It's the first time he actually looked through the mail since the accident. Stan had held it off for as long as he could. He wanted this to be done with already. The first hour after Ford went through the portal Stan had been panicking, pulling the lever and flipping nearly every switch he could have sworn they had probably hit during their fight.

That stupid, stupid fight.

After that though, he started trying to actually figure out an order or something, anything. Nothing worked. He hoped maybe he could figure out just how to activate the damned machine. It had happened without anybody looking the first time so why was it so hard now?!

It was beyond frustrating, and he was just hoping for a miracle chance that he'd get it right. He didn't. That's what he got for hoping he'd get lucky though. Stan already knew he had horrible luck.

Horrible luck and a pile of mail all addressed to Stanford Pines. Going through the mail felt like admitting this would take longer, but if the electricity went out then he literally wouldn't be able to even do anything.

He tossed them into piles on the table as he went through the stack. Mostly bills. Some junk mail. A couple letters from the grant beneficiaries. His hands froze though after he tossed one letter aside to see an envelope with Ma's slanting handwriting on the front of it.

For just half a second, he thought Ma had somehow figured out where he was. Then of course he saw the obvious.
Stanford Pines.
Just like every other envelope in the bunch.

Letting out a quiet breath, he set the letter on the edge of the table then filtered through what was rest of the mail.

He didn't open it.

Bills and the letters about the grant or research were one thing, but personal letters were different. At that a personal letter from their Ma.

Ha, Ford would be pissed at him if he saw he'd opened the letter.

Yeah, man... he could already see it. Ford spotting the already opened envelope from Ma and asking him why he'd even opened it in the first place. He'd probably say it was an infringement on privacy and completely unnecessary or something like that. Maybe go on about how much of a knucklehead he was for opening it and how he'd taken so long to figure out how to just activate the portal.

Maybe he'd understand though. It's not like he'd open up the letter the minute Ford went missing after all.

Stan picked up the letter and held it in his hands looking at it. Ma's handwriting was always a bit messy, and frankly that made it stick out like a sore thumb. Slanted with letters running into one another like she was writing it with one hand on the phone or looking at her nails.

Stanford Pines
618 Gopher Rd
Gravity Falls, OR

He sighed, forearms resting on the table as he continued to hold onto the letter. He gently tapped the letter against the table and imagined tossing it back onto the table, but he didn't do it. He didn't want to deal with this, but the bigger factor was it felt disrespectful. The idea made him stop though.

'Respectful' was not exactly some standard he tried to hold himself to, and at that what was so disrespectful about it, huh? He'd already tossed some of the mail onto the ground, junk mail and some nerdy magazine subscriptions or whatever.

If anything Stan was probably treating Ford's stuff better than the nerd himself would if he were still here.

Something curdled in his stomach, and almost to spite the feeling he flippantly tossed the letter back onto the table instead of just imagining it this time. The letter spun slightly and budged up against one of the sets of envelopes.

It felt wrong and his stomach twisted a little as soon as he did it.

It wasn't like he was-! He was just gone! Sure, it was starting to get a little bit now, but people took vacations for longer than this.

The only reason he had to be careful with Ford's stuff was so his brother wouldn't get mad at him for making his place somehow more of a mess. He'd probably actually have to TRY to manage that though.

And there was no reason to even open up the letter either! Did he want to? Yeah, sure. Stan was a big enough man to admit there was a part of him that wanted to carefully open up the paper envelope and read the letter.

Sure, Stan had gotten into another man's stuff before, but this was different. There was a reason he made sure to put everything back in its place when he searched through Ford's bedroom.
A super simple and obvious reason, of course.
Like come on, he wasn't that much of an idiot.
You don't mess up someone's stuff when they're gonna come back to it in five minutes. They'll notice the second they get back.

Pushing himself up from the table, Stan grabbed the letter again and went back through the hallway and upstairs.

Ford's door swung open easily, and Stan walked over to the desk, finding a cleared off spot. He pushed the envelope onto the lacquered wood, ignoring how it wiped off a thin film of dust. As Stan walked out of the room, he unceremoniously closed the door after himself as he kept moving forward.