It was three in the morning, and Ford was finally asleep after a long night of studying Stanley's condition. But even in his dreams, he was still going over what little data he was provided with.
Stanley still had a pulse, still breathed, and still had brain activity, but the pulse was slow, much slower than normal, until a stress agent was introduced, then it skyrocketed to levels that should induce a heart attack. Brain activity would begin to fizzle and flat-line. Weirdest of all were the 'dead lights'.
Ford coined the term during his last encounter with the undead. It was almost like the reflective quality in the eyes of nocturnal animals, only it could be seen in complete darkness. He figured it was some form of residual magic that came from the curse of raising dead corpses, but it was almost impossible to understand magic.
In his experience, most humans could utilize magic through either objects or through spells, but he didn't know WHY. It came from SOME form of dimension—he personally thought the undead curse came from the Nightmare Realm—and not one he found in this thirty-year hiatus from Earth. Honestly, he was grateful to have not found that place. Cinnamon for the cure was surprisingly impossible to find.
Stanley had the 'dead lights' in his eyes that would come out, even when he wasn't stressed or in 'zombie mode', sometimes when he was simply zoning out. It was like a constant reminder that he was cursed, and that it wasn't just going to go away.
But if Stanley was cursed, there was a way to lift it. That was what Ford theorized, anyway. And although it had been a long time since Stan was bitten, he was still functioning like a human most of the time. They just needed to find a way to completely erase the curse.
It wasn't until his face smacked against the desk of his lab after it fell off his hand that he realized he wasn't even sleeping. He had been imagining he was dreaming.
Well, sleep was a dud, that much was true. He probably wouldn't sleep until he straight-out keeled over from exhaustion, so he might as well get some work done.
But first, coffee.
Ford headed up to the kitchen, passing a clock and sighing when he saw that it was almost noon. At some point, he needed to have SOME semblance of a sleeping schedule before his body gave out. He was getting too old to have such a patchy sleep time.
The house was empty, and Ford absently wondered where everyone was. He made a pot of coffee, then quietly wandered the house with a cup. He hadn't been upstairs much at all. On the second-floor landing was the bathroom, a couple of closets, and Stanley's bedroom. He recognized it as the guest room Fiddleford would stay in, and absently wondered why his brother would choose this room rather than the master bedroom on the first floor. Well, it used to double as a lounge room, but over the years Ford was here, he mostly crashed on the couch and just gave the bed to Fiddleford.
It was surprisingly tidy inside. Going by their shared disregard for tidiness, he expected the room to be worse-off. But then again, HE found himself organizing his belongings when he was bored, so it would stand to reason that Stanley might do the same, now that he had the time to do so. Tidy as it was, it was still personalized and lived-in, giving him a reminder of the childhood room he shared with his twin.
As much as he didn't want to snoop—or even use the pointless excuse of 'It's my house'—Ford couldn't help his curiosity, looking through a couple of things without going TOO in-depth and running the risk of jostling something around. He found nothing surprising. A drawer full of gold jewelry (not TOO out-there), another with boxing gloves and several sets of brass knuckles—
He then opened the bedside table drawer and found a pistol inside, almost slamming it shut. He didn't know why it was so shocking; Stanley made it known that he had several guns hidden around the house, but finding one in Stan's room, and in an easily-accessible place…
Ford swallowed hard, reaching in and picking it up, weighing it in his hand for a moment before taking the clip out, feeling another heavy sense of dread when he saw it was loaded and ready to go. He didn't need deeper thinking to know what this insinuated. Stanley had this gun in the bedside drawer with the intention to use it at some point in the future.
He recalled the pure conviction in Stanley's voice when he told him that he'd never hurt the kids, and now Ford understood why Stan's conviction was so firm. He'd literally kill himself before letting the kids be hurt.
Ford felt a clench of nausea rise in his gut, and he quickly put the gun back in the drawer exactly where he found it and shut the drawer slowly before hurrying out of the room, almost slamming the door shut behind him. He took a few deep, calming breaths before turning to the stairs that led up to the attic.
He elected to go just to get his mind off of the gun, and peeked inside the younger twins' room. It was reasonably furnished, and tidied up just enough to be livable without being suffocating. The sides had an invisible line of whose side dictated what, and he wasn't surprised at the display.
Dipper's side had stacks of books strewn in with stacks of spiral notebooks and loose leafs of paper. Here and there were chewed-up pens and the occasional article of clothing. Dipper's bed was unkempt with even more pieces of paper sticking out from the sheets.
Mabel's side was a burst of color, with posters and photo collages on the wall. Yarn and knitting needles were sitting on the end of the bed, which looked as though she at least made an effort to make in the mornings. She also had an impressive collection of sweaters, and judging by the yarn collection, they were all hand-made.
Ford looked around the room, scowling at the triangular window between the beds, feeling the urge to shoot it out on instinct. Instead, he turned to leave, and spotted a curtained-off little nook of the attic. He figured that was where Stanley had stashed a few things to make room for the twins, but peeked behind it anyway.
There were mostly cardboard boxes stashed away, nothing surprising. He was about to close the curtain when he saw little dots of red on one of the boxes. Frowning, he knelt down to the box, his hands hovering over it for a moment before he opened it.
Inside the box were clothes. Ford wouldn't have thought it that odd, had it not been for the slightly off stench coming from them. He swallowed hard and reached in, lifting it out. The clothing on top was one of Stanley's suits, torn with a splatter of greenish gore that Ford immediately recognized as zombie fluid. A thought occurred; was THIS was Stanley was wearing when he was infected?
Ford looked back into the box, seeing a colorful sweater and pulling it out. It was definitely 'Mabel' in design, a pretty pink number with a colorful picture of a shooting star over the front. It would have been absolutely darling had it not been splattered irreparably in blood.
Although he logically knew that the stain being dry and this being packed away meant it happened days, if not weeks, ago, he still felt the urge to run outside and search until kingdom come to make sure the kids were alright. He held the bloody sweater in his hands tightly, forcing himself to take several calming breaths.
He couldn't see Dipper being the one to keep these macabre souvenirs, and he was certain Stanley wouldn't want to save any clothing that reminded him of his own monstrosity, so that only left Mabel. Why would she keep these? Granted, the sweater WAS quite nice and would be difficult to throw away if she made it herself, but why keep it, AND Stanley's ruined suit jacket?
He swallowed hard, glancing back into the box again, feeling his skin crawl slightly when he found an item at the bottom.
It was a knife; not a plain kitchen knife, but a bowie hunting knife. On a whim, Ford reached into his pocket and took out a specialized penlight that worked similar to a black light and shone it inside at the knife. Just as he thought it might, it picked up wiped-off smears of blood.
Ford put the penlight back into his pocket and shoved the clothing back into the box, pushing it away and backing from the attic nook, feeling the sudden urge to take a shower.
…ugh, forget 'urge', it was a necessity, as long as he'd been in the basement.
He returned to the basement after the shower and crashed out on the cot, managing a few hours of black-out unconsciousness, though the last few moments were full of nothing but yellow, glaring eyes before he jerked awake.
It was almost midnight by then, and he dragged himself upstairs to pilfer something out of the fridge, pausing when he saw the back porch light on and the back door open. He frowned, creeping over silently, hearing voices before he could peek outside.
"—and anyone is better than Bud Gleeful," Mabel's small voice said. "…I wish you would run, Grunkle Stan."
There was a soft chuckling from Stan. "I'm hardly suitable to be mayor, sweetie," he replied.
A huffy sigh. "Please, you'd be perfect. Who better to be mayor of Gravity Falls than you? You're what makes this place weird and great." A soft beat of silence. "…Bud will just make things horrible. He might try to break Gideon out of jail…or worse, try to destroy the Shack!"
It might have been Ford's imagination, but he could have SWORN he heard Stan growl.
"…Sweetie, I can PROMISE you this. No matter what, he is NOT touching the Shack. So don't you worry about that."
Mabel sighed. "…do what you gotta, Grunkle Stan," she said. "I know you'll protect all of us."
Ford swallowed hard, slowly edging back until he was in the gift shop, hastily punching in the code and hurrying back to the elevator. He wasn't very hungry anymore.
Two days later, he was passing through the house to get something to drink when Dipper raised his voice from the TV room.
"Hey, guys, the news said that Bud Gleeful's gone missing!"
The cup Ford had been holding fell from his hands and shattered on the floor.