AN: The properly formatted title should have a strike through on the word 'Don't' rather than parenthesis around it.
The idea for this came from when I read a fic which was written based on the request: "Ooh, ooh, I have an idea for a prompt. Stan bursting into tears either when he's just been kicked out of his home or when Ford tells him to go away with the journal and never come back. Ford finally acts like an older bro for once in his life." The fic in question covered the first situation, so I stole the prompt and wrote the second one. So, I guess, I'm sorry, thank you, and you're welcome? I'm not sure which is appropriate in this situation, so let's go for all three.
Growing up with Filbrick Pines for a dad, there had been a lot of rules about what a real man did and didn't do. Right near the top of that list was 'real men don't cry,' and honestly that hadn't been that hard a rule for Stanley to stick to. When he got upset, Stan didn't get sad, he got mad; he raged and shouted and fought and tried to make the other person hurt worse than they were hurting him. Ford had always been the one that was much more likely to start crying when Pa or the bullies or whoever got down on him, or when things were going wrong. But even he had learned to hide it by the time they were eight or so, holding it in until late at night when the both of them were in bed. Whenever that happened, Stan would clamber up to his brother's bed, completely forgetting his fear of heights for the moment, and hug his brother close. He never tried to tell Ford it was okay or that things weren't that bad, because sometimes it wasn't and they were. Instead he'd make up stories about all the amazing adventures the two of them were going to have one day out treasure hunting and was just there with his brother.
(And sometimes, very rarely, Ford would be the one to crawl down into Stan's bed and hold Stan close as he was crying. Ford wasn't as good at coming up with stories as Stan, so usually he'd read from one of the adventure books he'd picked out for Stan to try and convince him that reading was fun. It didn't really matter what Ford was doing exactly anyway. The important part was that Ford was there for Stan. At the time, Stan had thought he always would be.)
Stan stared in disbelief when, for the second time in their lives, Ford turned his back on him.
Stan had been fine when Ford hadn't greeted him with open arms, really. He had hoped a little, but… well, like Pa always said, "Don't get your hopes up: it only gives life the perfect opening to screw you over." Besides, it was pretty clear that whatever Ford had been getting up to out here in the middle of nowhere, it had left him really paranoid. He answered the door with a crossbow ready to fend off someone trying to steal his eyes, for Pete's sake. Even Stan had never worried about someone trying to steal his eyes, his kidneys, maybe, but not his eyes. Plus he had bags under his eyes deeper than anything Stan had ever seen, which was saying something, Stan got feeling he hadn't eaten anything in a while, he probably had been practically mainlining coffee, and Stan didn't even want to try and guess the last time he had bathed. That wasn't the kind of thing that put a person in the mood for a warm family reunion.
But, when he was running around too paranoid to see straight and with no idea who to trust, Stan was the one he had reached out to. That had to mean something right? Sure, it wasn't quite as emotional and heartwarming and all that junk as 'I really missed my brother and wanted to see him again and reconnect,' but 'I've gotten myself in way over my head and I need you to help pull me out again," was something Stan could work with. Was happy with, even; Stan liked being able to help Ford. Sure, maybe Stan wasn't smart like Ford, and would never change the world or, he was being to accept, make millions of dollars. But if he could be there for his brother, take care of him and help him out when he needed it, then he'd be doing something worthwhile.
That wasn't why Ford had called him, though. He didn't want Stan here because he missed his brother, or because he needed someone to get him out of whatever mess he'd gotten himself into, or because he knew that, despite some stupid mistake Stan made a lifetime ago, and no matter what crazy stuff Ford had gotten himself into, Stan would be the one person in the world that always had his back and was always in his corner, one hundred percent. No, what Ford wanted was to pass off a job a monkey could do and then make it clear that he wanted Stan to get as far away from him as possible.
Stan should be angry, furious even. Where did Ford get off, treating him like this? Stan had known his brother didn't want him around, Ford had made that very clear the last time they saw each other, and he certainly didn't need Ford summoning him from halfway across the country to rub his nose in it.
But anger took energy, and Stan was so, so tired. He'd gotten Ford's postcard in New Mexico and had arrived at his brother's doorstep in Oregon in less than twenty-four hours. As soon as he'd gotten that message, he'd dropped everything, not that he had much going on, and set out on the road driving and driving and driving, only stopping to fill his car up with gas and once for a twenty minute nap when he couldn't keep his eyes open anymore. He would have gotten here sooner too, except he hadn't wanted to risk speeding too much and getting pulled over in any of the states he was technically banned from. So now he was exhausted and starving – buying enough gas to make a fourteen hundred mile road trip meant he hadn't exactly had any money left for food – had a monster headache from the lack of food and sleep, and after driving all that way to see Ford, it turned out that Ford didn't even want to see him really. Ford didn't care about him at all, when all Stan had ever wanted was to be there for his brother.
"Stanley," Ford snapped, spinning back around to glare at Stan, probably for not leaving the very second he had been commanded to. Or, at least, Stan thought Ford was glaring; maybe Stan should have tried to scrape together something to eat after all, because now his eyes were starting to hurt, and his vision was going blurry.
"Stanley," Ford repeated, his voice softer and a bit confused. "Are you…?"
Crap. Crap, crap, crap, crap, crap. Stan swiped at his eyes. Dust. Even when he'd been feeling normal Ford had probably never bothered to clean this place, so it had to be full of dust. That's all it was, dust.
Ford took a half-step toward him, his hand reaching out tentatively. Stan fled.
He didn't make it far. He got to the elevator doors, but his scattered thoughts couldn't seem to remember how to open them. And as soon as he stopped moving, his legs decided they didn't want to hold him up anymore. So Stan ended up sitting with his knees pressed up against his face like he could physically force the tears to stop, or, at least, hide the jagged sound of his breathing. What the hell was wrong with him? Yeah, he'd maybe shed a tear or two from sheer pain over the years, but aside from that, he hadn't cried since he was twelve years old.
(The night after he got kicked out, he'd curled up in the backseat of his car and stared unseeing at the ceiling as the reality of everything hit him. And, in between wondering what he was going to do now and how in the hell he was going to make a fortune to (get back in his family's good graces) prove to everyone they were wrong about him and who was taking care of Ford now and comforting him over not getting into his nerd school, Stan kept wishing there was someone there to hold him close and read to him. But he hadn't cried.)
He didn't even notice Ford approach, or when he sat down next to Stan. But it was kind of hard to miss the tentative arm placed around his shoulders, and Ford saying, in a steady cadence that triggered a sense of familiarity at the back of Stan's mind, "Today marks the end of my first week in Gravity Falls, and things here are even stranger and more wondrous than I ever imagined."
Startled out of his own head for a minute, Stan tuned to look at his brother. Ford was sitting with his knees slightly bent, to create a stand to prop his journal, which Stan vaguely recalled dropping, on. The journal was open in front of him, and Stan watched as Ford reached the bottom of the page, then flipped to the next one and kept going.
"What are you doing?" Stan demanded.
"Reading. I thought my journal would be the most interesting thing for you, but I do have a number of books on theoretical physics and multidimensional theory, if you'd prefer? And there's a handful of D, D, & More D rulebooks around here somewhere, but I think those are upstairs." There was something about Ford's expression when he said it, hesitant or uncertain, but at the same time defiant, like he was going to sit here and read to Stan no matter what Stan thought of it.
Something in Stan broke. He flung himself at his brother's chest and began full-on sobbing. Not just for right now, but for every single moment of the last ten years. He cried for getting kicked out of his own house at seventeen without having finished high school and with nothing to his name but an old car and a prepacked duffle bag. For having to live out of his car with too little food and too much stress. For spending years trying to please a man who never would be because he didn't know what else to do. For being sent to prison in three different countries and for having to chew his way out of the trunk of a car. For cold winter days and hot Columbian nights. For all the stupid things he'd done, and the reckless and the desperate and each and every little mistake. For the one mistake that ruined his entire life and ruined the life of the one person he cared about more than anyone. But most of all, he cried for the eternity of endless days spent lonely and alone.
The whole time, Ford never stopped reading, though Stan honestly didn't hear a word he said. But the smooth rhythm of Ford's voice and the steady rumble of his chest made Stan, for the first time since he didn't remember when, feel safe. That thought made Stan cry even harder, which Ford gave no indication of noticing, aside from his hand coming up to rub soothing circles in Stan's back. And still Ford kept on going, even as Stan's sobs petered out into the occasional hitched breath and a few lingering tears. Right up until Stan, feeling wrung out and worn out and contented and loved, fell asleep.
(He woke up he didn't know how many hours later in a bed, with Ford sitting in a chair at his bedside and demanding to know, practically the instant Stan had opened his eyes, what he had dreamed about. So Stan had told him about it, the triangle from the back of the dollar bill dressed like he was Mr. Monopoly and acting like an oily used car salesman, and how he'd implied some things about Ford that Stan hadn't appreciated, so Stan had punched him right in his big stupid eye. Ford had looked completely shocked for a moment, and then started laughing, hard and long and more than a bit hysterical. Right when Stan was starting to worry that Ford's loose screw had popped out completely, his laugh turned into a shuddering sob, and then Stan was the one holding Ford close while he cried, and making up stories about the adventures on the Stan O' War that they'd probably never have. And maybe it was stupid, but that was the moment that Stan thought, yeah, they were both going to be okay.)