Ford felt like dead weight being carried and he didn't even so much as shift as Stan carried him into the room and plopped him onto the bed. He moved his body so that Ford's head would actually be setting on the pillow again, but decided that was enough and sat back down. Several hours passed and he was nearly tempted to sleep himself, but again his brother's suspicion had to be coming from somewhere. Besides, if Ford waked up and he was asleep he'd probably kick him out then and there for not doing like he said he would. He could stick it out for a little while longer.
Only a couple hours passed and Stan was honestly considering just taking a quick nap or something. He wasn't even just tired, but there was nothing to do. He already poked around the room and there had been nothing. He could look at the weird stuff, but honestly he didn't want to break anything. He finally decided to actually try reading the titles of the books against the wall to see if there was something that maybe was actually not some bland textbook, really he'd go for even a guidebook to bird types or something. Just anything-... Stan physically slapped a hand over his face.
The journal.
He'd honestly forgotten about it with seeing Ford and then the 'crossbow-in-his-face' thing. Then there was that whole 'getting-told-to-leave-not-even-five-minutes-after-he'd-arrived' thing.
Speaking of things, what had he actually done with the thing anyways? He patted himself down as he glanced around the room. No journal. Slight panic bubbled at the bottom of his stomach.
He couldn't have already lost the journal. No way. Very quietly he slipped out of the room, glancing back at Ford's sleeping form before carefully shutting the door. It had to be in the house, neither of them had stepped outside. He started scouring downstairs, but quickly found it on top of the edge of a messily covered table. He must have set it down when they had been talking and not realized. Ford hadn't either, apparently. Small miracles.
As soon as he spotted the book, Stan let out a sigh of relief and picked it up from the table, quietly starting back towards the room. He looked over the cover, a six fingered golden hand was pasted to the front with a large '1' embossed over top of it. Ford's research.
He paused outside of the room, listening to the door before cracking it open to peek inside. Ford hadn't even moved a centimeter. Stan shut the door again without even a click and looked over the book in his hands again. Whatever his brother was up to...
His fingers squeezed around the book slightly. It wasn't like Ford had told him not to look inside. Besides, he HAD given it to him after all. He couldn't have expected him to just bury the book without once looking inside just to see what was in it.
Stan opened the book prepared for blueprints of outrageous inventions and ominous machines. Instead, the random page held a drawing of a gathering of faeries with an enthusiastic description. Nearly every sentence on the page was punctuated with an exclamation point.
Stan flipped through the paper of the journal curiously, seeing drawings of different creatures and oddities rather than detailed machines. He stopped when he saw a page with extensive underlining and flipped back to see the page.
An account of merpeople in the lake, with a very detailed drawing. The words on the page gushed about the merpeoples' existence, Ford obviously having gotten carried away. Stan smiled warmly as he settled his back against the door to read. Some of the page listed off traits one after the other alongside his theories. There were several comments scrawled across the page.
I knew there had to be mermaids in Gravity Falls!
AHA! Take
THATAcademia!
I once saw a mermaid when I was little ,̶ ̶b̶u̶t̶ ̶S̶t̶-̶ Nobody thought a mermaid would come to Glass Shard Beach of all places though.
Ford always had a tendency of writing out his thoughts, not realizing until he was putting down the words or it was already on the page itself entirely. He couldn't easily read whatever had been crossed out. It wasn't about anything important, he was sure. Just some mess up that wasn't worth the time.
Stan didn't even have glasses in the car. He used to have a pair, but he didn't need them that much. Besides, the nerd look wasn't really his style. He decided to start at the very beginning after reading through the page.
The first page was a formal introduction to the research ahead and promised of wondrous discoveries. Judging by all the wording Stan wouldn't be surprised if Ford had taken a notebook and carefully constructed it until he considered it presentable. The next page over was an entirely different story. A rambling wall of text with letters slanted in haste, the ink barely lifting from the page between words.
The rest of the journal was filled in the same almost childlike excitement. Each entry enthusiastically penned with drawings on every other page. As he reached the middle of the book he suddenly flipped to a full paged diagram, a sudden interruption in the book. Rude and unwelcome, especially after all the strange creatures and dialogue that spewed out scientific notes just as excitedly as personal anecdotes.
There was so much on the page that it looked like a geometrical mess. A nightmare that didn't belong inside the journal alongside everything else he'd seen so far. Like they should be worlds apart.
Stan thumbed the page pensively, considering the paper.
Hours later, Ford finally started to move again, shifting as he woke up slowly. A bit suddenly, he jerked up and opened his eyes just as Stan was starting to sit up in the chair.
"Hey, welcome back to the land of the living," Stan said casually, lifting up a hand in greeting. Ford looked at Stan and did a quick glance over of the room. Relatively the same and then there was Stan who was now looking a bit tired himself, sitting cross armed with his legs up.
"Hey," Ford cleared his throat, "so uhh, how long was I asleep for?"
"Eh, seventeen hours, you were out cold." He paused. "Well, mostly, I guess." It had been 13 hours since that whole weird thing downstairs, after all. "Not that surprised though considering it seems like you haven't been sleeping for, I don't know, days." He pointed the last word just enough to be a slight reprimand.
Ford either didn't notice or didn't care to and picked at Stan's wording. "Mostly..?"
"Yeah, you woke up a few hours ago."
He watched him a bit expectantly for something more. "...Oh."
"You don't remember?"
Ford shook his head. "No."
That made sense. He had been out of it... Really out of it. Ford's question brought him back to the present.
"What happened?"
Stan glanced back and saw Ford watching him intently. There was a spark of worry and the lie came out almost automatically "Meh, nothing, really. You were pretty loopy, but I didn't let you get past the hallway." He shrugged, looking aside. "Dragged you back to bed."
Ford waited a moment for Stan to say more, but when he didn't he then asked, "And I just went with it…?"
"Eh, not really, you were acting really weird." Stan emphasized, pausing before shrugging again. "Pretty obvious you were 'sleepwalking' though. "
"Ah, right, right." Ford's mind had quickly moved on and he responded distractedly, standing up and going over to his desk. He pulled open a drawer for a piece of paper and slapped it onto the table. He had started to reach for a paper on the table, and Stan was just about to say something, when he paused and asked, "Why is there paper missing?"
"What? The blank paper on top?" Stan asked, furrowing his brow.
Ford visibly seemed to be trying to focus on withholding a sigh. "Yes, there were several sheets of paper on top of this desk."
Stan shrugged, crossing his arms across his chest. "Huh… yeah, weird, looks the same to me."
This time Ford took a deep inhale, planting hands on the desk and breathing in. "Okay, okay, that's fine. I don't need it." He pointedly shot an accusatory look at Stan before jotting down a few quick notes on the paper and tucking it into his coat before Stan could read it.
"What is it? Those papers were blank anyway, weren't they?" Stan asked, upset at what seemed to be yet another mistake on his part. It couldn't have been a big deal. It was just blank paper! "Why's it so important?"
"It's fine." Ford said cooly, very obviously not meaning the words.
Stan wanted to say something, but Ford left him with virtually nothing to argue against. It. Was. BLANK. Paper. There was nothing written on any of it!
Then he gestured for Stan as he headed out the door, "come on."
Stan perked up, standing up from his seat and following. Along the way Ford picked up a couple things, a pre-made pack and the crossbow primarily. He was ushered out of the door, the other out right after him to lock it up.
"So, uh, where are we going?" Stan asked, hands in his coat pocket.
"We aren't going anywhere." He said, looking at him, "I have something that I need to see through though."
Something that felt like hope fell around him. "Wait... are you kidding me, Ford?!"
"I have something that I need to figure out, Stanley." He hissed back, patience thin.
"Oh, oh, right. So, let me guess, you just want me to leave now, right?" He asked crossing his arms across his chest, frustration bubbling up.
"You-" Ford faltered and glanced aside, turning around and walking off the porch, boots crunching into the snow. "You can do whatever you like." He said evasively.
"Great!" Stanley snipped back, catching up to Ford and blatantly following beside him.
This went on for nearly a minute, the two walking along to the sweeping sound of easy wind, downy flake, and crunching of snow underfoot. Ford stole half glances at his brother and Stan tried to catch his eye as much as humanly possible without tripping or running into something.
Finally, Ford stopped and Stan did the same along with him. "Stanley," he began, fully looking at him now, "I really can't emphasize how much I needto attend to this."
"Yeah, and?"
Ford blinked a bit looking at him, Stan just expectantly keeping his gaze on him.
"This is very important." He insisted.
"Uh-huh."
"I'm being serious!"
"I know you are. Now, I don't have some big degree or whatever, but if I remember right you just told me to do what I want and I want to see what it is that's so important that you're leaving your cabin in the woods for."
"I'm- Stanley, I have to go and figure something out!"
"Right, see someone paranoid enough to answer the door with a CROSSBOW is going outside again all of a sudden. Do y'see why I might think that's a little weird." He paused then added nonchalantly. "Which, if you're 'figuring out' how to reverse some people after your life or whatever then I actually wanna see how you pull that off for future reference. It's a win-win either way."
"And what's the win for the first scenario..?" Ford asked, a tad suspiciously.
"Actually getting some answers about what the hell you got yourself into, and I mean what you REALLY got yourself into. Because this doesn't seem like just some stereotypical 'oops I took money from a Columbian drug ring or two and couldn't pay them back' thing."
Ford looked at him for a moment longer before setting off in resigned acceptance this time. "It's going to take all day." He informed him.
Stan hummed in acknowledgement and the two continued through the forest on a half beaten trail for a good half hour before Stan spoke up. "So, you brought food and water for yourself, right?"
Ford slowed to a stop and then slung his pack onto the cold ground and opened it, looking through it, grumbling quietly, "I usually don't have to…" After a momentary search though he zipped it back up and threw it over his back again, silently proceeding forward again.
"I take it that's a yes."
"No."
Stan slid a hand over his face. "Sixer."
"Look, I'll be fine without it for a few hours." He replied obstinately. "I wasn't the one that carried the snacks and water before. Besides, it's not necessary."
"You went hiking with someone?" Stan asked, genuinely curious. Looking through the journal he was almost certain his brother had been alone, then again things did change.
"... Yes. Yes, I did. I had- I used to have a research assistant." Ford replied, sullenly.
"Is he the one threatening you?"
"No! God, no, not him." He defended immediately. Ford let out a breath, continuing calmly. "No, he's not a part of this. Or well, not on the offending side of it at least." He seemed genuinely saddened and actually guilty, though above all else, he looked tired. The dozen hours of sleep hadn't actually done anything to the bags under his eyes and if anything he looked more worn down than he had before.
Stan decided to just silently file away the piece of information for now. It took maybe another half hour before they arrived to the beginning of a tunnel system. The entrance to the cave was rather well hidden, small and unnoticeable in the forest, old vines and overgrowth covering up the entrance. Ford had to pull aside some of it to squeeze himself through. As Stan was pushing himself in Ford lit a lantern from his bag. The air inside was immediately more humid and warm than the outside was, moss or something similar growing over the scraggly walls and ground.
"Don't slip," Ford said as he descended down the rocky slope, lantern in hand.
"How did you even find this place, Sixer?" Stan asked, "I mean I could barely get through all that."
"There's another entrance behind the waterfall, that's where I found this initially. It has a few entrances, but most of them are like that, excluding the waterfall." He explained.
"So, what's in here? Why was this SO important?" He asked going up beside him to see his face.
Ford glanced over at him briefly, but continued looking over the walls. "The remains of a civilization. Keep an eye out for anything - writing, possible switches, anything out of the ordinary."
"Might as well point out the whole forest then," Stan muttered, looking around.
The pair scoured the walls as they went, Ford occasionally pausing to push at patches of walls that he believed could be more than they appeared.
Soon enough the moss disappeared and the ground evened out. They walked for a couple hours, some paths seeming natural while others were obviously human made. They walked in a large arching circle, occasionally diverting to check down a pathway, but always going back again. Some rooms contained the remains of a person living there, very long ago, but after a brief inspection they passed on. Eventually, Ford slowed down before stopping entirely.
"What's up?" Stan asked, looking over at him.
"You uhh, you need to stay here." He replied almost reluctantly so before glancing to look over toward him.
Stan simply gave him a dead eyed stare and fully turned towards him, crossing his arms.
"What?" Ford asked obliviously.
"You want us to split up in the middle of a creepy cave. Ya don't see anything off about that?" He deadpanned.
Ford finally turned to Stan. "What are you talking about?!" He asked, offended. "What's wrong with-..."
"Yeah. "
"This isn't a horror movie, Stanley, honestly." He said, grimacing even still.
"Really starting to look like one. Especially if we split up when there's only one lantern." Stan replied easily.
Ford frowned, thinking. "Well, if we just-" he cut himself off, looking off in thought, "or-" he let out a quiet groan, running a hand through his hair. "It'll take me an hour at least to walk you back to an exit!"
"Or!" Stan immediately voiced himself, "Or… Or, just consider this." He held up his hands and gestured outwards dramatically and in a wondrous tone suggested, "I could just keep helping you look."
"Stanley, this is… I was hoping that I'd find something outside of this section, maybe something I had accidentally skipped over before. That's why I saved it for last."
"So it's dangerous?" Stan asked, dropping the attitude.
"Well-" he hesitated, "well, yes, but not in the way you consider something dangerous."
"How do you know what I think is dangerous?"
"Physical danger and harm." Ford answered directly.
Stan went thin lipped, silent for a second or two. "Okay, fine, but that's practically the definition of the word."
"Not quite. Knowledge can be dangerous too." He said somberly.
"... Seriously?" Stan raised an eyebrow, barely holding back a roll of his eyes.
"What?" Ford immediately questioned back. "Of course I'm being serious! This is important."
Stan scoffed. "Okay, okay, well if you could handle it then I think I can too."
Ford started up, and faltered, glancing down to the lantern. "Listen, Stanley, I know this might seem a bit ridiculous to you, but I have my reasons."
"Can you at least tell me what some of them are then?"
He frowned and then decidedly looking back at him. "There's already enough risk in this as it is."
"Oh, my God," Stan took a breath and put his hands up against the side of his head before earnestly gesturing back to his brother, "Stanford."
"There are scenarios where this could literally end the world, alright?!" He whipped back his voice nearly cracking and his thoughts quickly derailing. "Maybe a lot, maybe only a few, I don't know! There's too many factors and I don't know what piece of information could tip the scale for global disaster! It wasn't suppose to turn out like this. I went along thinking it was fine and now if I mess up there won't BE a chance to fix it!"
"Okay, okay," Stan began calmly, waving his hands, "just take it easy, Sixer. You going on like that isn't going to keep you from messing up, it's just going to make sure you do."
Ford looked back at Stan again and let out a breath. "I'm aware. I'm just- I'm just being careful." Stan made a drawn out and uncertain noise in response, and Ford gave him a slight look though there was no real bite to it. "It may veer a bit excessive at times, I'll admit. Now that I've reflected on earlier, I'll admit answering the door with the crossbow was a bit unnecessary."
"Oh, that's a relief. Don't have to worry about an arrow messing up my good looks." Stan teased lightly.
Ford's face softening up just slightly. Then he stood up straight and looked ahead out past the fading light, thoughtfully. "I know I haven't explained anything, but once I do this I should be able to set this right. Then I'll stop keeping everything about this a secret… I- I promise."
Stan felt his heart go lighter at that, but he quickly picked up on how Ford fidgeted a bit, not quite finished with what he was saying. Some amendment or- oh, "You still want me to stick behind for this, don't you?"
Quietly, he nodded his head. "I can uhh," he quickly glanced around before walking towards a dip in the rocky ground, "I'll make a fire before I go so you have some form of light."
"You know what, sure," Stan relented.
Ford glanced him over, some disbelief in the scan. "... Really?"
"Yeah, just don't take too long to come back and I'll wait here." Stan promised him.
"Okay." Ford said, relief evident, "okay." He went about setting up a small fire, it was an emergency setup from out of his backpack, a chemical reaction that he assured Stan lasted well over five hours which was infinitely more time than he needed. He almost smiled, talking more to himself than Stan. "It won't even take a half hour, I'll find the solution, fix this, then take care of everything else." He noted assuredly, though there was a shake in his hands that he didn't even seem to be acknowledging.
He turned a bit to talk directly to Stan once he had managed to get the flame going. "I'll be back though, so even if it seems like I'm taking a while don't come after me."
"Alright, but listen if I'm sitting here for over two hours then I'm coming no matter what, got it?"
Ford shrugged. "Well, there's absolutely no reason I'll be gone that long anyways, so fine. I'll be back in no time." A final promise as he hefted his pack onto his back and left
Stan stayed there and waited.
There was no real way to tell the time, but within a half hour he simply laid on the ground. Another ten minutes passed and he couldn't help considering what sort of things could happen to Ford.
Sure, it was a cave and they hadn't seen any drop offs in the rest of it, but what if there was one. Did caves do that? Just have random drop off points. They could anyways, he decided.
What if there were bats or something.
He had said it was dangerous right, though just the knowledge or whatever. Maybe it was like supernaturally melting your face off if you knew too much of something, Raiders of the Lost Ark style.
Actually, talking about the supernatural, there had been a few dangerous creatures in the journal. Anything could be in these caves, but Ford would have mentioned them then, right?
What was so dangerous about all of this anyways… Why couldn't Ford just tell him what was going on. Of course, maybe he just really didn't trust him and it was an excuse.
Maybe Ford just planned on ditching him in the cave so he'd be out of the way...
Before an hour passed he heard distant footsteps and listened for a moment. Once he was certain that it really was footsteps and not just water dripping he pulled himself off of the ground. As the sound came closer the glow of a lantern started bobbing into view along with Ford, obviously frustrated and on edge.
"No dice, huh?" Stan asked.
Ford passed him by, continuing without stopping and Stan had to speed up a bit to catch up with him. "No, no there was nothing new. I checked thoroughly and- nothing!"
"Okay, well uh, there's gotta be something somewhere, right?" Stan tried to ease him down.
Instead Ford only let out an embittered laugh. "I wanted to fix this within the next two days while my mind was rested. Actually, I wanted to fix this weeks ago."
"Then well, I don't know, maybe I could help. I mean, you gotta tell me what's going on, but still." Stan suggested, actually leaving out a fair amount of well due frustration
"You? What are you going to do, Stanley?!" Ford practically snapped at him. "This is not exactly a problem that can be solved with a right hook. Then all my temporary solutions are just that, temporary!"
Stan put out a hand, still walking alongside the other's fast pace, arguing. "Hey, listen, alright, just because I didn't go to college doesn't make me useless! I could help."
Ford stopped and whipped around to face Stan, earnestly asking him. "How? "
"I've tried nearly everything, Stanley!" He wildly gestured back where he had just left as he started to yell, "That was suppose to have the answer! THAT WAS MY LAST POSSIBLE RESOURCE! The last place in Gravity Falls that MIGHT have given me something so I could finally just…" His voice bounced off of the walls, but pathetically tapered off before the end of the sentence. Ford squeezed his eyes shut and pushed the palm of his hand up to his right eye, lifting the glasses out of the way.
"I've looked all over the town, read nearly everything I could find. I haven't even been able to figure out anything even remotely new for the past month," he said evenly, "There's no options left for me to explore, even theoretically." He started to shake slightly.
Stan watched uncomfortably for a moment then, hesitantly, reached out a hand towards Ford's shoulder. "Hey," he started gently, "you're too much of a nerd for your own good sometimes, but just because you're stuck doesn't mean you won't figure it out." He offered a smile even if Ford wasn't looking, finally going to settle his hand onto Ford's shoulder, "You're a genius, Sixer, just trust-"
"Don't!"
Ford venomously spat the word cutting him off, and at the same time his hand was sharply knocked away. Keeping his hand protectively near where Stan had touched him, Ford took a defensive step backwards. His short empty pants being the only sound in the tense silence that followed.
After a moment, Ford curled his free hand behind his back and avoided looking directly at Stan, quieting his breathing again. He awkwardly shifted his feet, forcing himself back into a calm stance. "I wasn't expecting... I didn't want to hear something like that when... not with," he took a breath and finished lamely, "this."
"Uh, alright, yeah…" Stan trailed off and the two fell back into another silence. Ford absently stared at the ground while Stan shoved his hands into his pockets, "So uh… now what?"
Ford glanced up. "...I don't know," he replied frankly. "I don't know what to do."
Stan gave a half hearted shrug. "Well, why don't we get something for us to eat?"
"Us?"
Stan faltered slightly. "Well, yeah, I mean neither of us ate today. I'll buy, you know," he pulled out a hand, gesturing in a circle with his hand, glancing aside, "make up for that paper or whatever." He looked back to Ford again, "...what d'ya say?"
"Uh... sure," he pulled at the strap of his pack, "it's something to do, at the very least."
Stan gestured ahead silently and the pair continued back on.
They traveled through the tunnel system back until they came out of the same exit in the woods they had entered from, returning to the shack. Stan suggested, as casually as he could, they take his car and Ford agreed. Honestly, he wasn't sure where Ford's car was even at.
Stan quickly flipped the sun visor when he sat into the car, Ford walking around and getting into the passenger side. Suddenly, the whole thing was completely surreal. Stan coughed into his fist. "So, what's good to eat around here?"
AUTHOR NOTES:
( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
The angst bits in this fic were fun.
That feeling when your brother is legitimately trying to assure you but it's sounding EXACTLY like what the being that's been tormenting you used to stay to you so your stability takes a dAMN NOSEDIVE.
Aaaaand alternatively, when you're really not sure what you're suppose to do but /dude/ he looks like he's about to legitimately break down crying and you're trying to comfort him and ohp no apparently that was a really really bad idea.