Stop being a baby. He's okay. He's okay, he's okay, he's okay.
Ford just had to warm up, that was all. There was nothing else for Stan to do right now except wait.
It takes a half hour before Ford even seems a hint better. He keeps shifting, and his eyes were half open whenever Stan glances over at him. The only thing that eventually changes is his breathing evening out.
Stan lets out a slow breath, letting his arms rest on top of his knees. He's finally able to actually feel like Ford isn't about to die in that chair. "Give a guy a heart attack, why don'tcha, Ford." He mutters.
He doesn't honestly think Ford can even really hear, but then his brother looks over at him. It actually takes him a couple seconds and Stan is about to ask him what it is when Ford eventually talks. The words comes out thick, and he sounds as exhausted as he looks. "You came..."
Stan lets out a short, stressed laugh. "Yeah, heh, I came." He actively decided against coming for about a week, but hey. Who was bothering to think about that little detail, right?
"I didn't think..."
"Guess that makes two of us then," he jokes with a smile to him, regretting letting the words come out of his mouth at all, "ha..." Stan runs a hand over his sleeve, pretending to warm up his fingers. "Seriously though, if you could not - I don't know - freeze to death here, that'd be great."
"'M not planning on it." Ford says, pausing to shift underneath the sheets again. He winces a bit and continues. "There's a door... Stanley. Downstairs."
"D'ya need something from-" Stan cuts himself off because his brother is fervently shaking his head already.
"No. No... Don't let anybody... down there." He takes a couple quick breaths. "Don't let me down there."
"What?" Stan pulls his head back, and quickly enough he thinks Ford didn't actually hear his own words right. "You mean, don't let you down..?"
Ford shakes his head again, and struggles to look him in the eyes as he emphasizes slowly. "Don't let me near the door."
Okay, that was the opposite of what Stan was hoping he'd meant. "Ford. What the Hell?"
Ford only frowns at that. "It's important, Stanley... please."
"Okay." Stan relents, "Okay, nobody goes downstairs, including you."
His brother noticeably relaxes, and barely nods his head.
"But!" Stan adds on quickly, to keep his attention. "You gotta tell me what's down there."
Ford understands him, but he looks down thinking. "It's... the folly of man's lindless-" he stops at that though, concentrating, "I mean, the... endless limit." Again, he stops, visibly frustrated at that, before he takes an uneven, deep breath. "A big mistake." He finally answers.
"Oh, okay. So, not vague and cryptic at all, gotcha." Stan says.
"I'm not asking for a full explanation or anything right now." Later was another story though. He uses his hands to gesture at Ford. "Just gimme a simple one word description. Drugs, weapons, what?"
Ford looks at him, thinks for a long moment before finally telling him. "It's a machine."
Stan claps his hands together, holding them together. "Okay, a machine." He still didn't know what was going on, but positives! He could at least rule out drug cartels… probably.
"It has to stay off." Ford added.
"What happens if it turns on?"
"A lot."
Still vague and cryptic, but he wasn't going to fault Ford for that one. If Ford couldn't get the answer out within ten words than Stan realized he wasn't gonna get it yet. "Okay," He says. "Anything else? In general, I mean."
"...I dropped the food." Ford noted tiredly, losing focus.
He nodded his head. "Alright." Stan ran a hand through his hair before standing up. "Outside, I'm guessing. I'll grab it real quick."
"Careful..." He said as Stan passed him.
Stan paused, glancing back at him, before going back out. He shut the front door after himself, feeling on edge the further away from the house - and Ford - that he walked.
Now that he was actually looking at the items in the snow he quickly realized what they were. He picked up the box first, wiping the snow off of it and carrying it under his arm, before carefully picking up the crossbow. Christ, Stan ran a free hand over his face. Yup, Ford had been walking around with a damn crossbow.
Stan wondered to himself for the umpteenth time since he had gotten here about what was going on?
He tromped over to his car to swing the door closed. He fished the duffel bag out of his trunk too, cringing as it shut with a loud creak. He checked over his shoulders after the noise, half expecting to see someone by the trees.
Gah, this was stupid. Stan started back to the shack, feeling significantly more comfortable once he was back on the porch again. He shut the door behind him and set the crossbow down to lock everything.
He was in the middle of the woods. It's not like anyone was actually out here. Even if someone was around the snowfall muffled any sounds he'd made.
Then again... just how alone was it out here? Sure, Ford could have just isolated himself completely. That's definitely what it looked like too. Why all the extra locks though if nobody was around here though? One lock would have been enough. Eight was just- it was beyond excessive. Not to mention, all the fresh injuries Ford had on him.
Even considering the less than 'fun' idea of self harm- he had never seen someone do that much to themselves. It wasn't even just the number of injuries, but the range of what Stan had spotted. Cuts, burns, and a heck of a lot more.
The other thing though? It didn't look like outright torture either. At least not any kind of torture that Stan had seen or personally- well... point was torture didn't look like it was on the table here either.
Ford had sent the postcard something over a week ago. One of those scratches couldn't have been any older than that, and he really doubted they'd have let Ford go if they were doing this much damage in the first place.
Unless, whoever it was kept capturing and releasing Ford over and over? Who would do that though? Sure, yeah, torture – he got that it wasn't a strict line of A to B. Still, if someone wanted that machine downstairs then why not just blast their way to it while they already had Ford?
Maybe Ford was the only one that knew something? Still, again, this wasn't how torture for getting info went. It looked more like someone was jerking Ford around for the hell of it.
If it was just about the machine, they should have already had a couple chances to get to it. If it wasn't about the machine though then why was Ford still here? He wasn't absolutely surrounded so he could have gone somewhere!
It'd make sense if he was just staying because of whatever the high stakes with that machine were…. except if it was so important then why didn't they already take it?
It didn't make sense. None of this made sense.
A slight smile crooked one side of his mouth up as he let out a stressed laugh and ran a hand through his hair, finally turning away from the door.
Oh, yeah, and Ford wanted to be kept away from downstairs.
Because that was apparently the second most important thing on Ford's list for this whole situation! 'Lock the door and oh yes- I can't even walk right now, but keep me away from that door.'
He doubted Ford would even have the energy to sleepwalk out of the room he was in right now!
Ford… was still in that room, of course. Stan had only been gone for five minutes. Not even that. Plus, he would have noticed someone sneaking through the front door, right?
Stan walked back to the room, letting out a breath when he reached it. Ford was still in the chair, and he was asleep at that too.
All Stan had to worry about for now was making sure nobody tried to break in. It wasn't like anybody could get past solid wood and eight metal locks though.
AUTHOR NOTES:
I actually already had this written, but I wanted to wait at least a day or two before I posted it!
Thank you, Nina EverBlade! I've been very thankful in that I've never had any of y'all pushing me to write more or faster! I know especially with some fics that I've been slow to update.
The reason this is becoming MORE than a one shot is because well when readers get excited on something where I do know what to write for a next chapter... chances are VERY HIGH that I'm gonna get excited myself and make more!