

He looks back down at his coffee, then adds another sugar packet to it just because. He takes his time stirring it in, buying himself some time before he has to finish his explanation.

"You know those cold-war nutjobs with the tinfoil hats? The one's who think the Russians are tapping into their thoughts? Well, turns out they're on to something. Certain conductive metals can disrupt radio signals, block out electric fields...and keep out demons, evidently."

He knows full well how crazy that sounds, so he gives Stan a moment to digest that information before taking another drink of his now too-sweet coffee.

"Though how much of that is thanks to the metal acting as a shield against the invading mind's electrical synapses, and how much of it is thanks to the runes I carved onto the plate just for good measure is anyone's guess."

He shrugs, as if this is all basic stuff and not at all something the average person wouldn't know.

"The important thing is it works. I wasn't sure it would, actually, to be perfectly honest with you. I've had it ready for weeks, but I never...I thought I could do without it. I was saving it as a last resort. But then you dropped in and I...I couldn't take any chances. I couldn't risk losing control when there was someone other than me who might suffer for it."

Somehow he manages to look at Stan while he speaks, though he has to glance away briefly now and again when the eye-contact becomes a little too difficult for him to maintain.

"I would have told you all of this beforehand if I thought you'd believe me." He admits, his voice a little too quiet. "I should have trusted you."

"You shouldn't have." It's a good thing Ford's looking away from Stan because Stan's gonna' go ahead and give in to that urge to duck his head, run his hands over it, and wrap his fingers around the hair at the back of his neck. Ford did that for him. For Stan. That's why all the- all the blood and the-

Shit.

"I was-" Even saying this to the table is too hard, but he only stops for a second and tries again anyway. "I was ready to keep you doped up for the rest of your life, Ford. I was, I would've- I mean, you can trust me now. You, you can, but you were right not to, uh, then. You did that because of me, holy Moses. I mean, it's not like I could have stayed away, look at you!"

He looks up and waves his arm at Ford, but might not be clear at this point just which of them it is he is talking to. It might sound like he's trying to convince someone of something, and that someone ain't Ford.

Stan digs the heels of his hands into his eyes. "Okay. Okay, I need, um. I'll need to know everything you know about this Bill guy. I mean, maybe not now, I mean- I don't know."

Maybe not now, because they're here for a reason and that reason was not this. That ship's kinda' flown, or some metaphor-type thing like that, but Stan moves his hands just enough to peek out from behind them at Ford's plate, anyway. "Maybe after you eat a little more. It was a burger you wanted, right?"

When Stan gestures towards him and points out that he's seen better days, Ford can't help but feel like he should be a little insulted. He should be, probably, but for some reason he isn't. Instead he's just a little amused, because yeah, he knows he looks like hell. Besides, he could use a little humor right now, even if it's self-depreciating.

But then Stan goes and turns the conversation back to Bill, and, well...its a sore subject. It probably will be for as long as he lives. Thankfully Stan has the good sense to not pry for information right here and now. Instead, he makes a not-so-thinly veiled attempt at getting him to finish his food.

Ford smiles a little, crinkling his nose a bit. "You sound like Mom." He says, not unkindly. "If you start calling me bubbeleh or ask me when I'm getting married I'm leaving you with the tab."

And would you look at that, he's actually picking at his food again. Seems like all he needed was the reminder - or maybe he's just doing it as a favor to Stan. God knows the poor guy could really use some of that load taken off his shoulders.

Stan's hands slide down off his face and he crosses his arms in front of him, hunching his shoulders up and giving Ford a small, nauseous little smile. Ford did that to himself for Stan, because Stan wormed his way in where Ford never asked him to be. It ain't like he didn't need to, he looks at Ford smiling at him and actually eating a little and he can't regret doing it, but the thought's still sunk into him, sitting all heavy and nasty against his insides. "Hey, no chance. You won't even tell me when you first made the beast with two backs with a lady, who knows how you'll freak if I ask you about wives."

If Stan wanted to get sprayed with coffee, well, he's found a great way to do it - just remind Ford about his love life while he's in the middle of a drink, and there you have it: an impromptu coffee shower.

Ford would really apologize for that if he weren't so busy coughing and sputtering and trying to hack up what little coffee he actually swallowed because, OF COURSE, it's gone down the wrong pipe.

He thumps his chest twice, mutters something that sounds suspiciously like "Jesus Christ, Stan" and continues hacking up a lung for a moment or two before he finally clears the liquid death from his throat.

"Uh."

Stan helps by giving Ford a couple hard thumps on the back - helps, okay, this is helpful, it's absolutely not gonna' make him choke more - and waits until Ford's definitely not having a death by coffee moment before reaching for a bunch of napkins and starting to wipe his face off with 'em. "That really is a sensitive topic, huh? Really, Ford? Okay, yeah, yeah, I'll lay off, I just - would ya' mind givin' me a list of topics that's gonna' make you do that now 'cause I really didn't come all this way just to watch you choke to death in some diner."

Stan looks unhappy, asking that, too annoyed by the fact he doesn't even know how to tease his own brother to second guess the fact that he's just pointed out that very fact out loud, something which he maybe shouldn't have done.

"No, no, it's fine, I'm--" He pauses to clear his throat, swallowing hard to put and end to the near-choking business once and for all. "I'm fine."

He knows that by now that phrase has probably lost all of its meaning, coming from him, but you just can't fight habit. Besides, he actually is fine this time so - points for honesty?

"That was just a, uh. An unexpectedly colorful way to word that thing you just said."

It's not technically a lie; that really was a crude euphemism Stan had used. It's just that it wasn't the euphemism itself that made Ford nearly choke to death on his drink, but the subject it was referring to.

"Yeah, well, I'm a colorful guy. Too full a' color for you, I guess." Stan may not be sure how to tease his brother anymore but he can still ruffle his hair, damn it, so long as he remembers to only go for the top of the poor guy's head, and his guilt over all that is fresh enough that he does remember. "Come on, nerd, eat your dinner. You can catch me up on the parts of your life that don't make you squirm like I just asked you about your last prostate exam later. You ain't even finished your vegetables."

Stan picks up a fry and plants it right on top of whatever's left of Ford's burger, raising his eyebrows with a little grin. Potatoes and grease, that counts as a vegetable, right? It does in Stan's world, anyway.

The end result of Stan's hair-ruffling leaves Ford blinded by his own fringe, his hair sticking up every which way but particularly in his eyes. He makes a sound of protest, lets out a startled laugh despite himself, and winds up shoving Stan's shoulder with one hand while he tries in vain to smooth out the mess.

"Stan!" The tone hes aiming for is chiding, but what he manages instead is considerably more lighthearted. "Just because you have a terrible haircut doesn't mean you have to take it out on mine."

He reaches out, prodding his brother in the temple with two fingers, just because he can.

"What made you think that was a good look for you, anyway? Don't tell me it was a girl."

Man, that feels better than he thought it would. Hearing his brother say his name in that voice, laughing and poking at him, it makes him feel all filled up, all light. He smiles as he looks at Ford and thinks, not on your life am I tellin' you that. At least, not until he can figure out how to say it the right way. That ain't hard, though. Of all the questions Ford coulda' asked about him, that's an easy one.

"A guy, actually," he says, leaning back to rub at the back of his neck and scratch his fingers through the hair there. "A bunch of 'em. You ever seen a guy walk into a biker bar with a crew cut? Ha. We oughta' walk you into one, one of these days. We'd have to fix your clothes too, but hey, I still got my bikin' jacket in the car, could be a good look for you. What gives, though? You get to ask me about chicks, an' I ask and just get spit and coffee on my face? Yeah, I see 'ya', I see how it is."

Edited 2016-02-06 06:32 (UTC)