Chapter Text
Stanley led them both to his car outside of the building. Ford got inside and Emma-May was soon to follow, sitting in the back with a bag full of things she had taken from Fiddleford and the others. He rubbed his sore wrists and looked out the window. There were insects inside of him. They had always been there, as long as he could remember, and right now they were just as upset as he was. They gnawed at the places where the rope had dug into his skin as if they were trying to help him get them off, even though Stanley had already gotten them off.
Ford’s eyes had run out of tears. He pressed the side of his forehead to the glass and curled in on himself as all of the muscles in his abdomen tensed and untensed like they were still trying to squeeze more tears from him. His body shook.
Fiddleford hadn’t taken anything from him. He hadn’t gotten the chance, because Stanley and Emma-May had interrupted him, which was - it was good. But he still felt like he had lost something, even though he knew more now than ever before, because in his mind he saw snow and blood and the ground far below.
‘He tried to throw you off a roof!’ Fiddleford had said.
Fiddleford had said a lot of things. Ford didn’t often believe him, but when he had spoken this time, Ford knew it was true, because he remembered it. He felt angry with himself now. He should have known better than to think he could have had something so unquestionably good. He should have guessed earlier that Bill had not actually been his friend.
Good things were always bad things in disguise.
He didn’t realize when they had arrived or when they had dropped Emma-May off at her house. It felt like he blinked and then Stanley was helping him out of the car and up to their room.
He recognized the letters on the table. Stanley moved past them and gently pushed him to sit on his bed, saying something Ford nodded along to without listening. He watched Stanley walk into the bathroom and come out with a white box, then drag a chair from the table over to his bed to sit in.
“Show me your wrists.”
Ford glanced down and shakily rolled up one sleeve of his sweater and then the other. Then he held them out for Stanley to see. Stanley turned them over, looking at them, and told him to get up. He got up. They washed his wrists in the sink and sat back down, where Stanley reached into the box and pulled out a short jar of something. He scooped it up with his fingers and spread it over the red areas circling his wrists and up his forearms. Then he padded them with gauze and wrapped them with tape.
Stanley asked him if he was hurt anywhere else, so he rolled up the hems of his pant legs too and showed him his ankles, and they did it all over again. Ford grimaced when they were done. He felt like - he didn’t know what he felt like, but it wasn’t fun. The gauze itched. Stanley patted him on the shoulder and told him he’d be fine and to get some rest.
He wasn’t tired, so he stayed where he was and watched Stanley move around the house. A chair was propped up under the front door handle. The blinds were shut. The windows were already locked. The letters were gathered into a pile and left on the table. A pot was put on the stove. He blinked and Stanley was putting a mug in his hands.
He lifted it to his lips and drank. It was warm and slipped easily down his throat. It tasted… sweet.
Slowly, his eyelids began to grow heavier.
At some point, the nearly-empty mug was gently lifted from his hands and he crawled beneath his blankets and fell asleep. His sleep was full of dreams and his dreams were really nightmares.
He didn’t think he liked the color yellow anymore.
---
It was better to be alone, Ford thought. No one could betray you if you were alone. No one could lie to you and flatter you and make you do things for them by pretending to be your friend if you were alone. He liked Stanley and Emma-May, but he had liked Fiddleford and Bill too, and he knew it was only a matter of time before they showed their true colors.
“Thinking about living in the woods again?” Stanley asked from behind him. He tensed and tightened his grip on the strap of the backpack on the table. It was packed. He had packed it himself yesterday. He said nothing.
Stanley took the backpack from him and unzipped it to look inside, pausing in case Ford was going to stop him, but Ford didn’t. He just stood there and watched his brother poke around through his supplies.
“Looks good to me,” he said. “You forgot your canteen, though. You’re probably gonna want that.”
And then Stanley went and filled up Ford’s canteen with tap water and screwed it tightly shut before tucking it into one of the backpack’s side pockets. He looked up at him with a satisfied smile, dusting off his hands even though there was no need to.
“There, good to go.”
Ford didn’t meet his brother’s eyes when he lifted the backpack up and slipped his arms through the straps. He adjusted it on his back, put on his new shoes, and started for the front door.
As Ford reached for the doorknob, Stanley said, “Want me to come with you?”
He sounded strange.
Ford hesitated. Then he made himself shake his head and open the door. He took one step outside.
“Will you come back?”
He screwed his eyes shut and held the straps of his backpack tightly for a second. He forced himself to keep going. He did not look back.
It was probably all a trick, anyway.
---
He didn’t really like being alone. It felt familiar to him in a way that made him feel sick. Still, he knew it would be better this way, by himself where no one could hurt him. Except, when he laid down for the night and closed his eyes, he couldn’t stop shivering. His thin blanket was not good at keeping the cold out. The sun was eager to leave in the evening and reluctant to come back in the morning, the wind was biting, and it rained almost every day.
Ford sneezed. He had been doing that a lot more lately. He gathered up his supplies and took down the shelter he had made with his blanket and set out in the foggy morning to find the river again. When his alarm went off, he had two fish to eat, and when he was finished he sighed and put his feet into the icy water to watch the still-living fish swim past him.
Rain pattered down on his head and back. It was light but if it kept up like this he would be very wet soon. He should have brought an umbrella, perhaps.
A school of small black fish began investigating his ankles. He smiled.
---
Ford was sick, probably. He didn’t mind. It felt good to be able to decide what he was going to do about it, which was stay put and drink more water, without anyone telling him what to do. His head hurt and he was tired, but Fiddleford was not here, and even though it was cold and wet he was okay.
He still didn’t know what he wanted to do with himself. The insects were happy out here. Sometimes they got excited when he saw something interesting, and sometimes he got excited, too, instead of scared. He still didn’t know where the insects had come from, and part of him wondered if they were real at all, but he didn't have a better name for them so insects they remained.
He closed his eyes as he laid on his back on his blanket. The cicadas were buzzing. They always were. In the distance, he heard the faint rumbling of thunder.
I need to move away from the river. The thought came to him as if out of nowhere, but as soon as he had had it he knew it was true. If it was going to thunder and rain then the river was the last place he wanted to be. So he sat up, sneezed twice, and packed up again.
He found a narrow cave and weathered the storm in there. He used to like thunderstorms, but now every flash of lightning made him jump and flinch. He hung his blanket over the entrance and tried to fall asleep.
---
Something had begun to grow in his can of dirt. Ford gazed at the crown of thin, pale green leaves poking up from the dirt, sprouting from the same impossibly thin stem, and poured a little water from his canteen into the can. With his knife, he worked holes into the bottom of it, careful not to tip it upside-down. Then he put it in the other side pocket of his backpack and tested to make sure it was secure before he started walking again.
---
He used to be a scientist. He didn’t know for certain what had happened to his research, but he could guess. Emma-May was a scientist too. She was building a lab in Gravity Falls right now and it was supposed to be for both of them.
Did he want to be a scientist? He thought about it as he lowered his baited hook and fishing line into the lake water. He liked learning things, or he used to. Whether or not he still did… he didn't know.
Reading was hard. He could do it, but it took him a long while. Writing took less effort because he already knew what the words were. His hands, though - his hands were shaky, and it made everything he wrote look shaky too. Maybe he could improve with practice. Maybe he couldn’t. He didn’t know that, either.
It seemed like there were a lot of things he didn’t know about himself anymore. It had nothing to do with his memory and everything to do with the fact that he was different now. He had changed, and he hadn’t had very many opportunities to figure out just how much.
Something tugged on his line. He pulled it out of the water with little effort - it was a small fish - and reached out to pull it off the hook.
When he took a closer look, the fish had two heads.
Ford set down his fishing rod and held the creature in two hands, lowering it just far enough into the water that it would be able to breathe but not so far in that he couldn’t see it. He twisted around to lay on his stomach on the rocks and peered closer at it.
It was olive green and spotted yellow, with red fins. Each head had a pair of round black eyes and fluttering gills. It thrashed around in his hands and he studied it for a moment longer before letting it go. It had looked like one head was in line with the rest of the body, while the other head was protruding outwards at an angle. His fingers twitched towards his jacket pocket, but there was nothing there.
He remained there for a minute longer before he rolled back over and sat back up. He still had fish to catch for dinner. But part of him still thought about the two-headed fish he had held in his hands.
He wished he could have taken it with him.
---
The little plant in his can was growing a second set of tiny needle-like leaves. It was probably a little spruce sapling. He liked looking at it.
If it didn’t die in the winter, maybe one day it would be too big for his can. Then he would have to find somewhere to plant it where nothing would eat or trample it. Maybe he would just get a pot for it. He didn't have any money to buy one, but Stanley did, and Emma-May always had extra. They would probably agree to help him.
He didn’t want them to help him, though. He wanted to be able to do it himself, to take care of himself and buy his own things and be his own person.
Sometimes he felt like no one treated him like an adult anymore. Stanley was nice, but he was too nice, and he never fought with him or complained about him or teased him like he had when they were kids. Emma-May had started out fine but after Fiddleford almost stole his memories again she had been acting like he needed constant supervision or he would disappear into thin air.
They were just trying to make sure that he didn’t leave them like he had left Fiddleford. They were being overly cautious and excessively nice because they wanted Ford to stay there and - and - well, do something for them. He couldn’t figure out what they wanted from him yet. Either they were lying to him, or they weren’t lying, and they actually did look at him and see someone who needed to be treated like a child.
He didn’t know which one was worse. He knew he wasn’t as capable as he used to be when it came to talking and reading and most of everything, but he wasn’t stupid. He knew every tree in the forest for miles around, he could catch fish and cook them, he knew which plants were safe to eat and which ones to avoid, and he knew the names of all the insects he saw. He couldn’t do complicated equations in his head like he could before, but he felt like if he could just try long and hard enough he could still figure it out. He knew all the steps and which processes did what. His thoughts took longer to form than they used to, but if they would just wait for a minute, he could still think.
He wasn’t a child. He didn’t need to be placated with crossword puzzles or books or television or puppies. Just thinking about it made Ford grit his teeth and clench his backpack straps in his fists as he walked. He was Stanford Filbrick Pines. He had six doctorates. Was that not enough? Did he need twelve?
…But Emma-May had said she was rebuilding his lab, not just for her own research, but for his as well. Had that been a lie?
It was hard to say.
Ford was not good at spotting lies. If he had been, maybe none of this would have happened in the first place.
He sighed and decided to find somewhere to stop and rest for a while. It was beginning to seem like the only way he could know for certain would be to go back and see for himself what happened when he tried.
He flicked open his knife and flicked it closed again, over and over and over, while he mulled it over in his head.
If they wanted to keep him close, they were bad at it. Stanley hadn’t even stopped him from going. Did that mean he didn’t want him around after all? No, he decided, because Stanley had asked him if he could come with him, and then if he was coming back when he said no. That didn’t sound like something someone would say if they wanted him gone.
He flicked the knife closed and slid it into his pocket again. The boulder beneath him was cool against his palms as he leaned back and looked up at the purpling sky.
There had to be something he could do. His research was gone. The portal was gone. But Gravity Falls was still around, and there were so many things here that no one else knew about but him. What good would it do if he never told anyone about it? And there were still so many things he didn’t know, so many things he didn’t yet understand.
There were so many things here that he wanted to show someone, someday.
---
When Ford made the decision to go back, it was when he woke up in the middle of the night to find a light dusting of snow across the clearing and settling on his cheek. It was going to be winter soon if it wasn’t already, and even if he could find a way to survive it (and he could, he knew he could) he knew that the little spruce tree growing in his can wouldn’t. It needed to be inside, where it was warm, or it would die, because it was too small to make it otherwise.
He didn’t wait for morning. He clicked on his flashlight and packed up. He draped his blanket over himself and his backpack, strapped his fishing rod to the back of it, and started walking.
His eyelids drooped and his steps were slow. He stopped to close his eyes and rest often, but he had still made good progress by the time dawn finally began to lighten the forest and he no longer needed the artificial light from his flashlight. When his alarms went off, he stopped and found something to eat, and the rest of the time he walked.
The snow fell heavier and heavier. His shoes left prints in the white blanket covering the forest floor. His ears and nose went numb from cold and he breathed into his hands to warm his face.
It was not easy, but he kept going. He did not stop longer than he had to until he reached the edge of the treeline. Part of him dreaded going back. The other part of him thought about the spruce tree and kept going.
Stanley wasn’t home when he unlocked the door and let himself in, so he had time to put his things away, put the sapling by the window in a dish, and take a shower before he came back. When he ran his hand over his arm under the warm spray, there were small bumps and lines, but nothing caught. Nothing hurt.
He scrubbed the dirt and snow and sap from his hair and watched as the water circling the drain went from murky to clear. He stepped out and dried himself with a towel and dressed himself in fresh clothes. His nails had been kept short by digging in the ground and handling wood, but he smoothed out the edges with a nail file and ran his thumb over them.
When he looked up into the mirror he found that his hair had grown long. Longer than he had ever worn it before. He hadn’t had a haircut since leaving Fiddleford. He used his fingers to comb it out of his eyes and frowned at his reflection.
What was it about him that Fiddleford had liked so much? Whatever it was, Bill had liked something about him too. Was he desirable? Was he just gullible? Did everyone else see it, too?
He wished he knew, so that he could cut that part of himself out and put it in the trash to rot.
He slowly rubbed his glasses clean with a cloth and put them on again. Then, without looking at the mirror again, he turned and left the room.
---
Ford was painstakingly attempting to draw the two-headed salter he had found days ago on a piece of lined paper he had torn from a notebook Emma-May had given him weeks ago when Stanley came back. It wasn’t going well and he was tempted to crumple it up and flush it down the toilet so he wouldn’t have to look at it anymore, but for some reason he was still trying to smooth out the lines and make it look less like a toddler had drawn it.
It wasn’t fair. Fiddleford had never done anything to his hands, just his head, and if this were a result of Bill’s proclivities then it would only be his right hand that was affected - but it was both. Both of his hands were now too clumsy to do something he used to be able to do without even thinking about it.
As he darkened the eyes again he heard keys slide into the front door’s lock. Soon after, the door was opened and sunlight poured into the room before it was cut off again. Ford did not look, but he knew that Stanley could see him from there.
There was a beat of silence. Then Stanley said, “Ford, hey. Good to see you.”
He didn't say anything to that. He didn't know what to say. Stanley’s shoes were dropped by the door with twin thumps and then Stanley walked past him and into the kitchen, where he filled a glass with water and drained it empty in a few seconds. Then he glanced over and Ford couldn’t pretend not to have seen him if he tried.
“Is this gonna be a thing?” Stan asked, voice heavy, like he was tired. “You going off to the forest for a few weeks every so often? Because that’s - that’s fine, but I just, if you’re going to leave for good let me know.” He sat down in the seat across from him without meeting his eyes. “I won’t hang around waiting for you to come back forever.”
Ford’s grip on his pencil tightened. He looked at Stanley in horror.
“I’m just tellin’ you now so I won’t disappoint you later or something, okay?” Stanley told him. “I don’t know nobody in this town ‘cept you and Emma-May, and you know, she can be really hard to talk to sometimes. She’s almost a bigger nerd than you are and she’s never heard of the words ‘none of your business’ in her life. If you leave for - for a month or two, or longer, and I don’t know when or even if you’re comin’ back, I’m just gonna go find something else to do. Alright? And that doesn’t mean I won’t come when you call, or that I hate you, or nothin’. It’s just that staying in one place for too long freaks me out and if there’s no reason for me to stick around I’m not gonna.”
“You’re, you’re leaving?” Ford asked, feeling hollow and unbalanced.
“No, I’m not leaving,” Stanley shook his head, “I’m just saying that if you don’t need me anymore, and you need space, that’s okay, I’d just - I’d rather you tell it to me straight so I don’t have to wonder about it for so long. That’s all.”
Ford looked down at his drawing. It was a terrible drawing. He tapped his pencil on the paper. “You want me to stay?” he asked.
“If that’s what you want.”
“You don’t want me to stay?”
“I never said that.”
“Then what do you want?” he demanded, slamming the pencil to the table and frowning at his brother. He felt hot and angry. The insects were anxious, confused by the conversation, and crawling up and down his back and neck.
Stanley crossed his arms and turned away from him. “I want a lot of things, you gotta be more specific.”
“Why are you helping me?” Ford elaborated. “Why are you here? What do you want from me?”
“I don’t want anything from you!” he shouted, standing up. “I never have!”
“You’re lying.” Ford could tell. It should have hurt, but he only felt vindicated. “Just tell me what you want from me!”
Stanley looked at him. Ford saw his resolve falter. The look on his face was one of guilt. He had seen it many times on Fiddleford, right before something bad happened. He braced himself for the inevitable collapse.
“Fine. You really wanna know?”
He nodded once, firmly.
“I want to be your brother again,” Stanley admitted. “I want you to care about me. I want you to forgive me for messing up your life and forcing you to go to that stupid college where you met that stupid guy who messed up your life even more. I wanna be important to you.”
“Okay. You’re my brother, I forgive you, and you are important to me,” Ford told him.
“Augh! No!” Stanley cried. “I want you to mean it!”
He did mean it. Stanley was his brother, and nothing could change that. That was how it worked. Stanley had already explained himself and apologized for breaking the project and Ford thought it was a stupid thing to be mad about, anyway; and him meeting Fiddleford in college was not Stanley’s fault. He was certain that no matter where he had gone, he would have met someone just like Fiddleford who wanted nothing more than to control him, and he would have liked them just as much. There was something wrong with him in that way. He liked people who hurt him. He wanted to impress them and do whatever they wanted him to do. Then, inevitably, they would want more than he was willing to give, and they would take it anyway.
And Stanley was important to him. Otherwise, he would not have gone back to look for him in the forest, and he would not have come back here today. But he could tell his brother didn’t believe him. He had expected that. So he asked tiredly, “How do you want me to prove it?” because that was always the real question.
Stanley huffed and puffed wordlessly, staring at him. Eventually, he answered, “I don’t. I don’t want you to treat me like, like a problem to be solved. Just do what you want to do, and forget about what I want. Okay?”
“But you don’t want me to leave,” Ford frowned.
“I said I want you to tell me if you’re leaving for good, so that I can make other plans, instead of hinging all my hopes and dreams on you again like I did when we were in high school! I just want to know! That’s it! I just wanna be prepared if you decide that you’re tired of me again.”
Ford lowered his gaze. He was still mostly sure that Stanley was lying, but if what Stanley wanted really was just for him to inform him of his plans, then he could do that. He didn't think there was anything terrible Stanley would do with that information, and if there was, then he would deal with it then.
Maybe he was weak for giving in. Maybe he was stupid for putting his trust in someone who had already betrayed him once before. But no matter how much he wished he could, he just couldn’t see how he could do anything else. He could be alone and safe, or he could be around other people and risk everything all over again. It was smarter to be alone, but he had already decided that he didn't want to be.
Part of him would always be drawn towards things that could hurt him, he thought.
“Fine,” he agreed. “Next time, I will, I will, I will tell you.”
---
They went to their respective beds still bitter, but in the morning they were both sheepish.
“Sorry for yelling at you,” Stanley said. “It was stupid.”
“Don’t be sorry,” Ford told him, stabbing his eggs with force. “I’m not a child, I can, I can handle one argument.” Then he averted his gaze. “Sorry for leaving.”
“You’re allowed to leave, Ford. You’re your own man.”
“I know.”
They both ate in silence for a while, not knowing what to say. Ford had just finished his plate and was standing up to put it in the sink when Stanley said, “What was that thing you were drawing yesterday?”
Ford paused as he set his dishes down. He finished rinsing them off and went to retrieve the paper from his nightstand, then came back. He held it out for Stanley to take, which he did, and shuffled on his feet in embarrassment.
“It’s something I saw a few, a few days ago. I tried to draw it but it doesn’t look -”
“A two-headed fish? That’s pretty awesome. What kind of fish was it, you think?” Stanley asked.
“A brookie salter,” Ford answered. He was surprised that he knew that. After a moment of hesitation, he continued, “I didn’t, didn’t think there would be any here. It looked juvenile to me. With its mutation I don’t, I don’t know if it will survive much longer.”
“That’s too bad. I bet people would pay a lot of money to see a fish as weird as that,” Stanley considered.
He didn’t seem to mean it in a bad way, but something about that statement made Ford fold the drawing when he got it back and tuck it securely under the socks in the drawer of his dresser when Stanley wasn’t looking.
---
It was familiar to watch people moving around in the place where his house used to be, wearing hardhats and plaid shirts. Fiddleford had taken him to see the house being taken apart multiple times before it was gone. He had been an afterthought. People would come up to talk to him, thinking that he was in charge, only to lose all interest in him when Fiddleford corrected that assumption.
This felt the same. Ford sat on the grass while Emma-May spoke to the construction crew. He watched people carry a large beam on their shoulders and plant it in a hole in the ground that they then filled with either concrete or cement. Then he watched a pulley system carry a large collection of smaller planks of wood up to a part of the house with more scaffolding. People walked around swiftly because they knew what they were doing and did not have to stand around and wonder.
Some of them recognized Ford. He could tell because he recognized them, too. At first he could ignore the looking and staring, but then with every glance his way the insects grew more and more angry and eventually the discomfort urged him to get up and leave.
It was a good thing that they were rebuilding his house. But it wasn’t really his house. His house had been broken down and taken away and nothing had been left behind, and this new, new house was Emma-May’s. How could it be his when he was not paying for it, when he was not the one approving the plans, and when his name was nowhere on the documents? He was an afterthought. He was an addendum.
No one was ever going to take him seriously ever again. He was always going to be a charity case or a sad story, no matter what he did. Fiddleford had taken him and turned him into a doll for people to move around and play with, a thing to be gawked at.
Or maybe Bill had.
Or… maybe he had always been this way, and he had never realized. Like a two-headed fish that people would pay money to stare at.
(He had thought it was beautiful. He still did, but he was starting to think no one else would.)
Well, he didn’t want to be a doll, or a puppet, or a two-headed fish. He wanted to be a person. He just… wasn’t sure how to do that, anymore.
---
Ford thought about leaving again when he woke up for the third, or maybe fourth, morning in a row with a gasp. He rolled onto his side and buried his face in his pillow, breathing heavily, and grimaced as the insects crawled all over him. Face hot with shame and belly churning with sickness, he held himself very still until he was certain that he would not cry, and then he very carefully got out of bed and quietly hid himself in the bathroom. He turned the shower knob as cold as it would go and forced himself to step inside. It made him shudder and shiver, but when it was over with the insects were still and quiet and he felt more like himself again.
When he sat, still damp and cold, in his chair at the table, he rested his cheek on his arm and looked out the window. He could see the trees from here. He wanted to leave so badly. But as he sat and watched and slowly warmed back up, the desperate longing faded until he was calm again.
The sapling by the window had a third row of leaves now and was beginning to look more and more like how he thought a small sprig should look. The dirt seemed dry, so he picked up the can and held it under the tap for a few seconds before putting it back by the window in its dish. He lingered there for a few minutes longer. It softened something inside of him.
Maybe it was okay if people wanted things from him. The sapling wanted water. Stanley wanted his love. Fiddleford had wanted that, too, but not as much as he had wanted Ford to be someone else. Fiddleford had wanted someone to do everything he asked, without question. Fiddleford had wanted someone to hold and dote on and have sex with, and he liked the illusion of love, but he did not want Ford. Stanley – Stanley wanted Ford. Stanley wanted Ford to love him.
That wasn’t a hard thing to do. Ford did not know the difference between like and love, because everything he liked he loved and everything he loved he had to also like, so if they were equivalent then yes, he did love Stanley. He liked knowing he was around. He liked listening to his stories. He liked that Stanley listened to him back, even if he did treat him like he was fragile and delicate most of the time. If Stanley was in trouble, he would try to help him out of it, and if Stanley was sad he would do his best to make him feel better; not because he was scared of him, but because he didn’t like the thought of Stanley being hurt.
That was love, wasn’t it?
But the fact remained that Stanley didn’t see it that way. Ford would have to find a way to show him. He could tell him directly, but he had tried that and it hadn’t worked. The problem was that Ford could not think of any other way to do it. He could do what Stanley wanted and tell him when he was leaving and when he was going to come back, but would that really convince him that he loved him? There would always be something else. It might start with telling him, but then it would escalate to asking for permission, and then it would become staying inside no matter what, and even that might not be enough to convince him.
Where did it end? Where was the line? He could not give nothing, because then Stanley would have nothing to hold onto and he would drift away. He would leave, like he said he would, and then Ford would be alone whether he wanted to be or not. But he had a rope in his hands and he did not know how much of it was safe to give.
He wished someone would just tell him, but he didn’t know who he could trust to have the right answer.
---
Ford was sitting with Tate at the edge of the playground while Emma-May was shopping for groceries and Stanley was at work. He did not know what Stanley did for work because every time he asked it seemed like Stanley had a different answer. There were a lot of bugs at the edge of the playground underneath rocks and pieces of bark that had fallen off of a tree. At first, Tate had been uninterested in any of them, but after Ford pointed one out he had started a game of trying to find different ones for Ford to name.
“Roly-poly,” he said when Tate pointed at the balled up bugs under a rock.
“Roly-poly,” Tate echoed with a small giggle. “Really?”
He nodded. “Some people call them, call them pill bugs.”
“Eugh.”
“Yes,” Ford agreed, “That’s why I prefer roly-poly.”
Tate carefully dropped the rock back over them and resumed his search. Ford thought to himself that it was a shame none of the other kids seemed to want to play with him. He was a very smart kid.
“This one?” Tate asked, looking over his shoulder and up. Ford crouched down and peered at what he was pointing at. It was an ochre brown and had a wide, flat elytra. He smiled.
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t?” Tate looked shocked. “What? But you know all of them!”
He shook his head. “Only some. There are, there are too many bugs in the world for any, any one person to know. This one…” he paused, waiting for the words to line up in his head. He tapped his fingers. Eventually, he continued, “This one is a beetle. It doesn’t look very good at biting. I think it might be a… detritivore.”
“A what?”
“Detritivore,” he repeated.
“What’s that?”
“It eats… dead leaves, or rotten fruit.”
“Huh.”
They kept playing the game until he saw Emma-May walking closer to the playground again. Her arms were empty so she must have already put the bags away in her car. He sighed and stood up. Tate glanced up at him, then at Emma-May. He brightened.
“Mom!”
Ford watched him run off towards Emma-May and followed behind at a slower pace. He was careful not to step on any of the bugs they had found. When he caught up, Emma-May shot him a bright smile as she talked to Tate and began to walk back toward the car. He followed and sat in the front, just like everyone had him doing now. It was like none of them doubted that he wouldn’t push open the door and stumble out into the street at the first stop they made.
He had only done it once, that he could remember. Twice, if he counted that time with Stanley. It had not gone well.
Emma-May asked if he wanted her to drop him off at his place. He was tired, so he nodded. He waved goodbye to them when he got out and trudged up the steps to the door. He stopped in front of it, feeling too heavy to move.
He did not want to go inside. He did not want to eat and he did not want to talk to anyone and he did not want to go to sleep. He looked at his watch. It was almost time for his dinner alarm. He did not want to hear it beep at him again. He was tired of listening to it three times every day, over and over and over. It was too much, it was all too much, and he wanted to be done with it.
He gritted his teeth and attempted to take it off. Pushing at the end of the strap with the pad of his thumb, he slipped it out of the loop, and then he pulled. The band tightened around his wrist. He attempted to pull at the other side, but the buckle caught on a hole and refused to let go. The insects buzzed angrily in his ears. He tugged and pulled at the watch, trying as many ways as he could think of to get it off of him, until finally he was frustrated enough that he brought his wrist to his mouth and used his teeth to hold one side out of the way while he used his hand to loosen the band without letting it catch. The watch fell. His wrist was bare.
He sat down on the steps and grabbed the watch and threw it as far as he could. It clattered distantly on the asphalt.
He buried his face in his knees.
He wished he could take it off and put it on again by himself without taking so long. He wished he didn’t need it at all. He wished he could be like Tate, who was smart and good and small and still more competent than him and did not have to wonder if he wanted to be a person or not.
Ford was tired of trying to be a person. It was just as bad as belonging to someone else, because he still had nothing and he was still nothing and there was nothing he could do about it, but he didn’t get the satisfaction that came with being someone else’s. He didn’t have anyone to blame except himself, and if he messed up, they wouldn’t bother with getting rid of his memories and trying again – instead, they would just leave, and then he would be on his own.
He didn’t know how to be on his own anymore, unless it was in the forest.
That wouldn’t be so bad.
But he would be alone, and his sapling would die.
---
“Hey, Sixer,” Stanley said when he pulled up in his car and stepped out. “Whatcha doin’ there?”
The answer was nothing. Ford didn’t bother to say it because he felt it was obvious. He didn’t object when Stanley nudged him and said, “C’mon, let’s get you inside. I’m dyin’ for somethin’ to eat – how much time we got left on your alarm?”
Ford shrugged, and that’s when Stanley seemed to realize something was wrong.
“Where’s your watch?”
“I don’t want it anymore.”
“…Okay,” Stanley agreed, sounding skeptical, even though he did not ask again. He asked if Ford wanted to eat and Ford shook his head. They went inside anyway, and Stanley made something for himself while Ford just sat in his chair and rested his head in his arms.
“Did somethin’ happen?”
“No.”
“Bad day?”
“No.”
“Well, you sure look like it was,” Stanley huffed. “Wanna go drown your sorrows with booze in a bar somewhere?”
Ford lifted his head and stared at his brother in shock. “You’d let me?”
Stanley gave him a look like he was being obtuse. “You’re thirty. You don’t need no one’s permission to have a drink, least of all mine.” He sounded amused at the thought.
“Fiddleford never let me,” Ford told him. “He said, he said it made me ‘impossible’.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I don’t know. I don’t remember.”
“Wanna find out?” Stanley gave him a mischievous grin, the kind he remembered seeing so often when they were teenagers. It always promised trouble, but it also promised a good time.
Ford leaned back in his chair and let out a breath. “God, yes.”
---
He and Stanley drove around town, looking for a bar and judging every one they found with a scrutinizing eye to see if it would be good enough for them. One of them looked ‘too nice’ and one of them looked ‘too old’ and one of them turned out to be an oddly named hardware store. Ford had had no idea that Gravity Falls had so many bars, or bar-like buildings, until today. Eventually, when they were both starting to get tired of looking, they found a place that Stanley deemed suitable and found a place to park.
“Now, I dunno how big of a drinker you became after high school, so you’re gonna have to enlighten me,” Stanley told him. “You a lightweight, a heavyweight, or what?”
Ford remembered very suddenly drinking with Bill. He felt his face grow hot and said, “I didn’t, didn’t do it much.”
“Alright. Well, we should probably start off easy anyway.”
“Are you drinking too?” Ford asked.
“Yeah, why?”
“We, we, we drove here.”
“And?”
Ford rolled his eyes. “You’ll be arrested for drunk driving, Stanley.”
“I won’t be drunk, I’ll be lightly buzzed,” Stanley defended, punching him lightly. “Trust me, bro. No one will even notice!”
“If you, if you say so,” he agreed skeptically as he followed Stanley inside. He shrugged when his brother asked him what he wanted to order, so Stanley ordered for the both of them and they made their way to a table as far out-of-the-way as Ford could find. They sat down in the booth and Stanley set their cups down with two clicks on the wooden table.
Ford held his cup in two hands. He took a moment to look at everything. It had been so long since he had been in a place like this. Discomfortingly, he thought the last time he had been was when he went with Fiddleford, back when they were friends. Actual friends, during college, and not whatever partners were. He sighed and rubbed his head where it hurt. It was often hurting.
Across from him, Stanley grimaced and set down his cup. “Blegh. Not the best I’ve ever had, that’s for sure. Maybe I should get us something else.”
Ford tilted his head and lifted his own cup curiously. The first tentative taste of liquid on his tongue felt like nothing, and then it tasted like something sharp and foul. He winced and swallowed, feeling it slip warmly down his throat, and set his own cup down.
“…Yeah, maybe,” he agreed.
Stanley laughed as he stood up. “It’s always trial and error with this stuff, anyway. Alright, I’ll be back. Hang tight.”
Ford rested his cheek on his palm and let his gaze drift towards the window a few feet away. He felt like he was already feeling the effects of the drink. The insects beneath his skin were buzzing with it, or maybe that was just the anticipation. He watched a car drive past with its headlights on. The clouds in the sky drifted slowly across his field of view. His head felt heavy.
When Stanley returned with new drinks, he accepted his and immediately tilted it into his waiting lips. It wasn’t much better, but it made Stanley relax into his seat with a satisfied sigh, so he said nothing and let his sip begin to warm his stomach from the inside out.
“Still don’t wanna talk about whatever’s getting you down?” Stanley asked.
He shook his head.
“Alright, just checking. You know, I used to be a real regular at this kind of place. Wallowing in a bar feels better than wallowing in a car – feels like bars are just made for wallowing in. No one looks at you twice if you’ve just had a bad day and you want a drink or two, ‘less ya make a scene. It’s an expensive habit, though, so I kicked it eventually. Not that I was ever really an alcoholic, I think, just liked the uh, the atmosphere, you know? Just felt weird to go to a bar and not order anything.”
Ford nodded along, slowly spinning his cup between his hands. It took him a while to come up with something to say in response. “I never spent much time in, in, in, in bars. When I went out it was, it was usually a party or something I was, was being dragged to. Only went to bars for cele-celebrations.”
“You went to parties? On purpose?” Stanley teased.
He shrugged, but he was smiling. “Not often, remember.”
“Yeah, yeah, but not often ain’t zero. Can’t believe it – my baby bro’s all grown up!”
“I’m older than you.”
“By fifteen minutes! C’mon, let me have this.”
“No.” Ford crossed his arms. “I’m older. It’s, it’s, it’s a fact.”
“Why do you always get to be older?” Stanley complained. “You’ve been older for so long, I want a turn!”
“No.”
“Jerk.”
Ford smiled as he reached out and took another small sip. He felt lighter already, falling into a pattern so old he felt like he had never forgotten to begin with. He set down his cup a little more clumsily than he meant to and splashed liquid onto the table before he could right it. His head felt fuzzy and full. His stomach felt angry.
Stanley was good at talking. For once, he didn’t have to think much about how to respond. Some part of him seemed to have all of the right answers before Stanley had even finished talking, and the way his brother laughed and grinned felt good. He had missed it. Even when he wasn’t really sure what they were talking about anymore, and he couldn’t tell what he was saying himself for how dizzy he was, it was good. It was good until it wasn’t.
“I feel sick,” he announced through a thick sludge of pain and nausea. He was close to tears and it wasn’t because he was sad. He wasn’t sad, it was just that his head hurt so bad and his stomach was hurting now, too.
Stanley got him a glass of water. He tried to take it and it slipped from his grasp. It didn’t break. It spilled water all over the floor. He clutched his head and whined. It hurt so bad. He opened his eyes and all the colors of everything blurred together and spun around and around. Something sour climbed up his throat. He covered his mouth and clutched it tightly – he did not want to throw up.
He was in a bathroom. Something stung in his mouth. His stomach heaved. Someone rubbed his back, up and down and up and down. He tried to look and see who it was but he couldn’t tell. It was all so blurry.
When he was done he leaned back into the touch. Breathing was hard. He did not want to get up, but someone made him, so he staggered to his feet and clumsily tried to walk while someone led him. He did not know where they were going.
Someone was talking. He frowned and tried to pay attention, but the effort died in his skull before it ever made it to his ears. Everything hurt. He clutched onto someone. It was getting hard to stay upright, so he began to sink down, down, down…
The rumble of a car. He was in the backseat, laying on his side. Someone was driving. He didn’t know who it was. He didn’t really care. He shut his eyes and tried to sleep.
“Mm,” he slurred. Someone was shaking him awake. He groaned and looked up. He squinted. It was all so blurry. He was helped out of the car.
He didn’t know where he was.
That was fine.
He didn’t know what he had done wrong. He would just have to do better next time. Someone brought him… somewhere. They pushed him to sit and put a bowl in his lap. He held it, confused. His eyelids couldn’t seem to stop blinking. Everything hurt.
Someone said something.
Something was pressed to his mouth. He opened. Something cool and wet slipped inside. He spluttered and swallowed and coughed, and then he leaned over and something came back out, dragging fire up his throat.
When he was done he asked for the bathroom. He went inside and locked the door and sat in the tub. He did not know how long he stayed there. Everything was so blurry. Someone came back – they weren’t supposed to be able to, but maybe he was wrong. His face was so wet and everything hurt.
Someone stayed with him.
Then he was going somewhere. Things moved around him. He fell into something soft. Softness settled over him and he heard a laugh. Maybe it was… someone. He could not remember.
He was so tired. Everything hurt. He closed his eyes again and went back to sleep.
---
“Yeah, so, turns out Emma-May’s neighbor is a nurse, and she said you’re not supposed to drink anything when you’ve had a traumatic brain injury or… a few dozen,” Stanley told him in the morning when everything hurt marginally more but at least he could remember where he was. “Something about bein’ more sensitive to alcohol, I think.”
Ford made a noise of disapproval and kept his arm over his eyes to protect them from the light. He had not bothered to get out of bed.
“No alc’hol?”
“No alcohol.”
“Fuck.”
“Fuck,” his brother agreed.
“Worth it.”
“Worth it?” He could hear the astonished disbelief in Stan’s voice. “Sixer, you had like three sips and lasted half an hour before you were completely wasted! You threw up so many times!”
Ford snickered beneath his arm. Everything hurt and he felt horrible and he was probably never going to drink again. Still, he repeated, “Worth it.”
---
“You know, you can talk to the contractor too if you want to,” Emma-May told him as she held out another digital watch and waited for his opinion. They were in the store, getting him a new one after he broke his last one. Luckily they did not cost that much, but Ford was still embarrassed. He inspected the watch and shook his head. The strap was made of rubber and would get uncomfortable very quickly.
She put it away.
“You don’t have to just stand to the side and keep quiet,” she continued. “It’s gonna be your lab, too, you know. Plus your house. You probably have some idea of the way you want things to be, right? I’ve been trying to get them to copy the original layout as best I can, but I don’t know, maybe you want something different now. Maybe you don’t want an exact replica of your old place.”
Ford turned his head away from her. He still didn’t know why she was trying so hard to give him his house back. She wasn’t the one who had taken it from him. He didn’t even know if he wanted to have a house or a lab at all, or what he was going to do with himself. He sighed.
“I don’t, I don’t know.”
“Like I’m falling for that one. Come on, Ford,” Emma-May wheedled with a sly smile. “I know you’ve got some ideas rattling around in your brain. Just tell me, I won’t bite.”
Ford looked at her, at her casual sincerity, and looked away again. He hesitantly allowed his thoughts to wander towards the subject. The things he missed the most about the old house were hard to list. There were a lot of things he did not miss, like the feeling that one wrong move would make Fiddleford send him plunging back down into the same static oblivion, over and over and -
“I don’t want a roof,” he said.
“You don’t want a roof?”
“No.”
“…I’m pretty sure all houses need to have a roof, or everything inside will get rained and snowed on and your insulation will be shot,” Emma-May said to that with one eyebrow raised: incredulous. “Is there something specifically you don’t like about… roofs?”
“Too tall,” he told her. “Too easy to fall.”
“Ah. Got it.” She went quiet. A few minutes later, after they had found a suitable watch that he thought he might actually be able to slip on and off without too much trouble, she asked, “What if we made it harder to fall from? More windows, so more awnings, more things to grab onto if you slipped?”
Ford looked up from the watch to say, “I like windows.”
“Now we’re talking,” Emma-May grinned. “What else do you like?”
“Chairs,” he said, remembering. “Blankets. Closets.”
“That’s easy enough.”
“A basement?”
“Could be tricky, since they’ve already started construction, but I don’t see why not.”
He thought more about it, and as he thought more about it he realized that he really didn’t know what more he wanted, so he asked to see the plans they were using and Emma-May promised to show him tomorrow. He nodded and she told him to think about it in the meantime, which he agreed to do. They paid for the watch and he pulled off the tag and put it on. The woven cloth band stretched, and so he simply had to pull it on, instead of dealing with the hassle of the buckle every time.
He still didn’t really feel like a person. He didn’t know how to move forward from here, how to find his footing in a world where he felt like nothing truly belonged to him anymore, but if nothing else Stanley had shown him that he could still have fun. Even if it turned out terribly, he could still make choices. He wasn’t some puppet being dragged along whether he liked it or not.
For better or worse, he was in control now.