Possible trigger warning for hints of depression and emotional dissociation, even if they don't last very long.
Under Ford's instruction, the kids opened the case and pulled out a bottle of green gloopy stuff with little glowy things floating around inside it.
"...I call 'em bio-nanites," Ford muttered as he twisted the top off and tipped some of it into his hand, before turning and placing a chunk of the glop onto McGucket's ankle, and a few more on his really bad cuts. His former-or was it newly regained?-friend shuddered and squirmed, but then, as the stuff seeped into his skin, he let out a sigh of relief and slowly relaxed. After a few seconds his ankle already looked a lot less swollen, and the gashes started knitting themselves back together.
"Their main purpose…as best I can tell…is to find things that are wrong in the human body, and fix them. If only some of the ingredients needed to grow them existed in this dimension, it could revolutionize the world of medicine."
Clearly, not even a concussion was going to stop him from giving a lecture on weird stuff. Stan wasn't too surprised, but that might've been because right now he wasn't too much of anything: the emotional whiplash of the last hour-fear, then fresh betrayal, then confusion, then terror, then rage, then fear and confusion and suspicion all together-had all abruptly settled into a familiar gray dullness that he hadn't felt since at least the beginning of summer, making him feel like he was watching everything happening around him without really being part of it.
"Even I don't fully understand how they work or what they're made of." Ford lowered the frozen peas, and slowly placed another glop against the cut on his head; his teeth clenched in a hiss, but then he relaxed the way McGucket had. "But they have saved my life on several occasions."
His words were already becoming less slurred, and his eyes more focused.
"The worst of our injuries should be healed up within a matter of days, if not hours."
Both kids stared at the green stuff in awe.
"...Whoaaaa," Mabel whispered, reaching out and poking at the open bottle, making the contents wiggle like jello.
"Where did you get them?" Dipper asked eagerly.
Ford's expression softened as he looked at them, before turning kind of embarrassed. "I…liberated them from a medical clinic in this one dimension."
Through the mist, Stan was able to spare a flicker of dry humor at the realization that Goody-Nerd-Shoes had actually stooped to thievery.
Guess I'm not the only thief and charlatan in this family, huh?
Ford was suddenly giving him a very intense look.
Stan didn't exactly panic, but he felt his pulse jump, and wondered if the metal plate gave the nerd telepathy or something, and what he'd do if it turned out it did.
But then Ford held out the bottle and asked, "Do you need any?"
Slowly, voice slightly echoey in his ears, Stan shook his head and muttered, "I'm fine," even as his ribs gave a little throb of protest. But they weren't broken, he knew what broken ribs felt like and this wasn't it, so it was fine, he could just walk it off-
"You have a cut on your cheek, your knuckles are split open in places, and your breathing is a little shallower than normal, leading me to suspect there might be at least some damage to your ribs from being held in the robot's fist like that." Ford held out the bottle more insistently. "...Please."
Ugh. Even when other people said it, it hurt. Especially when it came from him.
Stan started to open his mouth to refuse again.
And then little hands were tugging his sleeve, and a voice was insisting, "Grunkle Stan, please take some if you're hurting. I don't like it when you're hurt."
Like the sucker he was, Stan sighed and held out his hand.
He had to admit, even if seeing and feeling the tingle of the bio-nanites sinking into his skin was kinda freaky, feeling the pain in various places starting to vanish was…nice.
McGucket had fallen asleep in the tub, so Stan called his son and asked him to come pick him up. Then, while the kids cleaned up the rest of the bathroom, he half-herded Ford into Soos's break room and pushed him onto the sofa to rest up while his tiny robot things did their work.
"You probably oughta stay awake for a spell, just in case. Make sure you don't fall into a coma or whatever," he muttered.
Ford nodded, leaning back and closing his eyes. "...So what are we going to do now, Stanley?" he asked.
"I told you. Stay awake and don't fall into a coma." Without even thinking about it, Stan reached out and smacked his cheek a couple times-not hard, but enough that he opened them again with a moan.
"I'm just resting my eyes," he grumbled, glaring at Stan. "And that's not what I meant."
"...I'm gonna get you some water."
And he walked away as quickly as he could, like a good little errand boy.
When Stan returned, carrying a glass that was dripping condensation, Ford had sat up again and taken off his gross muddy boots; his holey socks weren't much of an improvement.
"You're avoiding my question," he scolded as Stan handed him the glass.
"...You shouldn't talk too much. You don't wanna strain yourself."
"If you're that worried about the seriousness of my concussion, I should talk more. It gives you a way to track my lucidity." The point would've sounded like a simple confirmation of the facts if his voice hadn't been so smug.
Irritation flickered through the fog like a searchlight; he wasn't sure it was an improvement. "So recite the Gettysburg Address or something." Even though he should probably just leave, he turned away and started fiddling with the pile of crap on the table next to the door, a bunch of glass beakers and junk. He could faintly remember a few occasions when he'd first been in this room, where he'd done nothing for hours but lie on the couch and stare at them, watching the light reflecting off the glass because he'd been too empty inside to do anything else. They were a lot dustier than he remembered.
"I'd prefer to address my previous question or what we're going to do now." Ford's voice was uncompromising; Stan heard a soft clink as he set his glass down. "I meant it when I told you that the robot's attack was…an accident."
Wait, I can explain! It was a mistake!
Even through the numbness he must have shown some kind of emotion at the memory: he heard Ford cut off with an audible gulp, before he went on.
"...I…don't know how to convince you of this, but I don't want-I wouldn't ever try to-" he made a familiarly frustrated sound that meant, at least when they were young, that whatever he was trying to say wasn't coming out how he wanted to. Then he abruptly changed tracks with the words, "I wasn't thinking about how you might interpret my…request regarding the house. Or well, I suppose it was technically a demand." He laughed mirthlessly.
Stan didn't answer. He just picked up a glass bottle and turned it in his hands. It was heavier than it looked, even though it was empty, and the cool, slightly dusty surface was kind of grounding. He ran a callused thumb across it, staring at his barely-visible reflection.
"I was thinking about how everything had changed while I was gone, and I wanted to grasp any chance at normality I could. But you are correct that if it came down to a legal dispute, I would have significant difficulty proving this house was originally mine, even if I could convince Fiddleford to testify that he knew me thirty years ago-"
SMASH!
The fog was gone.
And what came bubbling up was sharp, and hot, and had been lurking in wait under the surface ever since that punch to the face in the basement, only able to rise in bursts and spurts since then, but now it was awake.
Stan whirled around, the tips of his shoes crunching in the fresh pile of broken glass and scattering pieces that he'd have to make Soos vacuum up later.
"What more do you want, Stanford?!" he demanded in a snarl. "I gave up thirty years of my life ta bring you back-heck, I gave up my life! I don't even exist anymore, I'm just some kinda-shadow, or something! And then you come waltzing back, and tell me that it's still not enough for you!"
He stomped forward until he loomed over his brother. "Whaddya want from me, huh?! BLOOD?! Cuz I'm not giving it to you! I'm tired of working myself to pieces for you and hoping I'm even gonna get scraps in return! I'm tired of being nothing!"
It felt like giant worms were crawling out of his chest in time with his words, leaving a lot of raw, bloody holes in their wake.
Ford's eyes were wide as they stared up at him, and his mouth opened and shut a few times…but nothing came out.
For once there was no sophisticated comeback, no blistering retort to remind Stan who was the brilliant capable non-screw-up twin in the room, no refutation of his words.
Stan wished he felt more triumphant about it.
This was not going according to plan at all.
First the fiasco with the robot, which had made Stanley think that Ford was actively trying to kill him-and now everything he said only seemed to make his brother angrier.
And Ford had no idea how to make it stop.
He wasn't even sure that he could blame the concussion, especially now that his headache had finally started clearing and his thoughts were forming coherent patterns again.
They wanted to give reasonable arguments to counter Stan's tirade: he shouldn't have been brought back at all because of how close he'd been to defeating Bill at that time, because turning the portal back on could have given the demon the opportunity he was looking for to wreak havoc on their world (because Ford wasn't worth the trouble)-
But Stan knew at least some of that, if he'd read Ford's journals, and he clearly didn't care. Lecturing him about it wouldn't help, and it definitely wouldn't defuse the situation.
Stan was still glaring down at him, chest heaving with the strength of his emotion…waiting for him to say something.
And Ford knew it was vitally important for him to say something, if he could just figure out the right words.
'Thank you?'
…While he was glad to be back in his own dimension, regardless of the risks, he didn't know if he could sincerely say that yet. He probably should, but…
'I'm sorry?'
Stan didn't seem like he would believe it. Because Ford hadn't given him a reason to believe it, because he kept messing this up even when he tried to follow Fiddleford's advice on meeting him halfway.
But Stan was still standing there, still looking so angry and so tired and so frustrated and like he wanted an answer already, and if Ford said the wrong thing right now it would probably be the final nail in the coffin of their relationship, but if he said nothing it would definitely be.
So he clearly had to say something…but the more he struggled to figure out the right thing to say, the more incapable he was becoming of saying anything at all.
And then both of them jumped when a high-pitched voice that was trying to sound gruff said from the doorway, "You're not nothing, Stanley, don't say that about yourself!"
A small figure came into view-one that appeared to be made out of a paper bag, with big googly eyes and the tiniest hint of an arm poking out from under it.
"Hello!" the figure chirped, "I'm the inner Grunkle Stan, who says all the things he's too afraid to say out loud! And I'm here to help!"
