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When it comes to his brother, Stanford is sure that he could spend the rest of his life trying to uncover his secrets and still come up short - that's just the kind of man Stanley's become. He recognizes very well the face of someone afraid of making even one mistake.
It seems his face was meant for frowning, while his brother's was made for smiling - or it used to be.
Gap-toothed and earnest, Stanley had been a terribly endearing child, hadn't he? Always following at his side, never straying…
Stanford clears his throat and turns his attention to the project he'd spent the better part of four months on; still not good enough, still not perfect. He sighs, head in his hands as he stares down at the third prototype for what he's tentaively calling the Grab Bag (name still under revisions). He'd carefully sourced the fabric from the shed of a delightfully strange creature his brother had dubbed 'a Long Snake with Fur'. (His brother was still terrible with names.) Finding out how to spin the fur into something usable had been quite the adventure, but his niece had been perfectly willing to lend her knowledge to the cause! (After squealing loud enough he was sure the glass of the porthole window had shattered.)
Of course, it had also been treated during the sewing process with various magics to prevent wear and harm, size expansion, something to repell any tricky fingers, and not to forget the organization feature! The logistics of it all was actually quite fascinating, since before this he'd never gone into the more… hardy sorts of spells associated with domestic life. Even the magic inherent to sewing had been a shock to learn about, but the research had been thrilling! Just thinking of all the ways ancient civilizations might have invented through trial and error the early versions of the magics common in use nowadays was brilliant!
Nearly spilling his glow in the dark Visible-Invisible ink (don't ask), he quickly - and very carefully - righted his Porcupinecone (don't ask!!!) before the blasted paper weight could roll off the desk like it always did. It vibrated sightly, quills emitting the vaguely pleasant scent of Gravity Falls' woods throughout the room. Stanford leaned back in his chair, sighing as he closed the journal to his thoughts.
All he wanted was to make a functional, if not aesthetically pleasing bag for his brother, but the task was proving more than troublesome! Just ask the mess in his garbage can, sadly languishing in the corner!
No, his stitchwork was uneven. The colors didn't blend properly. The magic hadn't settled right!
Stanley made it look so easy! He'd sit there on the deck, darning a pair of socks, or - or patching a hole in one of their shirts! (All of the time spent researching historical fashion for his painstakingly accurate Duchess Approves fanfiction had paid off; Ford shamefully wishes he had paid more attention when Stan had been rambling about it, but truly, there were only so many times a man could take hearing the name 'Swogglebottom' or the phrase 'eligibility for marriage' before he tuned out.)
The answer was clear: he needed the advice of an expert. And no, he wasn't talking about Stanley.
His niece was a delight to hear from, as always, even if her excitement for an old man such as himself learning to sew rather baffled him.
"It's the fact you're learning for someone else!" Mable grinned, braces near blinding in the light she was in - hold on, was that -
"Yes, this is for Stanley, but - Mable, my dear, are your teeth full of glitter?" He squinted and put the so called 'phone' as close to his face as he could.
"You bet they are! What's better than Mable Juice? Mable Toothpaste!" She threw her hands up, then winked with a whisper, "It tastes delicious."
He snorted. "That's mildly concercing. Anyway!"
She tilted her head. "Alright, mister, show me that needlework! Master Maker Mable is on the case, and she won't rest until the problem is solved!"
He eagerly deferred to her expertise; her teaching methods were unorthodox, to say the least, and yet he'd never bled less over a ritual circle!
"Thank you for all your help, my dear," he fondly said, smiling as they both tried their best to avoid saying goodbye.
"Psh! Don't thank me, Grunk! That's what family's for!" She waved her hand as if brushing the thought of gratitude off her shoulders; for a moment she reminded him so much of Stanley that the ache in his heart was entirely too much.
"Right you are, my dear. Right you are." He laid his hand on the screen over where she did too. "Give my love to your brother, will you?"
"You know I will!" She was still laughing as the little phone icon turned red.
"Now, then…" he muttered, looking at his needle and thread. "Time for practice to be put to the test."
"What's up with you, nerd?" Stan asked over dinner that night, a masterful rendition of baked salmon and shredded greens (though his brother was a tad heavy handed with the olive oil), but strangely whenever he effused his compliments to the chef Stanley merely waved them off. Mildly infuriating.
(He layered these concerns in fun little facts sprinkled throughout their days of sailing, but his brother had yet to take them to heart. What was he going to do?)
Stanford blinked, salad halfway to his mouth. "Ah, pardon me?"
His brother slapped knee and laughed. "Ha! When you get all polite is when I know you're up to something, so out with it! What've you been doing, all squirrled up in your lab all day?"
He gulped. Curse his extremely obvious tells! "That's ridiculous, Stanley, but you know - this, ah, you've really outdone yourself with dinner this time, the texture is entirely even! Though next time take note to avoid so much salt, if you would -"
"Sixer!" Stanley said, though he didn't quite catch the rest, for you see… that is… oh, damn it all! It was utterly mindboggling how just hearing that word still left him feeling uneasy - that's your brother, you idiot, rough and raspy and… and your hero. How can you harbor room for doubt, now of all times?
(Sometimes he wonders if he'll ever be able to reclaim the parts of himself molded by Bill, or if he'll be stuck simultaneously mourning and distrusting his own perception for forever.)
(It's so easy to believe, after all… that the reason he's like this is because he let it happen.)
"Hey, bud. It's just me. You wanna see my eyes?" A firm hand slots itself into his, and then he's being pulled up to stand on equal ground, no longer stuck on the ground like some p -
Stanford looks into his brother's eyes, and all he can see is faith. His heart twists, ashamed and glad all at once. Standing here six to five, he knows Stanley is right beside him.
(He doesn't deserve this, but like hell he won't strive to be worthy of it.)
Stanford takes a breath and holds on. "I'm sorry, Stanley, for… that. We should sit back down before dinner gets cold."
His brother doesn't budge. "You think I care about dinner? I care about you," he declares, in that way of his where he bends the world to his will. They have that in common, being too stubborn for sense.
He shouldn't burden Stanley with this. It's his problem to deal with. He probably wouldn't understand. (What if he looks at you differently? What if he blames you? What if -)
When an error occurs, you rewrite the question. Here he is again, falling into old patterns that never did him any good. He's not alone now, and he can't think of anyone in the world he trusts more than Stan.
There's no way out but through.
"Let's… let's go to the deck," he quietly says, grateful when Stanley simply nods and follows. They sit in the silly lawn chairs his brother had stolen from a local gardening store, his own adjustments apparent in how the legs are bolted to the wood. The silence lingers, and he gets more and more nervous until finally he stills his nervous hands and admits, point blank, "I feel like a failure."
Stanley jerks to stare at him, opening his mouth, but - "Please. Let me finish, otherwise I… might not have the courage."
His brother eyes him with an unreadable look in his eyes before nodding. He inhales.
"I'm failing you. I'm letting him win, because you beat him, and yet I'm still… stuck. Unable to move on. It's pitiful, isn't it? How much of a coward I am," he chuckles wetly, not daring to close his eyes and wipe them away. "I only recently realized just how terrified I am of Bill, you know. It took him threatening the kids, it took me losing you before I finally learned how wrong I was. When you all found that book, I thought - I was so worried he would - even now, I can't fall asleep!"
Stanley yanked him into a hug, head on top of his. "They threw me in the looney bin. For about four months," his brother mumbled.
He tried to look up, but Stan held tight.
"They were always saying how I was sick, how they would fix me. All those pills ever did was make me numb enough to be sick."
He clung to his brother, clutching onto the needle-thin thread of hope that he could offer some form of comfort. His heart hurt.
"And after a while - if you listen to something enough, you start believing it. I should know, it's how I started out selling totally legal products - persistence and determination, hah." Stan dug his knuckles into his head, causing him to yelp and for his hair to transform into a bird's nest. "Point is, they were wrong. I broke out with a plastic fork and some rope, all on my own; not bad for a so-called lost cause, huh?"
Stanford growled. "How dare they," he seethed.
Stan chuckled. "Yeesh, tiger, put those teeth away. Yeah, I was fucked up for a while after that, but I survived. You see what I'm sayin'?"
Stanford silently shook his head.
"You survived, Ford."
And suddenly, he was sobbing - great, big heaves of emotion messily falling out. As if hearing it let him finally feel it. And if it didn't feel like he'd won, at least he hadn't lost - he and his family had lived.
For once, there was no guilt. Just relief.
(He'd been prepared to die to save the world. Having to live in the aftermath never factored into his plans; it was no wonder why he was left floundering.)
Stanley was right. He'd spent so many years listening to other people decide who he was - six fingered freak, trophy, genius, outlaw. And he could admit that it was… dehumanizing. By trying to cleave to whatever socially acceptable rules made up being 'normal', along with, yes, his own false self-actualizations - he'd fallen into a vicious cycle of losing control only to go to extremes to reclaim it. Paranoid, closed off and half feral, he'd told himself those familiar habits were helping him. In reality, they'd always been deeply unhealthy.
"Why did it take so long for me to…?" He blearily mumbled, rubbing his eyes. Stanley ran a hand up and down his back.
"Hey, take it from me, pal. There's never any sense in wondering why things shook out how they did. Life just happens."
Stanford rolled his eyes. "Yes, very wise words, Stanley."
He was soon put into a headlock for his hubris. "Hey, Stanley - ! Hold on, what are you - !"
"What does it look like? I'm noogying my nerd brother!" With a booming laugh, Stan dug his knuckles in.
"Let go! Noogying isn't even a verb!"
"Blah, blah, blah - talk to the hand, Poindexter!"
They fell asleep in a tangle of limbs, Stan's rumbling snores and Ford's frequent sleeptalk almost a call and response. When he woke up, it was to the sight of his brother drooling on his shoulder. Stanford groaned, scrunching his nose up, but the storm in his head had dissipated.
He had much more to want to live for than the naive, out of his depth young man that he'd been would have ever believed possible.
Note: Going to a bar with Stanley will always be the wrong decision.
He says 'going' but really he meant dragged! "It's no fun drinking alone!" Stanley said. "C'mon, we'll find a place more your speed, promise."
Well. There isn't a crowd, and the lights are dim. The speakers are playing rock music at a low volume, tables spaced out very efficiently to give the illusion of privacy. His stomach growls at the scent of spiced meat a passing server walks by with. (How strange, to regard the act of eating with anticipation rather than tolerance.)
"Whaddaya think?" Stanley nudges him with a smirk.
Stanford adjusts his glasses. "I will admit that it… is not terrible."
"Woo, I'll take it!" Stan fist pumps. He rolls his eyes but can't help cracking a smile at his brother's antics.
They find a table in some shadowed corner away from everyone else. He sits with his back to the wall as Stanley slides into the chair opposite him. "Thank you," he says quietly.
Stan looks at him and grins, still that same boy who refused to tap out in the ring. "Don't know what you're talkin' about. How's about I go get our drinks?"
How like his brother to obfuscate; his twin is a much smarter man than anyone gives him credit for. One day Ford will be able to make him believe it.
"Something sweet!" He calls after him - Stan merely waves a hand back without looking as he walks towards the bar.
He spends a few minutes watching everyone, building profiles in his mind in descending order of most dangerous to least. Every so often his eyes will stop on his brother, sat at the counter laughing as the bartender mixes their drinks. He'll smile before realizing it and then scold himself for getting distracted.
He's supposed to be relaxing, he knows, but… thirty years of running leaves marks he's not sure will ever go away.
"Excuse me, is this seat taken?" A woman stands to the side of the table, smiling. Beyond that, he has no idea what her expression means.
"Yes." The very idea of having to make small talk with some stranger for however long it takes until his brother gets back sends a shiver of revulsion down his spine. Figuring out human interactions is probably well beyond him now anyway.
She frowns briefly before smiling again. "Oh… are you here alone?"
Why does she want to know? Is she planning to lure him somewhere and then threaten him? Did his bounty get leaked to other dimensions?
"My name's Mariella. I'm here on vacation for a month while my house gets built back back home. I noticed you sitting here alone and thought you looked lonely!"
Stanford palms the gun in his coat and readies himself to use it. What a transparent lie; who just walks up to someone and starts talking about themself like that?
"What's your name?" Mariella (alias more than likely) asks, still smiling, smiling, smiling. The expression irks him more and more the longer this goes on, scratching at some part of his brain that tells him threat.
"Young lady," he begins to say, but then there's an arm sliding around his shoulder and a body settling itself right beside his own, the clatter of four drinks on the wooden tabletop loud in the sudden silence ringing through his mind.
Stanley quirks a brow. "Sorry, toots, my brother here's already married to his work. You'd have more luck with that guy hustling over by the pool tables."
As she blushes and stammers her excuses and sorry's, they both watch as she does indeed take Stan's advice to approach a man intently calculating angles. A breath he didn't know he was holding is let out, and he sighs, briefly closing his eyes. "Why do they always approach me?"
His brother snorts. "Ha! You think you're winning when it comes to getting babes? Think again, Poindexter! You're looking at the champion of scoring!"
He pinches his nose between his fingers. "Ugh, no. You're disgusting, Stanley."
"I think you mean disgustingly handsome! I mean, look at me - it's no wonder they flock to me!" Stanley gestured to himself proudly, a cat's eye gleam shining through. Ford did a very obvious up and down scan before covering his mouth as he laughed.
"Well, you're more than welcome to them! Just leave me out of any such future discussions, would you? I'd vastly prefer not having to relive your teenage years." The mere thought was dreadful.
His twin just laughed, boisterous and wild. He quietly laughed along, wondering just how it was that Stanley always knew how to make things alright again. He didn't know how he'd ever lived without him. With a bittersweet pang in his heart, he smiled and tried one of his drinks - fruity and sugary with a salted rim.
"I just don't understand why a stranger would just… approach someone out of the blue! Did no one teach them about the dangers of the world? Are the newer generations oblivious or uncaring?"
Stan shrugged as he nursed his own drink - from the looks of it, some kind of whiskey. "Eh, fact is, the world's changed and we haven't, Six. It's like different cultures now. When we were younger Pa would have beat our asses for having sex before marriage."
Stanford shook his head. "Pa would beat our asses for looking at him wrong on a Thursday." They both chuckled at that, the kind of laughing that only came from looking back on a bad situation in the face of being somewhere better now. "I don't think I'll ever understand it. Maybe that's a good thing."
There were benefits to not knowing everything; he knew that now. In his life, he had learned a great, great many things - not least of which was how to accept his limitations. Between isolating himself for years in a frenzy of research or having a family again, he knew what he'd choose.
"Wait - was she fliritng with me?" He suddenly asked, incredulous. "No, that's ridiculous, she had to be over twenty years my junior - Stanley, why are you laughing? Moses, don't tell me - !" He covered his face with his hands, groaning. "You'd think by this point I would be used to it, but somehow the intricacies of human behavior never get any easier to decode."
Wheezing for breath, Stan pounded the table and said, "Word on the street is you're a silver fox, Ford!"
Stanford glowered. "Oh, not that infernal phrase again - !"
They bickered good naturedly between rounds, and Ford watched from against a wall as his brother scammed the money out of men's wallets in poker, grinning madly. A man with salt and pepper hair stopped for a while to chat with Stan, and he kept a careful eye on it, but his brother seemed to be having fun, so he left them to it, instead contemplating the route for a brief stop just a week away; they'd steadily been inching closer to Oregon for the trip home, but by his measure they had just enough time to make a stop along the way.
Summer was almost here, but before then -
"Ready, nerd?" Stan bumped his shoulder, smirking. "I won big this time! And there's not even an angry mob chasing us back to the boat!" Between his fingers he held a folded piece of paper, fidgeting with it before he stowed it away in his pocket.
"What's that?" Ford asked, genuinely curious.
Stanley rubbed the back of his neck before glancing back towards a group of men who were in the middle of a game - one of them looked up and managed to catch his eye just as he was about to look away - and that same salt and pepperd man from earlier smiled at him. Quickly turning away, Stan steered the both of them out the door. "Eh, not important. Just some bozo who gave me his number." In the clear evening air, it was easy to see the red in the tips of his ears.
"Stanley." He stopped, and his brother stopped with him, turning to him with nervous eyes. He took his hand and squeezed.
"I'm happy for you," he said, and he meant it.
Stan looked at him and then smiled. "Pa would have killed me."
Ford grinned back. "Yes, well, fuck Pa."
His brother bent over from the force of his laughter, and he felt fond just watching him. He may not understand social graces, or why people wanted to talk about the weather, or the reason for hating something inherent to someone else - like a small boy's polydactyly. And if anyone else ever wanted to take issue with his brother's preferences, well. Ford had gotten quite good at aiming over the years.
Arms thrown over each other's shoulders, they stumbled home to the Stan o' War II, a little tipsy but mostly tripping over their shared good mood. Warm and safe, the both of them, Stanford looked up at the sky and found himself wanting to say -
"Thank you."
"Whassat?" Stan slurred, perhaps a bit more than tipsy.
He smiled and steered his brother away from walking into a lamp post. "I feel like I don't say it enough, so - thank you, Lee. For bringing me home."
His brother smiled too. "Heh. Anytime, bro."
"Can I open my eyes now?" Stan grumbled.
Stanford grinned. "Yes!"
When his brother looked down at the product of so many sleepness nights and bent needles, blood and sweat and even a few tears - he found himself unaccountably nervous. As Stan thumbed over the main body of the bag, he found himself rambling.
"Ah, I know it's not perfect, but if I waited any longer I never would have finished it in time for our trip home. The stitchwork may be a bit… shoddy but I assure you, I worked very hard on it! I made it from that sea serpent we encountered a while back, do you remember? Well, I kept its shed skin, unbeknownst to you, and enlisted the help of Mabel to spin the fur into something resembling fabric - does it feel okay? It's not irritating your hands? Early prototypes had certain acidic properties - but this version should be as safe as possible! Ah, thinking about it now, I really should have -"
Stanley yanked him into a fierce hug. Oh. His arms dangled uselessly behind his brother's back, unsure of where exactly he should be putting them before ultimately, slowly bringing them up towards his shoulders.
"I love it," Stan told him, squeezing him tight before letting go.
Ford smiled. Gently taking it from his brother, he ran a hand over months upon months of work - just one little sentence made it all worth it. A dark brown starting from the bottom, the color climbed and gradually lightened towards the top. At the ends of the strap, there was metalwork in the shape of shells. "I did my best to make it as easy to use as possible - simply say 'Open' and you'll be able to store any number of items, though there is a weight limit of two hunded and thirty three pounds - 'Close' will lock the bag from any hands but yours."
Stanley took it reverently. "Whoa…" he breathed.
"And, needless to say, while I am not encouraging any of your, shall we say… sly habits," he started, only to be interrupted.
"You mean my shameless stealin'?" His brother broke in with a grin. Wait, had he just inadvertently made a pun in his own mind? Gah! Confound Stanley and his blasted 'Yuck 'Em Ups'!
"Hmph!" He cleared his throat. "The point being - oh, who am I kidding? You're scheming up ways to use it before my very eyes!"
Stan threw the bag over his shoulder and smirked. "Eh, what can I say? You give me an inch and I'll take a mile."
Ford rolled his eyes. "Yes, well, I still have one more surprise for you."
"What is this, my birthday?"
He merely smiled with a hum, walking towards the deck. His brother followed, eyes darting to and fro as though the interior of the ship would have changed from this morning. Outside, the sun was high and the waves bright - saltsray was strong, a scent that had no doubt rubbed off on them both. Out in the distance, the Oregon coast was steadily emerging. Though instead of the usual route, he had taken the liberty to make a slight detour.
"Huh?"
Ford turned to his brother and spread his arms wide, grinning. "Welcome to Cape Perpetua! I hope you rememberd to bring your hiking boots, Stanley!"
Stan stared for a moment longer before lighting up. "We had a place like this in our back yard this whole time? How did I never know…?"
He set a hand on his brother's shoulder. "I thought it'd be a good surprise."
"You kidding, Poindexter? This is amazing!" Stanley beamed at him, happiness clear across every inch of his face. "We'll have to take pictures to show the kids!"
Stanford chuckled. "Ready for one more adventure before summer in Gravity Falls?"
"Aye, aye, Captain!" Stan saluted, a goofy grin tugging the corners of his lips up.
In that moment, it all fell away - Bill, the guilt for surviving, the paranoia, everything. All he could see were blue skies, blue seas - and his brother beside him.
There was no place else he'd rather be.