goodguygrifter | (no subject)

"Really? I thought you liked all that, uh..." Stan raises the hand not around Ford's shoulders and wiggles his fingers, letting that stand in for everything he doesn't know to fill that in with. "All that school, The Many And Bounteous Opportunities Of Academia or whatever. That's, uh, that's not what you wanted?"

The move makes his sleeve fall down a little, showing off those dark, angry looking circles, the world's worst hickies, that the thing's probably-suckers left when it tried to pull Stan into that tube with it but he doesn't notice because hey, it looks like that worry about his joke a second ago left an empty spot when it left for another worry to slide right in and take its place. "Was it, was the school you, uh... ended up in... was it really that bad?"

Hoo boy. They're straying back into dangerous territory again. Ford should have known it was only a matter of time before this happened.

He shrugs, his shoulders not making it very far beneath the weight of Stan's arm, and eats another fry just so he doesn't have to answer right away. Yeah, that sure is a fry alright.

"Yes and no." He admits, as he gives himself the excuse to look at his plate rather than at Stan by needlessly swirling another fry around in a mound of ketchup. "It was no Ivy League, but at least it got me out of the house."

He drops the fry, which by now is more ketchup than potato, then picks up another to start the process all over again.

"As bad as the dorms could be, even with the roaches, it was better than staying at home."

"Yeah, I, uh." Stan's eyes follow his brother's hands and he hunches his shoulders, biting at the inside of his mouth some more. He wouldn't know about that but he's not angry enough to risk losin' the fragile goodwill that's the only thing letting him stay here just to say so. He could be angry if he wanted to, if he thought about it, boo-fuckin'-hoo for the golden child with everything going for him who had to look at a couple lousy roaches once in a while, but the righteousness that drives all that out of him checked right the fuck out the moment Stan found out just how bad it got for Ford out here and without it, Stan's too afraid to even risk thinking about all that too hard. So he just doesn't, he just thinks about the weight his arm on Ford's shoulder and about not moving it, because if Stan moved it now it feels like he might lose something.

"I guess. You gonna' eat all that or are you just gonna' keep dressin' it up? Come on, I'm startin' to feel like I oughta' fly it toward your mouth makin' airplane noises." He uses that hickey-covered arm to pick up one of those abandoned puddles of ketchup-fry, wobbling it around in the vague direction of Ford's face. "Open it up for the ninteen-oh-seven Wright Model A, huh? You wouldn't want to miss that comin' into the station."

He's grinning a little, too, because hey, it's all jokes here, huh? It's all fine, they're all friends here. So far.

Ford rolls his eyes so hard that they almost go all the way back into his head, but he smiles as he does it - smiles the kind of smile that tries a little too hard to look like it isn't amused.

"Alright, now you're really acting like Mom." He says as he leans away from the ketchup-soaked fry and pushes Stan's hand away.

"Circa twenty six years ago."

He flashes Stan a wry smile before opening the front of his jacket, so that he can search one of his many inner-pockets for something. After a moment he finds whatever he's looking for and sets it on the table - it's a twenty dollar bill plus some loose change, enough to pay their bill twice over.

"This is probably a good sign we should hit the road. We're doing more talking than eating, and we can do that as much as we like on the way home without making some poor woman keep her diner open on a Saturday night."

It's Sunday, actually, but Ford...really hasn't been good at keeping up with dates lately.

Stan relaxes. It worked. This is gonna' be okay. Some people don't like it when he changes the subject like that, and as Stan thinks it he realizes he's been thinking of Ford the same way he'd think of any other schmuck he's gotta' live with for a while, trying to figure out what they're like and how much he can get away with. He oughta' know this, doesn't he know Ford like he knows the back of his own hand?

But you know what? Ford don't mind it when Stan changes the subject. That means Stan's got a little wiggle room for all those potholes scattered all over their conversations, and that means the good ship the Pines Brothers might not fall into one of those potholes and bust a tire just yet.

"Uh," he says, distracted from that last thought because he's got to spend a couple seconds staring at that twenty. "Let me out, I'll go get your change." That's what he gets for sitting in the booth first, he can't get up unless Ford lets him. "Then we'll head back. There's really nothin' else you wanna' do here, huh? Is this place really that small?"

"It's a backwoods, Podunk town in the middle of nowhere, Stan. The only thing else to do around here is drink, and I have enough alcohol to drop a horse back at the house."

It's meant to be a joke, but it falls flat near the end when Ford realizes that that...really isn't all that funny in hindsight. Especially now that Stan knows why he has so much alcohol around the house in the first place.

Welp. Now it's Ford's turn to change the subject abruptly and pretend like backpedaling away from his previous statement before they can dwell too long on it isn't precisely what he's doing.

"Don't worry about the change, by the way. It's fine, we'll just leave the rest for the tip."

"Yeah," says Stan, who hasn't left a tip that ain't along the lines of, 'that makeup combo would really go better with a red dress' in a while. Since his last big - well, medium-sized - break back what musta' been the better part of a year ago. "I'll just give it to her, okay?"

And there the twenty goes, right into one of his pockets. It's gone, just like magic. Well, okay, not just like, but he ain't going for the sticky-fingers magic trick thing tonight, not like that. Keepin' the way oversized tip Ford was happy to let go of in the first place, that's different. And besides, he ain't even gonna' do that until they leave, so. "You just keep workin' on all this food and I'll come back with a box for it or somethin'. We've gotta' keep it so you can put some meat on those bones, huh?"

Stan grins, reaching out to poke at Ford's ribs. You're finishing your dinner, Ford. Maybe not now, but you are. Stan is here now, and that means his brother's gonna' stop skipping his meals.

That poke to the ribs earns Stan a jolt from his jumpy brother, who in turn reaches out to gently slug him in the arm.

"What did I just say about you sounding like Mom?" He asks, before moving to slide out of the booth so that Stan can get out as well.

Once on his feet, Ford takes a moment to roll his his head and shoulders, one hand moving up to rub at his stiff neck. Being tense as a coiled spring for weeks on end does not do a body good. Neither does depriving oneself of food and sleep, but, well, there they are.

"Well, maybe mom was on to something." Stan gives Ford a nudge with his elbow as he slides past, then heads toward the counter, calling out for the waitress as he goes. He leans on the counter, grins, she laughs a couple times, the cash register goes ding and the change goes right into Stan's pocket. And he does come back with a box, of course he does, because he meant what he said about Ford needing the food. Maybe having something around a little colorful than anonymous meat product made to last about a thousand years, the kinda' shit you buy just so you can forget about it, will make Ford actually want to eat a little, or something crazy like that.

"I'm serious, though, man." He says it casually, apparently focusing more on sliding all the food into the box than on what is definitely just casual conversation, Stan ain't sticking a toe into any of those dangerous, painful parts of Ford's life just yet. "I know we stopped bein' able to trade clothes back in junior high, but just my shirt would fall right off you now. Maybe you could use a little ma' out here in this little town, that wouldn't be so bad."

Which, hey, that would mean Ford needs Stan out here to do all that, make sure he eats and all that shit. It would mean he needs Stan. Which, hey, he's already agreed that he does, so Stan knows he's in the clear there. But hearing Ford say there's a reason he needs Stan, that there's something Stan can do to make sure he'll get to stick around? Well, that wouldn't be so bad, either.

While Stan goes and takes care of business at the counter, Ford takes a moment to take stock of himself. His head still hurts from the amateur surgery he preformed earlier, which isn't surprising - he's sore in various places from that unhappy scrap with the Shapeshifter, he's bone tired which has been his default state for the past few months so there's no real concern there - no, the only thing really worthy of note is the almost alien feeling of calm that's followed him ever since they left the bunker.

Despite his various aches and pains, he feels pretty good. Better than he has in a long while, at least, which says a lot about how he's been feeling as of late.

When Stan returns, Ford spares him a faint, tired smile and rubs at the back of his neck - both because he's feeling a touch sheepish, and because his neck has decided to go stiff on him.

"To tell you the truth Stan, I'd rather have you here than Mom." He glances over towards the door, looks out into the rapidly darkening horizon and silently calculates how quickly they'll have to move if they want to make it back home before the sun disappears completely.

"Don't get me wrong, I love her to death but she can be a little..." He cringes, then teeters his hand side to side as he gives Stan a knowing look.

"You know. Overbearing."

"Yeah?" Stan finishes with the food and frowns a second, thinking back about ten years, before heading toward the door. Over all that time he thought about Ma the same way he thought about Ford, sort of. When he's low, when things get - well, when things get hairy, when he can't help himself. When he thinks of mom he thinks of how loud and nasal her voice got, the way she'd jitter across the kitchen after downing a whole pot of coffee, the way her fingernails felt running through his hair. "I don't know, Ford, it's been, uh. It's been a while. Don't you ever feel like you could use a little overbearing, sometimes? Just... just for a minute?"

Stan holds the door open for Ford, waving absently at Susan and the last few flirts she's yelling at them before they leave. His eyes jerk toward Ford's face and then away, and he clears his throat. That's why his voice went all, all whatever it was at the end there.

Edited 2016-02-15 01:08 (UTC)

As they head towards the door, Ford finds himself staring out into the rapidly darkening sky rather than at Stan. He's just - you know, he's just calculating the speed at which the sun's setting so he knows how much daylight they have before they get stranded in the dark. He's not just avoiding looking at his brother while he speaks, of course not. Perish the thought.

"After the, ah...experiences I've had, Stan, I'm not really fond of being smothered."

He doesn't mean to, but he can't help but reach up and touch the back of his head, his fingers brushing against the angry red line burned into his skin. Once he realizes what he's doing he quickly pulls his hand away, only to move it back and pretend like he was just trying to fix his hair again.

Luckily - or not - for Stan, he doesn't know enough about Ford to know that, in a different conversation, Ford could also be talking about him. He just catches Ford's moving back up to the mark Stan melted into his brother's skin, and takes what Ford told him in that diner and makes a guess at it. "Yeah, well, somehow I doubt that asshole ever sat you down at the breakfast table for a honkin' big pile of pancakes. It's a different kinda' thing."

"Pancakes are simple, right?" he goes on a second later, quieter because he's talking mostly to himself. "I bet I could figure out pancakes."

Alright, that gets an amused snort out of Ford - he feels he ought to congratulate Stan for always knowing exactly what to say to cheer him up when he's feeling down, but there's really no way to say something like that without inviting an awkward silence to swoop in and make things uncomfortable.

Instead, Ford simply shakes his head at his incorrigible brother and tries (without sucess) to hide a smile.

"You're really not going to let go of the food thing, are you?" He asks wryly they leave the diner and step out into the brisk winter air. "I'll admit I've lost some weight, but not enough to necessitate you being let anywhere near the stove."

Stan remembers, back in the day, that puttin' a smile like that on his brother's face - especially when it ends up lookin' like he don't want to smile, but can't stop himself - that always used to make Stan feel like the biggest guy in the world, about ten miles tall. He ducks his head a little and gives Ford a smile right back, feeling lighter than he did a couple seconds ago. "Hey, I only got a place burnt down, uh, the once, or was it..."

Stan's eyes go unfocused and he holds up his hands, shifting his grip on the box of food so one can count off on the fingers of the other. He counts one finger, then two, then three- "Look, nevermind all that, I bet I can figure your stove out no problem. And uh, I know the food thing won't exactly solve all your problems, but it's somethin', you know?"

"And besides, a guy like you, you've got an extinguisher stashed some place, right? We're golden."

Ford honestly cannot tell if Stan is joking or not once he starts counting on his fingers. He'd like to give his brother the benifit of the doubt and assume he hasn't actually been responsible for burning down what looks like over three kitchens, but - well, you never know. For all he knows, Stan really is just that bad at cooking.

"I feel like I should preemptively ban you from the kitchen to save myself the headache." He replies with a snort. "Not to mention the repair bills."

As they head out down the road, walking side by side into the cool winter night, Ford can't help but wonder how they're going to make all of this work. Sure, they're joking about the domestic trials they may or may not face in the future, assuming they share a future together, but Ford cannot for the life of him imagine how they're going to reach that point.

It's not like - he can't just invite Stan to stay with him a while, that would be ridiculous. Stan's a grown man, they both are. They're reaching the age where they should settle down and get married, start their own families. They're nearly thirty years old for God's sake - that's too old to still be rooming with your brother, isn't it?

Ford can't help but wonder if it is, if he even cares that it is. If you had asked him before he and Stan left the bunker, he might not have even entertained the idea, but now...well, Ford's not so sure anymore. He hasn't been sure of anything in a long while, really. After everything that happened with Bill, his confidence has taken a heavy blow. These days, he can't seem to trust himself to make the right calls, to see the bigger picture, to notice the warning signs flashing past his eyes.

He just - he needs some time to think, to feel confident in his decision, whatever that ultimately is. Until then, well, he supposes it won't hurt to let Stanley hang around for a while.

It might be that it's a good thing Stan don't know that. He knows he's got to prove he's worth keepin' around, yeah, but knowing something is different from actually hearing it, and hearing that Ford's actually thinking it, even after what they talked about in that bunker, that would hurt. So it's probably good Stan's thinking about something else altogether.

"Hey, I never said it was the kitchens I got burned down. Mostly." Oops, shit, probably shoulda' let that stay a 'bad cooking' joke, shouldn't he? Well, it still can stay a joke if he grins just the right way. Ford probably can't see his face really clear with the light going like this though, can he? And hey, speaking of -

"You can find your way back in this, right? I mean, these woods are-" He gives a brief, deliberate shudder. "Creepy, ya' know? It'd be nice to get back without steppin' into another Monster Movie Monday Special, or whatever happens in places with all these trees like this."

Ford lets that comment about burning down more than just kitchens slip for now - like most things in Stan's life, Ford's not sure if he ought to look too deep into it. He's still unsure of where they stand, of what subjects they're allowed to bring up and what topics they'll have to put on the back burner until they patch things up a little better - give themselves time to trust each other with the ugly details of their lives that they can't bring themselves to put out on the table just yet.

He's not sure if he'll ever be ready to tell Stan that the things he's revealed to him so far -as awful as they are- are just the tip of the iceberg as far as gritty details of his life go.

"I know these woods like the back of my hand, Stanley." Which, considering Ford spends a great deal more time looking at his hands than the average person, is really saying something.

"So long as we stick to the right path, we shouldn't have any trouble. Unless we run into a gremgoblin, but at this time of the year we're more likely to come across a colony of eye-bats, which are practically harmless."

"Eye-" Stan grimaces, but that rings a bell, don't it? Kind of? Somewhere in the haze of stress and fear and the building need to bust something up that make up Stan's memory of the past couple days, he might remember somethin' like that. Not much, though. "I really need to look through that book again. All the stuff you got. Everythin' about that, uh, that Bill character, too. I mean, I'm not gonna' ask about all that, uh, other stuff. But I spent enough time tryin' not to think about that shit when you- I mean, when I- You know, and if we're really gonna' kick this guy's ass I think I gotta' hit the books a little. And uh, I'm kinda' getting the feeling all the books on this weird stuff were written by you, so, you know."

You do know, don't you? Hopefully you know. Stan is probably not going to be any clearer.

Oh. Well. That sure is a whole lot of stuttering and tripping over his own words Stan's doing. Maybe Ford can get away with pretending like he doesn't know exactly what he was getting at with all of that verbal fumbling--

...Or maybe he can just man up and give his brother a proper response because pussyfooting around the issue isn't going to get them anywhere.

"...You want to read my journals?" It's not really a question, more like a request for confirmation. "I...I don't know, Stan. A lot of what's in there isn't relevant to the - the Cipher issue."

That, and he isn't particularly keen on the idea of letting Stan take his good sweet time perusing the pages which catalog his slow decent into madness - or, well, maybe not full-blown madness. He doesn't feel insane, just...a little shaky. Not as stable as he used to be. But you know, that's to be expected, given the circumstances, and besides, he's been under a lot of stress lately. Anyone would crack a little under that sort of pressure, right? It's not - it doesn't say anything about him, mental-health wise. He's just been having a god awful time lately, and things just look a lot worse on paper than they actually are -

At least, that's what he's going to assure Stan if he actually does flip though those worn pages and see things that are...concerning.

"That don't mean I don't need to know about that too, I mean, the longer I stay here-" If he stays, that is, crap, all this walkin' on eggshells shit's gonna' fuckin' kill him. Stan makes a face at his shoes, then tries this again, this time in a way that ain't so risky. "But that's later. And they're your books, you know, so if you don't want me gettin' my dirty mitts all over 'em that's fine. But uh, some stuff I do need to know about. That uh, that Cipher Issue. You don't gotta' write me a novel, but you can't just drop 'angry asshole demon from the fourth dimension' on me and leave it at that, I'm gonna' need a little more if we're gonna' figure somethin' out. I mean..."

He looks over at Ford, seeing what he can see in the light. Not that there's much light, a lot less now that they're actually heading into the woods. Fucking creepy, he still thinks that and the way that, once you get surrounded on all sides by these trees, the light just sort of disappears, that ain't changing his mind at all. But he can see Ford's face, at least enough to remind him that this is a guy who lost enough blood to redecorate a small room not so long ago, a guy who can't sleep without seein' the same asshole who gave him all those scars Stan ain't thinkin' about, and something flares up all big and tough in Stan's chest right then, crowding out the frustration and the nerves for a second.

"Not now, it's been a hell of a day, you know? Sleep on it, an' tell me all about it tomorrow. That sound like a plan, four-eyes?" Stan isn't confident enough about this right now to elbow Ford like a part of him wants to, but some of that's there in his voice anyway, something a little less 'guy trying not to break all the eggshells of goodwill keeping him here' and a little more 'brother'.

Stan is right. He's right, and Ford hates it because that means having to admit that he's wrong, that he's being childish, a coward. His comfort isn't nearly as important in the grand scheme of things as making sure Stan knows what the hell they're dealing with here, in this impossible place Ford has learned to call home.

Rather than admit to this out loud, Ford simply smiles a little uncomfortably at the ground, the gesture somewhat forced, before leaning towards his brother a bit so he can nudge him with his shoulder.

"You realize that name applies to you too, right?" He asks, hoping Stan won't call him out on how blatantly he's changing the subject. "Or at least it would, if you ever wore your glasses."

He sounds fond as he says this, fond and a little chiding. He reaches up to adjust his glasses, not because he needs to but because they're the focus of the subject at hand and he just feels the need to play with them.

"Hey," Stan says, not about to say anything about the subject change at all because who's the big brother here?

Ford. Technically it's Ford. But, you know what, shut up.

"There's only room for one four-eyes in this relationship, an' that ain't me." It's weird to hear anyone even mention that. It's not hard to hide the fact that his eyes aren't great, at least most of the time, and really Ford is the only one who knows he even does it. Their parents could figure it out maybe, them and some of his old teachers, but Ford was the only one who ever thought about it.

"You got a lotta' secrets in that head, Sixer," he says, poking at Ford's temple. "You'd better keep that one to yourself, huh? You'll ruin my reputation." And, because timing is everything, the root of a nearby tree chooses that exact second to just appear in front of Stan's foot, probably because this creepy forest has a sense of humor and it was waiting for this moment to make him flail in a wild try at not falling on his face.

Stan is right - Ford does have a lot of secrets in his head, but as far as secrets go, the fact that his brother has eyes just as bad as his own is not one he feels the need to keep under lock and key. He's got far more dangerous, far more personal ones that need the vault-space anyhow.

Not that he feels like he can really be blamed for letting that particular secret slip, not when Stan makes it pretty damn obvious that his eyes aren't the best by tripping over an exposed tree root. (Granted, that says less about his eyes and more about how he keeps looking at his brother rather than where he's going, but whatever.)

Luckily for Stan, his big brother's got fast enough reflexes to prevent him from kissing the dirt - his upper body strength, though, leaves a little to be desired. A lack of sleep and nutrition will do that to a guy's muscles.

"What was that you were saying--" He begins, as he grabs hold of Stan's arm with one hand, and the back of his jacket with the other. "--About ruining your reputation?"

That's more than enough, muscles or not, and with Ford's help Stan gets himself up and steady again pretty quick, although he doesn't really think about the fact that maybe, since he's up and all, he don't need to keep grabbing at Ford's sleeve like he is. His mind's in other places. Look, he didn't even spill Ford's food. That right there, that's skills. "I was saying, your creepy forest's got it out for me. I think somethin's gonna' come out and tie my shoelaces together next. You really lived in this place for years? On purpose? Wasn't it weird?"

Edited 2016-02-24 22:32 (UTC)