Archive of Our Own ^beta

“Hey Ford, ya ever hear how I got out of prison in Colombia?”

It starts out as a normal conversation on the Stan O’ War II, at least normal enough for Stan while living with a brother that hunts anomalies for a living, but Ford’s more distracted than usual. Stan can tell, just based on his unworried response to the question.

“Hmm?”

“I took the guy’s key ring from his pocket when he wasn’t looking, totally had his back turned on me!” Stan laughs at the memory, “Got the door open and everything, then the cop yelled at me and tried to stop me!”

“Yes, yes, that’s…” Ford trails off, still distracted, “What happens…”

“I gave him a wicked undercut and got outta there, but I was feelin’ a little petty over my totally wrongful imprisonment, so I stole his wallet!” Stan grins from ear to ear and leans against the counter as he remembers the guard’s face as he went down, “And then I said—-”

“Just a moment, Stanley…” Ford interrupts before the best part, Stan glancing over to see that he has his finger on his eye.

“You alright, Six?” Stan can’t help but ask, it looks a little painful how he’s poking his eye like that.

“Just got something in my eye,” Ford answers, continuing to look up as he prods his eye further. Stan feels a little disquieted as he continues to dig at the corner of his eye, concerned that his twin is about to gouge his eye out or something over an eyelash or whatever.

Then with a quiet ‘pop!’ Ford slides his eye right out of the socket, leaving a bare fleshy hole where it was supposed to be. Stan freezes, confused and more than a little startled as Ford holds it out with a grin like nothing happened.

“Got it!” Ford looks at it with his remaining eye, apparently unaware of the effect he just had on Stan.

With that, Ford turns and rinses it in the sink, humming a little tune to himself. Stan stares open mouthed as his twin cleans what was supposed to be an unremovable eyeball in their boat’s kitchen sink. He can’t even form words as he tries to process what’s happening, wiping his eyes as he wonders if this is just a strange nightmare. Ford turns back around and looks at him oddly.

It takes a second for Stan to realize with the oblong and otherwise flat shape of the eye Ford just removed and cleaned that it’s a prosthetic. Stan can hardly guess how that went down before Ford pops it back in without another word. Ford looks at him like he wants to hear more of the story, but Stan can’t stop catching flies even when he has an inkling of an idea of what happened.

“Alright, so what did you say to that guard?” Ford asks nonchalantly, seemingly pretending as if Stan didn’t just have his whole world spun around, “Stanley?”

“Holy shit,” Is the only thing that comes out of his mouth as he looks into the eye Ford cleaned in the sink, trying to find a tell that it’s not his organic one and struggling, “And they say that I keep secrets about my life…”

Ford tilts his head, perplexed. Stan gestures vaguely at his fake eye, unable to look away now that he knows it’s not real, and Ford starts a little as he realizes what he means. Ford fidgets with his fingers, clearly trying to find a way to talk about it. It’s not lost on Stan that it means Ford lost his eye somewhere and somehow and the idea makes his gut twist. Ford clears his throat before Stan can think any deeper on the subject.

“Oh… right. I don’t think I told you about that,” Ford is quiet, almost too quiet, as Stan waits for his explanation, “I forget it’s a notable thing to lose an eye to people in this dimension.”

“Well it certainly ain’t one of the first things I wonder about when it comes to what happened to ya out in the portal…” Stan muses, leaning back against the table as he remembers last summer and combines it with the idea of his brother being half blind the whole time, having difficulty realizing he’s not as good at observation as he thought he was, “Did some creature poke it out? Get it shot out? Or something I can’t even comprehend?”

“No. No, it started before the portal,” Ford admits after a painfully tense pause, leaving Stan shocked, “Let’s sit in the kitchen before I say anything else. I have a feeling you’ll need to sit down for this one…”

“Wait, wait, wait, what do you mean it started before the portal?” Stan asks, unwilling to just sit down as Ford indicates, “You’re not tellin’ me you lost your eye before I shoved ya in there, are you?”

Ford sighs and it’s all Stan can do to not shake him for the answer. An answer Ford seems unwilling to give, at least until Stan relents and sits at their cozy kitchen table that’s now more claustrophobic than comfy. Stan stares into Ford’s eyes, and more particularly, his fake one, but forces himself to look at the table as Ford explains further.

“No, I didn’t lose my eye before the portal,” Ford states matter of factly, avoiding Stan’s gaze, “However, I was mostly blind in that eye by the time you arrived.”

Stan sits with the information and tries not to remember that terrible night in vain. Honestly, if Ford hadn’t just said, he’d never have known he’d gone blind in that eye. Ford seemed like he had his full vision the entire time, though Stan supposes he hadn’t been paying too much attention to Ford’s eyes the way he always averted them before the fight. He wonders some more about what could’ve done that in shock. At least until Ford finally gives him the news of how it happened.

“I know you’re wondering why I went blind in that eye in the first place, but it’s… not a very easy story,” Ford says curtly, rapping the table with his fingers anxiously, “I think you’ll understand when I say that it has to do with our old ‘friend’ Bill.”

“That jerk blinded you?!” Stan instantly pounds the table as rage courses through his veins, Ford holding his arms up for him to calm down, “Sorry. Just… how many things in your life have to go back to that pathetic corn chip? He’s getting on my nerves and he’s already dead.”

Ford laughs but Stan feels the awkward discomfort from here, on the opposite side of the table. Anyone could feel that squirming weird discomfort for miles, at least by Stan’s estimation.

“A lot of things come back to Cipher in my life unfortunately, and this… isn’t an exception,” Ford turns away from him, wiping his face as a tear slips down it without warning, “I ever tell you about how I let him possess me back when I thought he was helping me?”

“I might’ve heard a whisper about that or two…” Stan mutters, the conversation turning to strange topics, “What’s that gotta do with your eye?”

“Well…” Ford still raps his fingers, though now it’s more of a rapid drumbeat on the hardwood, “After my first experience with Bill possessing my body, I felt a burning pain in my eye.”

Stan’s on the edge of his seat now, too many questions to ask as Ford continues his tale. It doesn’t seem like it’ll be a good idea to interrupt Ford with them now though, a feeling that stopping his momentum in relating it will only grind things to a halt. Stan finds himself forcing his gaze on his hands, feeling terribly awkward about looking Ford in the eye right now. Ford doesn’t notice, or at least doesn’t make mention of it, as he talks grimly about Bill’s role in damaging his eye.

“I just brushed it off as a headache when it happened and simply added a monocle to my journal, but god do I wish I hadn’t…” Ford rubs his face, regret etched in every wrinkle, “It got worse after Bill revealed his true motives to me. Much worse.”

“Much worse, how?” Stan asks, breathlessly, “I’d say burning pain in that eye is bad enough…”

“It became so sore that it bled,” Ford states bluntly, spending not another moment beating around the bush and Stan’s heart, “I got the bleeding under control, though nothing I did stopped the progression of its blindness over the coming weeks. It was like seeing through a frosted window by the time you arrived.”

“And that’s not all, when I was… sent into the portal… my eye only got worse without medical intervention…” Stan wishes Ford had just been blunt about being ‘sent’ into the portal, they both know it’s Stan’s fault that Ford was even in that situation in the first place, “It got badly infected only a few dimensions into my journey and… I had to pluck it out of my head with a sharp tool before it gave me sepsis.”

It takes a beat of shocked silence before Stan can even process the horror of that sentence.

“Fuck, Ford, that’s…” Stan feels sick to his stomach at the information, “I don’t even know how to describe it other than absolutely horrific, but… even that ain’t gonna cover that.”

“I know…” Ford nods solemnly, eyes becoming wet, “I’ve gotten used to only having one working eye over the years, but it never gets easier to remember why it’s my only working eye…”

“I get why…” Stan mumbles, heart aching at what Ford had gone through. Stan has to sit with this for a moment, absorbing the fact that Bill damaged his brother’s eye enough for him to need removal like that. To pluck it out of his own skull to save his own life from infection. It’s truly the worst thing, to know his brother suffered like that and he couldn’t be there to support him. And even made things worse by tossing him in the portal! “I’m… I’m so sorry.”

Ford looks at him funny, his hands finally pausing their nervous rapping.

“Whatever for?” He asks, like it’s not a big deal that Stan throwing him in the portal is the reason he lost his eye, “I told you it was Bill’s possessions that damaged my eye that much.”

“Yeah but…” Stan gulps as he thinks of how things could’ve been different had either of them actually listened to the other, “If I didn’t send ya into the portal, ya woulda been able to seek medical attention and ya wouldn’t have lost your eye!”

Ford stares at him for a second, then chuckles and shakes his head in a way that only gets Stan irate. Why’s he being so insistent on downplaying what Stan did by pushing him into the portal? Stan doesn’t understand it.

“Stanley, I don’t think I’d have taken myself to the hospital in time to do anything for my eye if I wasn’t pushed in,” Ford’s voice is too light for what he’s talking about and Stan hates it, “Bill would’ve still been in my head and damaging it faster than he already did and I’d be too paranoid that I’d hurt someone or someone would hurt me to even go at all.”

“But…” Stan tries but he’s silenced by a hand on his shoulder, looking up to see Ford giving him an incredibly kind smile, “I don’t know…”

“Whatever happened on the other side of the portal, it wasn’t your fault,” Ford tells him gently, gesturing to his fake eye, “You didn’t know what would happen when you shoved me and you were angry.”

At this, Ford withdraws a little. Stan can just hear the self-blaming thoughts from here just judging by his expression.

“You were right to be angry and I… wasn’t,” Ford tears up a little, wiping his face with a hand while tears make the effort futile, “You should’ve burned my journal like you wanted, it would’ve been much safer… I was just too attached to them for reason and I hurt you in the process…”

Ford glances at Stan’s shoulder, where a long since scarred brand peeks out of his underclothes. Stan hates how hard Ford shudders at the sight, wishing he knew how to respond. He wants to let Ford know he’s forgiven, that he understands. That he also made mistakes. Then just tell him that.

“Ford, it was an accident and I forgave ya for it already. I know ya didn’t mean to hurt me like that, even back then,” Stan reassures, though he’s not certain the words are helping by the way Ford looks so full of consternation and guilt, “And I’m sure ya had a reason to want that journal to stay untouched… It wasn’t really my place to decide what to do with it… It was yours, not mine.”

“It was a stupid reason, I should’ve just let you burn it,” Ford croaks bitterly, unable to hide newfound emotion as it strikes him, “Coming down to it, I really just… deserved to lose my eye.”

Stan stares, stunned at the self-deprecation Ford is showing him. It’s like looking in a mirror. Wasn’t he the one telling himself that he deserved to be kicked out of his home? Deserved everything he got on those streets until Ford called for him? He knows that feeling all too well and it makes him sick to know Ford feels the same way about what happened to him.

“No, no, you didn’t deserve that, okay?” Stan gets up and leans over to hug Ford, feeling him tense up a little before softening and reciprocating, “I’m sorry I couldn’t help you the way you needed me to back then. Get ya to a hospital and tell ya that everything’d be alright…”

Ford doesn’t respond outside of a muffled sob in Stan’s shoulder. Stan can’t quite believe this all started because of Ford casually cleaning his prosthetic eye in front of him, releasing the hug and moving his chair to sit right next to Ford as he sniffles and tries to calm down. Ford looks to the ground, eyes continuously tearing up. Good to know the tear ducts on that eye still work. Stan can’t help the chuckle at the thought, earning Ford’s confused attention.

Fuck, what to say that won’t be jerkish?

“On a lighter note, have ya ever thought of buildin’ a robot eye or… something?” Stan laughs nervously, though at least Ford seems to lighten up more than he expected at the question, “I mean, you’ve been out there in alien dimensions that are probably full of weird science junk… and all that.”

Ford smiles and it’s a nice genuine one after the heavy conversation before that probably should’ve brought him down.

“I have thought of it more than you think, Stan,” Ford chuckles, reaching into a pocket for something and balling his fist over it as he brings it over to the table, “To the point that I actually did have one during my journey. Unfortunately it got shot halfway through my journey by a bounty hunter, but I kept it as a keepsake.”

Ford opens his palm to show Stan a small metal prosthetic pretty similar in shape to the other one, showing signs of pretty bad damage through the center. With a squint, Stan can make out a fractured golden iris contrasting with the silver of the metal in a very unique and pretty way. He whistles and before he knows it, Ford’s handing the thing over to him. Stan hesitates, perplexed as to how his brother could trust him to hold something so fragile.

“Whoa… ‘t’s heavier than I thought it was gonna be…” Stan hefts the thing in his hands, admiring the craftsmanship as he cracks a joke, “How’d ya keep this heavy thing in your eye all day? Ya lift weights with your eyelids or somethin’?”

“Like this,” Ford takes the metal prosthetic back and Stan only has a moment’s notice before Ford’s poking his prosthetic out of its socket again to look away. Not like Stan’s not interested in what the broken prosthetic looks like being put in place, he’s just… not used to seeing the back of Ford’s eye socket with all its fleshy glory. Kinda freaky, if he’s being honest, though Stan would never say that to Ford’s face in a million years. “Let me see… out of my sighted eye I mean…”

Ford laughs under his breath at the pun as he slides the metal prosthetic into his empty socket like a change of clothes. It looks noticeably heavier and doesn’t move with his other eye as well as one would hope. Stan assumes the eye being broken probably has something to do with it, at least until the prosthetic starts glowing after Ford taps it with a finger. It’s a golden eye that moves with Ford’s organic one just as his normal prosthetic does but with a noticeable lag.

“Ha! I didn’t know it still turns on!” Ford grins from ear to ear as he plays around with shifting his gaze everywhere with glee, “Unfortunately its ability to send visual stimuli to my optic nerve is still as gone as it was when they shot it, but it can move and I can feel it!”

“Wait, that mean you could see with that thing? Before it got broken?” Stan asks, in awe of the possibilities as Ford nods, “Huh… thought losing an eye was the end of it… how’s it work?”

Ford clears his throat, an entire lecture coming on that Stan’s surprisingly looking forward to in comparison to his other know it all lectures.

“Well, the eye has advanced alien technology that allows for electrical signals to be sent remotely to specific nerves without physically connecting them together, like my optic nerve for example,” Ford gladly explains, pointing to the prosthetic as he talks, “However, while it doesn’t send me visual stimuli through my optic nerve anymore, it appears it can still obey my oculomotor nerves, allowing me to control its movement with more precision than I can with the other one, though I have a feeling it’s lagging more than it used to. Is it?”

“Mhm, definitely lagging…” Stan says with half a laugh as Ford looks up and down and left and right, even in circles, the prosthetic lagging behind his organic one more egregiously by the second, “Think it’s getting worse the more ya use it…”

Ford seems concerned about this, right as an arc of electricity shoots from the prosthetic and hits his glasses. He yelps and hurriedly massages the prosthetic out of his eye socket before it can hurt someone or something more than just his glasses. The oblong shape spins on its side like a coin on the table between them and Stan only hopes it doesn’t careen towards him as it starts smoking.

“…maybe I should’ve held off on turning it on,” Ford squeaks, holding his regular prosthetic between his fingers and trembling only a little as the metal thing sparks one last time and falls apart, “So much for having a keepsake…”

“Ya think?” Stan can’t hold back a grin as Ford returns his regular brown-eyed prosthetic to his socket, “It’s fine, who needs alien technology anyway? Though I bet McGucket could fix somethin’ up for ya, haven’t you said he built crazy devices and shit over the years that got him all that cash?”

Ford seems to think about this for a moment before shrugging.

“I bet he could, but it’s not a big priority now that I’m back home,” Ford smiles softly, his voice warm as he speaks about his best friend, “Besides, I thought you didn’t like him cuz of that… memory gun business.”

“Hey, I’m not an idiot, I know the guy’s a certified genius like you, I know he’d be able to do it,” Stan returns in defense, “Doesn’t mean I have to like him, y’know… doesn’t feel nice to know that memory gun was used on you… how many times?”

“I don’t know,” Ford admits honestly, analyzing the wood of the table between them with an awkward frown, “I only vaguely remember that one time he used it to keep me from knowing he didn’t destroy it like I asked, which… doesn’t mean much.”

“See, that’s the problem. You don’t know how many times he made you forget random shit for no good reason and he didn’t give you an apology,” Stan states nonchalantly, rolling his eyes and returning back to the original conversation, “I dunno, I’m not your boss. I bet whatever he builds for you would be just fine, if ya ever did wanna do that.”

Ford shakes his head with a humor in his eyes.

“I’ll let him know you think so highly of his work if I do want another bionic eye,” Ford looks Stan in the eye and grins as wide as he can, “But as I said, I’m fine with the one I have right now. It does the job I need it to do and that’s all that matters to me right now.”

“Hell yeah it does, I couldn’t even tell it was fake this entire time!” Stan exclaims, still a little in awe at the way his fake eye blends in as well as it does, “Must’ve been a talented prosthetic creator person that made it for ya…”

“He was definitely very skilled in the art of eyeball prosthesis, enough so that I have a small stash of replacements in a small sterilized jar,” Ford grins, an expression of reminiscence so clear that Stan can practically watch the memories playing on his face, “I wish I’d said or did something more than just… leaving his office with a simple ‘thanks’.”

“Wow, must’ve been quite a great guy to get that out of you,” Stan teases, punching Ford’s shoulder lightly in jest, “Just so grateful you finally got somethin’ to fill that little void, huh?”

“Oh, yes, I’m definitely grateful I had it made when I did. It was rather annoying to wear a pair of sunglasses or just a simple eye patch of fabric from my coat everywhere,” Ford muses about things out in the portal that only makes Stan feel more guilt than he knows is necessary, “You won’t believe how easy it is to be targeted when your opponent knows you’re half blind. I adapted well enough though.”

“No kidding, Sixer,” Stan thinks about the odds, just plain grateful that Ford beat them fair and square, “I’m happy you made it though. Wouldn’t know what I’d do with myself if I lost ya forever out there.”

Ford looks like something just occurred to him after Stan finished that sentence, becoming a little emotional in a way that Stan’s not sure he understands until Ford responds.

“Thank you for bringing me back, Stanley,” Ford reaches over for a hug, earning one so quick that Stan worries he broke one of his twin’s ribs in the process, “I’m sorry I was so stubborn about thanking you.”

“Eh, don’t worry about it,” Stan waves it away, running his hand through Ford’s hair absentmindedly, “It’s water under the bridge. Though it does feel nice to hear, I have to admit.”

“Better feel nice to hear, I only have one eye!” Ford cracks a smile and pats Stan on the back, any sign of his self-deprecation from earlier disappeared into thin air.

Stan laughs and Ford joins in soon after, any remaining tension seeping out of the room like a blanket of fog dissipating. Finding out Ford lost an eye like that was certainly not on his bingo card, but Stan’s glad to know about it. Even if it took Ford cleaning his prosthetic in front of him for him to even know about it. Which prompts another question.

“Hey, Ford, uh, I have another question,” Stan feels awkward the instant he starts talking, but Ford’s looking at him in anticipation now so he can’t really back out anymore, “How come I never caught ya cleaning that fake eye before? Seems like somethin’ you’d need to do regularly and all that.”

“I was thinking the same thing, honestly,” Ford chuckles, only bewildering Stan, “Have you never noticed me using eye drops or… I don’t know… blinking a lot?”

“I thought those were cuz ya got really dry eyes!” Stan defends with a good hearted grin, “Seriously though, when do ya clean that thing?”

“When I need to, Stanley,” Ford explains, his smile still plastered on his face, “Mostly when it gets too full of gunk from my tear ducts or the environment. Though I usually clean it at night, so you were probably asleep the last few times I needed to.

“Though I will say, you won’t believe how salty this thing gets spending every day out here, haha,” Ford looks Stan in the eye as he smiles, giving him ample chance to observe the minute differences between his fake eye and his real one in vain, “But I wouldn’t change this trip for the world, even if it meant a less salty prosthetic eye.”

“You mean that?” Stan asks softly, feeling his heart swell with relief at a worry he didn’t realize he had until Ford assuaged it just like that, “Heh, glad you’re enjoying this trip as much as I am… means a lot.”

It’s not long before Stan’s engulfed in a hug he didn’t know he needed before, his vision blurring as emotion courses through him like a river.

“Of course, it’s our dreams come true, isn’t it?” Ford holds him close as the river of emotion intensifies, “Whatever happened to my eye doesn’t have a chance of stopping it.”

Stan can only smile and hug Ford back, feeling the conversation winding down as the evening stretches into night like a very tired cat. Ford yawns, sealing the deal as he gets up. Stan chuckles and shakes his head, still a little perplexed that he hadn’t realized this one little fact about his twin’s eye until now. He wonders if the twins noticed… if he’s just slow on the uptake or something… when Ford starts to leave the room.

“Hey, wait, don’t ya wanna hear the rest of my jailbreak story?” Stan asks before Ford goes, reaching out to him like it’s really as important as he’s making it out to be, “I mean… I did just get derailed from my story when ya cleaned your prosthetic and all that.”

Ford smiles but Stan can see the exhaustion already answering his question.

“Oh, sorry about that. I completely forgot about your story while explaining what happened to my eye,” Ford says apologetically, but Stan can’t care any less after experiencing a conversation with his brother that needed to be had, “Would it be too frustrating to make you wait until tomorrow? You know I’ve been trying to keep up a proper sleep schedule lately and it’s… getting late.”

“No, no, don’t let me steal a good night sleep from ya!” Stan grins, cheerful as he sees Ford’s attempts at caring for himself, “I’ll be in there with ya shortly!”

Ford nods and heads off to their quarters without another word, clearly as exhausted as he said he was when he nearly bumps into the doorframe. Stan resists the urge to laugh, mind elsewhere.

Some things just aren’t digested easily, even when one tries to take it with humor.

What humor can erase the horrific experience Ford just related to him? Stan doesn’t know, but he’s certain whatever humor he’d used was not close to being enough of a distraction from it. He had to remove his own eye and all I can think of to say about it are stupid jokes and useless platitudes, how pathetic am I? Stan grumbles to himself as he gets to his feet, already on the deck before he can change his mind.

It’s still pretty light out here, which tripped Stan out when they’d made it to the Arctic the first time, but right now he can’t care less as he leans on the railing and contemplates.

There’s too much to think about. The casualness with which Ford cleaned his prosthetic in front of him like it was any other day, the horrifying details of his original eye’s infection and removal despite it being the clearly more sanitized version of the story Ford gave him, his part in pushing him into the portal and letting Ford’s eye get that badly infected. All of it.

He just needs some time alone to process it all. Alone time he’s been given thanks to Ford’s newfound attempts at a good sleep schedule and probable emotional exhaustion to top it all off.

Stan just sighs and prepares for a long night dwelling on things.

Ford startles from a long, much needed sleep, groggily looking for his glasses. He reaches over to his nightstand, but only finds hardwood where it’s supposed to be. That’s odd. Ford blinks, realizing with a start that his right eye is… sighted. He can see. That’s impossible, I don’t have a bionic eye anymore, just a polymer prosthetic for appearances…

With this, Ford finds himself looking at his surroundings with a strange kind of mental distance, finding it incredibly strange to be seeing out of an eye that had been removed thirty years prior more than where he happens to be. At least until he realizes he’s no longer on his and Stan’s boat. He’s not sure, but… he’s back home.

And not even the Mystery Shack as it has become now, but… the home as he knew it thirty years ago. He’s lying in what’s now supposed to be the gift shop, reeling as he sees that it’s just a storage room. The metal door that was replaced with a vending machine is still here, bloody scratches proving Bill’s presence. Ford winces and looks to his hands, bloody and aching knuckles staring him in the face like Bill had just started to tear at the door just last night.

“What? Why am I back here?” Ford asks himself, fearing the worst as laughter screeches in his head, “Was the past, er, future thirty years just a… twisted dream Bill gave me?”

He feels sick at the thought, sitting in the storage room and wishing to be in the gift shop in a strange change up of emotions. He used to feel vitriolic about the changes Stan made to his house, but now he can’t help to beg the universe to return him to the kitschy merchandise and the faux anomalies. He’d grown fond of the tourist trap as Soos gave Stan updates on the place, hoping it wasn’t all erased in him waking up to his living nightmare thirty years ago.

It’s certainly in character for Bill to give him vivid nightmares of whatever it’s like on the other side of the portal. Then to wave a happy ending in front of his face where he returned home again, Bill was defeated, he and his twin reconciled and everything was okay again. Only to remove it in the blink of an eye as quick as a rug pull. It all felt so real… do I have to go through it all again just to have a taste of happiness? I don’t know if I can handle another thirty years of that hell…

Tears run down his face at the idea of running through the worst parts of his life all over again. He can’t do it. He’d rather drown in the lake like Bill threatened that one horrible time than get thrown in the portal again. To hurt his brother again. Then something probably stupidly obvious occurs to him.

Why does he have to hurt his brother again, if he knows how that’ll go? If he knows he and Stan will have a happy ending but his words in the portal room caused this much agony, couldn’t he change the future for the better? Give him and Stan an easier time of it by explaining his dilemma properly? He doesn’t even have to call Stan, he knows burning the journals is the easier course of action.

But having spent plenty of months sailing with Stan only informs him that being without him is a nightmare he never wants to go through again. So he’ll call him up and it’ll be for reconciling reasons rather than the mission he’d given him before, and the journals would be gone anyway. Then they’ll have decades more time together and he’ll get their happy ending thirty years quicker!

Ford’s about to make a coherent plan in this direction when the laughter in his skull grows painful until it pounds in his head. Then before he can even finish processing the fact that he’s in pain, he feels like all that pain spills right into his eye, feeling the awfully familiar burning soreness until it spills blood and pus down his face with a pop. Ford trembles and holds the eye with a hand, praying for an easier way to get it out of his own skull, right as a loud series of knocks echo in the empty cabin with threatening insistence. Ford ignores it, fear seizing his heart.

The knocks become loud pounding strikes that each sound like it will destroy the door if they were any harder. Ford peers at the door, finding the figure of a person in the window that he can’t see very well because of his suddenly blinded eye and missing glasses. He whimpers when the punching ends up snapping something in the doorframe. Ford curls away, unable to stop glancing back as the figure breaks through the door and walks over.

“Stan?” Ford asks as he peers over a few moments later, seeing that he’s how he was thirty years ago with that maroon jacket and brown hair styled in a messy mullet, “Is that you? Are… you here to help me? I… my eye, you see…”

Ford gestures at his broken eye, hopeful that Stan just arrived from the post card note or something and will help him with his eye as he’d seemed like he would’ve in their late conversation last night. A last night that has been called into serious question waking up thirty years before it ever occurred. But something about his composure is unsettling and makes Ford only scrabble backwards as he comes closer with a wide painful grin.

“Au contraire, Sixer,” The voice out of Stan’s mouth is unnatural and Ford hides a gasp as he scans his twin’s face with his sighted eye to see the telltale yellow of possession within his eyes, “My eye stealing buddy is out sick today, so I thought I’d take things into my own hands! This is gonna be fun!”

With this, Bill in Stan’s body pulls out a sharp tool from his jacket that Ford recognizes as an awl for bookbinding. He’d used one making his journal. It’s sharp and much more threatening than the tool he’d used on himself. Which is saying a lot, because Ford had to psyche himself up for an hour straight to remove it back then. But he supposes this is technically his first time now that he’s woken up from his thirty year dream.

What is he doing, he can’t just let this happen!

Ford tries to get up to flee the scene, but Bill is on top of him before he even has a chance to get to his knees. Stan’s arms are strong, just as strong as he’d remembered from the portal fight, but Ford fights against him for his life with a yell. He bucks and thrashes, but nothing he does frees him from the hold Bill has him in. It’s so tight he sees stars in his undamaged eye.

“Stan… Stan wake up! You’re about to hurt me, your brother!” Ford cries as a last resort, only earning Bill’s heartless laugh in return as he raises the awl above his head, “Stan! Stan please!”

Ford looks away from Stan and his possessed eyes, unable to look at the awl pointing at his blurry and broken eye without screaming in terror. The said scream is the only thing out of his mouth as it bears down on him with no remorse.

And then it hits his eye, exploding it in a singularity of pain he can’t quantify. Blood and pus pours down his face and Bill cackles evilly as he moves to do the same to his other one. No! Ford can’t let him do the same to his other eye! He’d gotten used to losing his depth perception and the coordination issues that arose from it over the years, but not total blindness!

Ford fights even stronger, unable to stop the tears or the blood from flowing as Bill prepares to use Stan for the ultimate purpose of blinding him entirely. He screams and bashes his head against Stan’s in his attempts to free himself, only stunning himself from any further fighting while Bill gets back into stabbing position faster than he can process.

There’s no choice, Ford loses all his fight and lets Bill stab his other eye out while the first one is still screaming in pain.

Bill stabs downward and the last thing Ford sees before he’s fully blinded is Stan’s unpossessed eyes still smiling sadistically down at him like it’s a pleasure to blind his own brother.

And it doesn’t even surprise him. Ford just deserved to lose his eye and Stan knows it most of all after all he’s done to hurt him. Stan probably wanted him to lose his other one the whole time and this is just his dreams coming true in the best way. The worst way for Ford, but this is just his punishment, bleeding from both eyes with excruciating pain he can’t ignore, so he has no right to complain about it.

Ford screams his agony as he feels Stan throw him to the hard wood floor of the storage room, Bill’s laughter intermixed with Stan’s stabbing through his heart.

“Ford! Ford! Wake up!”

The words make no sense, he’s already awake and feeling the worst kind of pain imaginable. He lost thirty years of his life in a way he can never get back.

“You’re having a nightmare, wake up!”

He feels Stan’s arms around him again and he tenses up, afraid of more pain.

Then he wakes up. Again.

He blinks. His right eye is still gone but… his left eye is sighted. He looks around, finding the old and kind face of his twin looking at him with worry. He pants for breath, his chest hurting like his heart had been racing. It’s still racing. He touches his cheek, trails of tears on every inch of it.

It was just a dream. A nightmare.

“Hey, hey, it’s okay. Whatever your nightmare was about… it’s not real,” Stan soothes kindly, patting him on the back as he regains his bearings, “You’re safe… Bill’s dead… I’m here.”

Ford feels sick as he sobs, unsure if he should even tell him what the nightmare was about this time. He stiffens when Stan moves in for a hug, remembering the Stan in his nightmare gleefully blinding him with a sharp phantom pain in both eyes. Stan gives him a look of concern when Ford pulls out of his hug. He feels bad about it knowing that he usually likes to be hugged after having nightmares.

This time isn’t different, but Ford doesn’t want to feel trapped in Stan’s arms right now. At least Stan has the decency to back off, giving him much needed space as he tries to understand anything about what happened in his nightmare. It’s so fuzzy looking back on it, but he shakes his head and tries to find solace in Stan’s presence.

He looks at Stan and sees him analyzing his face. Probably trying to find a difference between my real eye and my fake one… Ford thinks but he hates being so fixated on that part of himself so soon after a nightmare related to it so he just looks away uncomfortably. Stan seems so worried and Ford’s not sure what’s worse. Knowing he had a terrible nightmare or that he must’ve thrashed about enough to worry his brother like this. He’ll get over his nightmare, he always does.

But Ford’s heart refuses to stop racing. His lungs refuse to stop hyperventilating. His eyes refuse to stop hurting. Even as Stan rubs his back in that special way that always calms him down after a nightmare. His mind creeps through even as Stan whispers comforting platitudes in his ear. Who’s to say he didn’t pass out after Stan stabbed his eyes out and… he’s been sent back to his dream to placate him?

The thought terrifies him with how realistic it feels. Bill really would be that cruel.

Didn’t Stan tell me that Bill’s dead? How’d he know it was a dream about Bill?

Easy, Ford’s nightmares are about Bill a lot of the time and it’s a likely guess. But Ford is too unsure to really trust that this isn’t a farce. He trembles and wonders if he should try waking up for real as Stan continues to ask him something he’s not paying attention to at all. At least until he pats him on the shoulder in a way that isn’t ignorable.

Ford looks at Stan, suspicious of his realness.

“Ford, are… are you with me? You look really out of it…” Stan asks, concern blanketing his features, “Do you feel able to talk about your nightmare?”

Stan’s face looks nothing but genuine, but of course a dream Stan would be genuine. It’s only to trick him into thinking his nightmare isn’t reality.

“Don’t need to talk about it when I’m… living it,” Ford mumbles, hoping Stan doesn’t catch it by the way he looks confused, “This isn’t real. You’re just placating me after my eyes got stabbed out by Bill…”

Stan stares at him, confusion becoming horror, as if his trick was found out. Ford curls away and out of his grip, keeping Stan on his sighted eye’s side just in case he’s planning to try something. Stan only tries to get closer, put a hand on his shoulder or even go for a hug again and Ford’s not having it.

“Stop it!” Ford shouts, his voice tremulous and scared more than he wants it to come out, “Get away from me!”

Ford can’t be around Stan right now, not when he’s afraid he’s fully blind in the real world and it’s because of him. He pushes past him and runs through the boat, looking for an adequate hiding spot before Stan can react.

It doesn’t make sense how fast he finds himself in the bathroom, tucked into one of the corners with no memory of running there. Another point towards this being a dream. He just sits and rocks back and forth, his heart pounding in his chest as he reckons with thirty years of his life being a lie. Of his eyes being gouged out by a brother he thought he knew with the help of his worst enemy.

Stan knocks on the door and Ford can’t be bothered to answer, even as a sob forces him to make his position known like a mental traitor. Tears run down his face as the knocks become more insistent, reminding Ford of his nightmare in a horrible way. Is Stan after his remaining eye in this dream too? Is that what’s happening here?

Ford doesn’t know but he doesn’t want to risk it as Stan’s voice reaches his ears.

“Ford, I… what’s wrong?” The question is only a distraction to keep him from realizing he’s hiding from the real torture, “I thought it was just a normal nightmare… did I say something?”

Ford can’t answer him, sobbing and wiping his eyes so much and so hard he feels his prosthetic slipping out of its eye socket and landing in his palm. He opens his hand and gazes at it, sobbing harder as he remembers the day he found the perfect prosthetic artist that was willing to give him a discounted price for a sizing in an alternate Earth dimension. Staying there for the two weeks needed to get it fitted and order as many as he’d need for the rest of his journey and more was an easy decision he’d never change for anything.

This one is his fifteenth, if he’s counting right. He’s had to spread their use over the course of not having a good place to stop and change them out. At least until he tried out that bionic eye, in which case that lasted him a good few years or so before it got shot in battle. Then he had to go back to using this kind, which he was fine with. The bionic eye’s visuals were disorienting and gave him a splitting headache on bad days and Ford’s… not keen on coming back to that considering most of his days had been bad back then.

What is he even thinking anyway? All that hasn’t happened if his nightmare was reality.

But something feels off about the way he can remember something so minute about his time in the portal, if he’s really thinking about his theory that the last thirty years were a dream. Off enough to just want his brother’s hug and assurance that everything’s okay. To get his opinion on his nightmare and to just not be alone anymore.

“Ford? Can I come in?” Stan asks again, his voice soft and comforting in a way that just disarms Ford’s worries just like that, “I hate hearin’ ya crying to yourself and I just wanna know you’re okay…”

“You can come in…” Ford manages through his rough throat, his voice breaking as the door swings open with a deliberate slowness, “I’m sorry…”

Stan walks in and he’s so tired looking that Ford wishes he hadn’t woken him up with his stupid problems. But all Stan does is take one look at him and, though Ford can see him wincing at his empty eye socket, walks over and gives him the hug he’d been so desperate for. Part of his mind freaks out, still stuck in his nightmare ‘reality’ but his prosthetic eye managed to help him with more than just its regular purpose.

It helped him logic his way out of his nightmare a bit more fully, at least enough to be comfortable letting Stan hug him. And he savors it as long as he can, before Stan asks the question Ford knows has been coming ever since he woke up from the nightmare. Ford sits and feels a bit awkward in the corner of the bathroom but he’s feeling too emotional to care.

“Ford… ya don’t have to answer if you’re really not comfortable, but…” Stan gulps and looks away, tears pricking his eyes, “What was your nightmare about? I’ve… never seen ya get this bad about them before…”

“It felt so real…” Ford chokes out at first, the only words he can really think right now before more of them spill from his mouth, “I… I was back in my house but… ‘afore you got there… ‘afore I was blind in my eye…”

Ford points to his empty socket and it’s like a switch flips in Stan’s mind in that he’s actually looking into it instead of uncomfortably ignoring it. Like he needed permission to notice the sagging and kinda freaky opening where his eye used to be. Ford knows the sight takes some used to before comfort with it comes into play, but Stan seems like he’s challenging the issue of comfort head on with his apparent approval. And that means so much more than he can really say. Especially as his words falter under the memories of the nightmare.

“I… then my eye got sore again… blood and pus spilled out of it, just like it did when it got infected…” Ford shudders under the weight as Stan listens carefully to his retelling, “I… waking up back then, I started to think…”

Stan gives him a face that urges him to explain further but Ford’s crying and his mind’s going back to the idea that this isn’t real before he looks back down at his prosthetic as a reminder to his stupid mind that it’s okay and that’s just fear talking. He takes a long breath and says what he’s been terrified of this whole time.

“I started to think that the past thirty years were only a dream Bill gave me… it… it’s not out of character for him…” Ford squeezes the fake eye in his hand a little before Stan hugs him closer, “Then you walked in.”

“What did I do in your dream?” Stan asks but Ford’s no longer sure he wants to elaborate on his nightmare when he remembers the sadistic joy his dream twin had when he stabbed him in the eye, “Ford?”

“You don’t want to know…” Ford tries but Stan’s being too fixated on it by the way he sighs, “You were possessed by Bill.”

Stan reacts to this fact, putting pieces together in his eyes. Ford can’t bear to look at him as he relates the worst part.

“Bill took an awl out of your jacket… an awl is an… extremely sharp tool for bookbinding,” Ford winces as he remembers the sight of it being stabbed into his eyes while Stan looks too stunned for words, “Then Bill… he pinned me to the floor and… stabbed my infected eye out… it hurt so much, and I was only dreaming!”

“Oh Ford… that’s awful…” Stan gasps, the only words he’d dared to speak after Ford started speaking, “I’m sorry you had such a terrible nightmare…”

“It… it gets worse…” Ford chokes, leaving Stan truly speechless, “Bill finished stabbing the eye I’m used to losing, but… then he moved to my other eye and then… stabbed that one too… but that’s not… that’s not all…”

“I… don’t get how that’s not all,” Stan states hesitantly, faltering as Ford gives him a look, “But… go on.”

“The last thing I saw… before I lost my vision entirely… was… was…” Ford gulps, suddenly afraid of telling Stan as if he’ll be upset or assume he’s accusing him of something terrible, “You looking at me, unpossessed, smiling at me without Bill’s influence and laughing along with him as… as I was completely blinded…”

The silence is louder and more painful than any silence he’s ever experienced. Ford glances at Stan to see his hands covering his mouth in shock and horror as he looks into his eye and his socket, a tremble passing between them as minutes go by without a word spared between them. Ford analyzes the bathroom floor long before Stan starts talking again, horrific memories playing in his head.

“So when you were actin’ all uncomfy with me huggin’ ya and shit… it was cuz you thought I just stabbed your eyes out?” Stan asks, his voice a pained whisper as Ford gives a trembling nod, “God, Ford… I’m sorry…”

Ford doesn’t know why he starts to cry at Stan’s seeming apology, even though he knows logically that he never did what he did in the nightmare and is just sharing his sympathy, but he is. The tears fill up his empty socket and he just feels too wet and sad and afraid to do anything but continue to sob. Stan doesn’t let him cry alone, already wrapping him up close with a soothing voice he whispers in his ear, rocking him from side to side until Ford’s heart finally finds a reason to calm down its racing.

“It… it felt so real…” Ford murmurs quietly, hating the hesitance in his own voice, “I was so scared… It hurt so much…”

“Bill can’t hurt ya anymore, he’s dead and we know it best of all,” Stan runs a hand through his tangled hair, grounding Ford more than anything else, “And you know I would never do that to ya, not… not in a trillion years.”

Ford nods, sobs interrupting the gesture until Stan holds him closer. He knows Stan would never think to blind him with an awl. He feels terrible about being afraid of him for that, wishing he’d logic-ked his way out of his thinking before he did that. But unfortunately fears aren’t always logical. And Ford hates that, wishing he didn’t struggle with bringing his fear from nightmares into the real world. And this wasn’t even close to being the worst time he couldn’t tell reality from his dreams.

He shudders remembering the last full day that the kids were back home and they played music. He was sent into a panic attack when they played that one “We’ll Meet Again” song from Vera Lynn, the same song that Bill sang to him in the Fearamid before torturing him. He wholeheartedly believed he was being tortured, that real life was a dream Bill was putting him under for hours. Stan had helped him realize his fears weren’t real after a long time spent being so patient with him.

He supposes he should be proud that he was able to jostle his mind out of the fears without too much help from Stan. But he just feels drained of all emotion that doesn’t generate tears as he makes Stan’s underclothes wet with them.

“The… worst part is…” Ford can’t let it go, his mindset after Stan blinded him in his nightmare, “I just… I know I deserved to lose my eyes. If that… happened somehow. As my punishment for being so horrible to everyone I love… I was given a slap on the wrist with this one…”

Ford points to his eye socket again and laughs bitterly. This time Stan gives it the revulsion it deserves. Ford doesn’t get it when Stan’s voice is strained and insistent when he responds.

“Ford. Stop saying that,” Stan’s voice is more severe than Ford thinks it warrants, “You havin’ to remove your eye cuz of infection or potentially losin’ both of your eyes ain’t a punishment for shit and I ain’t standing for ya talkin’ about it as if it is.”

Ford can’t speak, left to wonder why Stan’s being so intense about something he’s always taken as true. He’s deserved something bad happening to him and it might as well be losing one of his eyes, right?

“You never deserved that. Not one bit,” Stan points a finger at him, close enough to his eye socket to make him nervous, “Ford, I lost my teeth biting my way out of a car trunk so I had ta use dentures fifty years too early cuz I made a bad deal. Do you think I deserved that? Huh?”

Ford’s heart pounds when Stan pulls out his dentures, undeniable proof of his claim. Guilt rushes through him as he remembers Stan’s rant at him thirty years ago. The rant he was barely listening to through the sound of his own terror at the rising apocalypse he’d started.

“No… no you didn’t deserve that, they did something horrible to you…” Ford says under his breath to Stan’s face, who seems to be challenging him to say something that terrible about his dentures as he returns them to his mouth, “But you didn’t threaten everyone’s lives on the entire planet just for your own curiosity, did you?”

“Ford, I don’t know how to tell you this, but sometimes people lose eyes and shit and it ain’t a sign they did somethin’ wrong. Losin’ a body part ain’t a punishment, it just… happens sometimes,” Stan sighs and Ford doesn’t have anything to say to that point, “Bill did something horrible to you, just like those gangs in Colombia did something horrible to me. and I want you to get that through your painfully stubborn skull before you hurt yourself more than Bill did!”

Ford can’t look into Stan’s eyes, his ‘stubborn skull’ slipping Stan’s words through a bit better now that it’s been framed this way. And Stan’s still going, insisting on making his point crystal clear in a way that Ford finds he appreciates more than he realizes he would.

“And hey, let’s get another big thing out of the way. Bill tricked you. You didn’t go into things knowing his real goals, did you?” Stan asks, his expression the most serious it’s been since he’s started, “It’s not your fault for being manipulated and trusting the wrong guy. I know, I did it too. I fell for shit a lot in my early days on the street. But you ain’t blamin’ me for that, are you?”

“No… what you’re saying… it sounds right, I just…” Ford swallows a lump in his throat that’s been there almost the entire time without him even noticing, “I just can’t reconcile that in my head, Stan. I’ve felt the guilt of letting Bill into our world for so long that it’s hard to… see it as being anything other than my fault… that my eye was just… recompense for all I’ve done…”

Ford curls against himself, which Stan takes as a clear invitation to hug him closer until he’s no longer feeling anything other than the calming pressure of his embrace. At least until Stan starts to chuckle to himself like an inside joke Ford’s not privy to. Ford looks at Stan and nothing but confusion leaves his face as his twin shakes his head and explains the laughter.

“Ford, your eye’s not recombabulates or whatever you just said!” Stan seems to Ford to be a little delirious now as he continues to laugh, “It’s Bill’s eye!”

Stan points to Ford’s eye socket and now Ford’s real confused at the tone switch.

“What?” Ford can only ask, bewilderment winning out from his emotional turmoil, “That doesn’t make any sense.”

“The guy only had one eye, right?” Stan asks, getting excited when Ford nods haltingly, “Would it be too big a leap to assume your eye got sore cuz he was too used to only having one eye and overused yours or somethin’?”

It makes sense but Ford’s not understanding how this connects to the conversation at hand.

“I suppose that might’ve been a possibility… I don’t know how overusing an eye works with his possessions, but it makes sense. Knowing him though, he’d have hurt my eye on purpose with that method,” Ford mumbles, hand on his chin as he considers it, “But, Stan, what does that idea have anything to do with my guilt? If anything, it makes me feel worse about my choice to trust Bill.”

“I dunno, made ya think about somethin’ else?” Stan looks at Ford hopefully, “Also it makes Bill look pathetic. He can’t even adapt to two eyes, while you’ve been rocking with one eye less than normal for thirty years! Also he’s an ass for blindin’ that eye. Don’t forget that.”

It’s a miracle how Stan’s words work to help Ford see things differently after years of always seeing it only one way.

“Oh… I never thought of it that way, at least with how Bill was pathetic for being unable to adjust to binocular vision, or refusing to do so in any case,“ Ford muses and Stan nods approvingly with a smile that’s strangely… proud? “I already knew he was an ass for blinding me, I just… it’s hard not to think of all the ways he pulled the wool over my eyes when I was supposed to know better! I was stupid…”

“Hey, you’re the smartest person I know, don’t let some con artist take that from ya, okay?” Stan has his hands on his shoulders again and it’s the most comforting thing, “Now, let’s get off of the bathroom floor, okay? I can feel my knees crumbling.”

Ford laughs as Stan gets to his feet ever so carefully, grumbling at various pops and creaks, only to feel the worst pain in his legs as he tries to get up too. Stan helps him up, looking down at his hand and back to his eye socket. Ford suddenly remembers his prosthetic eye, which he’d been clutching this whole time. Peering at it, it’s fine except for the fact that his hand has gotten so clammy that it’s covered in sweat. Not… something he should be placing back in his sensitive eye socket.

“You… gonna put your prosthetic back in your eye?” Stan asks verbally when Ford stares for too long at the intricate details on the iris and sclera of the thing, “Ford?”

“Oh, sorry, I… need to clean the sweat off of it first haha,” Ford chuckles, turning to the sink in the bathroom, “Could you get one of my soft towels I packed? There should be a clean one near the dryer.”

Stan thumbs up as Ford washes the prosthetic again, the second time in a twelve hour period. Ford knows it’s not recommended to clean it that often, but… he doesn’t really have a choice. It’s soothing to wipe all the sweat off and polish it off with some of their softest soaps, a process Ford enjoys for the moment as he thinks of all that’s happened in relation to his eye.

It… it’s honestly a relief that he’s been given the chance to tell his twin about his prosthetic and how he lost his eye. Ford had been afraid of freaking Stan out and being rejected for it in general. It’s a stupid fear after Stan showed him as much love as he has for him, but it was a fear. He’d also hoped it wouldn’t change their relationship too much, but if anything it’s made their relationship so much stronger in the process.

Gives them room to talk about their lives with support rather than judgment or bitter feelings. Ford knows they struggle to talk about things, but maybe losing an eye helped them with those communication issues more than he can ever hope. Ford smiles at the thought as he rinses his prosthetic eye off and waits for Stan to get him his towel for drying. He hadn’t needed to wait before putting it back in the last time, but Ford would rather not irritate his eye socket any more than it already is via the pooling of tears.

Stan hands him the towel for drying not too long after Ford finishes rinsing the eye of water and soap. He’s about to put his eye back into his socket where it goes after a thorough drying session but he hears the unmistakable sound of their laptop receiving a call from their niblings. Stan nudges him in a way that almost gets him to drop the slippery thing on the floor. Thankfully he keeps a hold on it, though he gives Stan a dirty look.

“Hey, you up to playin’ a prank on the kids?” Stan asks with a smug grin, acting as if he hadn’t caused Ford to need another cleaning or a search for his remaining stash of extra eyes, “Come on, you can only do somethin’ like this once! Live a little!”

Ford only takes a few moments to think about it before he feels the idea excite him more than anything else.

“I need a distraction from my eye trauma, let’s do it,” Ford grins, almost putting in his eye before Stan grabs his wrist, “What?”

“I got a better way, trust me. I’ll warm ‘em up!” Stan smiles deviously while Ford awkwardly holds his prosthetic in his palm, “Just hide your prosthetic and I’ll let ya know what to get and when to enter the frame.”

Ford doesn’t know what he’s gotten into, but he’s down for it after the horrific nightmare he’d suffered through. Seeing the kids and revealing his missing eye to them as a prank is just too good to pass up, even as he tries to portray himself as straight-laced. Living with Stan 24/7 has only shown him that that portrayal of himself is a fraud that Ford’s glad to kill in an alleyway if given the chance.

He just hopes Stan’s not going too far and the kids will see the humor in it like he believes. Stan keeps whispering that they’ve seen weirder in Gravity Falls and it’ll be fine along the way anyway, assuming Ford’s less enthusiastic about the idea than he is.

Only way to know is to try.

This is going to be fun.

“You guys been havin’ a good school year?” Stan asks the twins on the screen, who both look tired after a long day of school, “Find any girls your age that you like, Dipper?”

“Uh, I dunno…” Dipper scratches his head as Mabel giggles, “But I’ve been busy with schoolwork so it… hasn’t come up… really.”

“Dip-Dop’s missin’ a girl from Gravity Faaalls!” Mabel teases, winking at Stan playfully as Dipper gets beet red, “I’ve caught him texting her all the time!”

“Sh-shut up, Mabel!” Dipper hisses, only eliciting laughter in the other two in the call, “I thought you promised to keep that a secret!”

“Hey, the promise was not to tell my friends during lunch, not Grunkle Stan over a call!” Mabel ruffles Dipper’s hair and Stan’s already amused by their antics, “He oughta know you’re not just a shut-in nerd like Grunkle Ford, haha!”

“So who’s this ‘girl’, Dipper?” Stan asks, trying to keep their attention away from Ford for as long as possible until he’s ready to kick off the prank he’d briefed with Ford before answer the call for, “Better not be Wendy again, watchin’ ya chase after her like a baby duck was…”

Stan grimaces in a way that Mabel finds amusing, before he finds an adequate way to describe it.

“About as painful as watching a docked dog chase its tail,” Stan lands on with a smug smile, watching Dipper cover his tomato-shaded ears out of embarrassment, “Hey, just tellin’ it as it is!”

Stan peeks out of the corner of his eye to see Ford giving him a little disapproving look and he remembers Ford’s efforts to not make fun of the kid with a sigh.

“I’m just teasin’ ya, kid. You know that,” Stan lightens up, wishing he could ruffle his hair like Mabel is, “Anyway, uh… sorry, it’s a habit Sixer’s been tryin’ to get me to lay off of with ya. Still workin’ on it.”

Ford nods with a little thumbs up from off screen, right as the moment of the reveal becomes eminent. Stan scrambles to get his game face on hold as Dipper asks the question that calls the prank into play. Ford’s prosthetic eye is in his palm, his socket empty.

“Speaking of Ford, where is he?” Dipper seems a little perplexed while Mabel nods along with confusion of her own, “You guys are usually sitting together when we call you. Is he okay?”

“Uh, he should be? Let me go ask for him…” Stan asks mysteriously, calling for Ford with his best acting, “Sorry kids, you called when he was out doin’ something on the boat, I dunno what. You know how he is.”

Stan looks to the side as Ford gets into position with a bloody towel from gutting some of their fish last night, putting on a horrified and shocked expression as Ford carefully puts the towel on his socket. Ford pauses, giving Stan a chance to say something about his apparent accident.

“Oh my god, Ford are you… what happened?” Stan asks, his voice as afraid for Ford’s life as he could make it while the twins gasp and ask what’s going on, “What hurt you? I thought you were just fishin’ or somethin’!”

Ford walks into frame holding his eye and Stan acts like he’s trying to keep the kids from seeing him. Mabel shrieks and Dipper frantically continues to ask what’s going on.

“Stanley… I… it came out of nowhere… I… my eye hurts!” Ford groans and Stan almost worries that the pain is real as he presses the towel close to his eye, “Stan… where’s the med kit?”

“Hold on, hold on, let me see the damage!” Stan demands, pulling the towel out of Ford’s grip and gasping loudly, “Ford… I… it’s bad! It’s real bad! It’s gone!”

“That’s not possible!” Ford feels his socket with a frantic pace that makes Stan wonder if he’d been like that after he actually removed it, “I don’t believe you!”

Mabel screams when Ford looks at the laptop with a weary blink.

“AAAAA GRUNKLE FORD, GRUNKLE FORD, WHAT HAPPENED TO YOUR EYE?!” She shrieks while Dipper stares in stunned silence, leaving Stan to hope Ford’s worries weren’t more closer to the truth as the twins hyperventilate, “WHAT’S GOING ON?!”

There’s a beat of silence after Mabel’s panicked question, one where Stan is sure he should break the prank to them and hope they’ll forgive him while Ford looks nervous that they’d gone too far but neither of them doing anything, frozen. A pin drop would echo across the world with the kind of silence surrounding them.

Then the most inexplicable thing happens, the twins look at each other and laugh their heads off.

It sure breaks the tension, but it only leaves both Stan and Ford extremely confused. Ford sits down, stunned enough at the twins’ strange reaction to forget to put his prosthetic back in. Stan leaves it, wondering about the explanation as the kids continue to lose their breath laughing. They calm down before too long, though their laughter is apparently hard to contain.

“Okay, I think I need an explanation for that reaction to Ford losing his eye right in front of us,” Stan states drily as the kids finally find words, “Jokes aside, I thought it was gonna be a perfect prank! You thought that too, didn’t you, Ford?”

“Yeah… I was sure we’d get you…” Ford mumbles sheepishly, already reddening with embarrassment. Probably that it hadn’t worked the way he thought it would, “I was even worried you guys’d take it badly or something… I don’t know.”

Dipper clears his throat and earns their attention as he explains.

“Grunkle Ford, we already kinda figured you lost your eye and was using a prosthetic,” He states as if it isn’t the most surprising thing he’d said to them, “I thought you’d tell us about it before we left, honestly. We… didn’t want to just ask out of nowhere if you were uncomfortable with telling us.”

Ford takes a second to absorb this before asking the question on both of their minds.

“You… already knew? I don’t think I cleaned my prosthetic in front of you like I did with Stanley here…” Ford muses, half to himself as he holds a hand on his chin, “What gave it away?”

“The art is really good, but prosthetics like that can’t contract their pupils so it… makes it obvious that it’s not real, at least to me,” Dipper answers nonchalantly, “Also it’s not always aligned with your other one.”

Ford squirms a little, looking away as if ashamed of those tells Dipper had picked up on. Stan puts a hand on his shoulder to keep him grounded from whatever shame is coursing through his mind at the moment.

“I… didn’t realize it was so obvious…” Ford’s voice is quiet in a way that implies he’s more upset than he’s letting on, “You’re… quite observant, Dipper.”

Dipper wraps an arm around Mabel.

“Grunkle Ford, it’s not the fault of you or your prosthetic that we could figure it out,” Dipper’s voice goes soft, attempting to reassure Ford in a way Stan knows he might need right now, “I’d actually say it’s the fault of my sister that we knew what to look for. Sorry Mabel.”

Mabel giggles lightheartedly before looking up and poking her left eye, sliding out a prosthetic that Stan apparently hadn’t noticed either during their whole summer. It’s glittery while still looking natural otherwise and Stan realizes he’d brushed that off as just something she did to her eye with her projects when he’d noticed the sparkle. Ford seems more engaged in the conversation now, practically glued to the sight of Mabel holding her prosthetic out of her socket and showing it off.

“How… how did I not notice that?” Stan asks breathlessly as Mabel giggles at his confusion, “Didn’t ya have to clean that regularly or whatever like Ford?”

“I did that when we brushed our teeth, on days it got too gunky from adventures!” Mabel exclaims with a grin as she gets her eye back into place, “I have more colorful ones but Mom wanted me to pick one of the ‘low-key’ ones for our summer, which is this glittery one!”

Stan threads his fingers together, trying to understand how he is only now receiving the information that two members of his family lost their eyes somehow. Which begs the obvious question once more, but Stan’s feeling a bit hesitant about asking Mabel about it. The kids certainly aren’t cautious or slow about asking Ford about the circumstances about his eye before too long though. Or even answering Stan’s immediate question without prompt.

“I lost my eye to one of my knitting needles when we were seven, I tripped and fell while holding them at just the right angle to stab right through,” Mabel explains and Stan can only wince at the picture, “I… was afraid of them for a while, but I figured it out with Dipper’s help! Always wanted to knit sweaters too much to let that deter me… Actually, last summer knitting my own sweaters was my big hurrah for healing from that!”

“Yeah, nothing was gonna stop your creativity!” Dipper cheers, hugging Mabel close with a supportive smile, “Anyway, Grunkle Ford! What crazy mishap took your eye?”

Ford looks like he’s been put on the spot, though he and Stan had already sorta worked out how to tell the kids about it before the kids gave them a shock of their own. He just needs a second to recalibrate how he’s going to tell them.

“It’s not as easy to swallow as what happened to Mabel’s eye, just to be clear kids,” Ford warns gently before diving into it with a tone that quickly sobers Dipper and Mabel up from their teasing and giggling moods, “I lost my eye to repeated possessions from Bill. It started to bleed and go blind after he betrayed me and after Stan…”

Ford looks at Stan with a frown like he’s worried about referring to what Stan did in any negative capacity and Stan can only shrug and nod a quick ‘go on,’ without any bitterness to get him to continue.

“After Stan pushed me into the portal, it…” Ford sighs, apparently hesitant to relate the worst part of the story as the kids stare at him, absolutely transfixed, “It became badly infected after only the first few dimensions I ended up in.”

The kids seem to gather the implications, Dipper covering his mouth with both of his hands and Mabel averting her eyes.

“It got bad enough that I had to… remove… my own eye just to stop the infection from spreading and becoming fatal…” Ford finishes, his face a full frown as the kids try to make words, “I’m sorry kids, I… knew it would be a lot for you two to take in, especially over a video call…”

“Oh, Grunkle Ford, it’s okay!” Mabel says not a second after Ford stopped talking, eyes back to look at him with a smile, “Losing your eye like that… that sounds scary and awful… but that knitting needle was scary too! It could’ve gotten into my brain or something and I was lucky it didn’t! You’re lucky you were able to get that eye out before it took you from us too!”

“I see your point, Mabel. I’m just worried my stories from my past aren’t all butterflies and rainbows and I’ll only scare you two with most of them,” Ford confesses, his lips turning up in a smile as the kids give him reassuring expressions, “I’ve got worse ones than that that I will have to wait on relating to you two. It’s hard to know when I’m crossing a line.”

“Ford, you did fine telling the kids about it,” Stan puts a hand on Ford’s shoulder and watches his eyes light up at it, or at least one of them he thinks with an internal laugh, “At least ya didn’t go into gory detail about the sharp tool you used for the removal!”

“Gosh, I don’t want to hear about that. Thanks for making me imagine it!” Dipper covers his eyes, his voice exasperated, “Mabel, you got any more questions for Grunkle Ford or can we move on?”

Mabel looks off to the side, her face suddenly nervous.

“I do have one but… I don’t know, it sounds silly in my head…” Mabel mumbles but Ford seems eager enough to answer it so she asks it anyway, “Grunkle Ford, when did you get your prosthesis?”

“I’m not sure how that’s a silly question Mabel, it’s actually quite interesting,” Ford assures, giving Mabel a reason to smile as she listens for his answer, “I got my first prosthetic some years after I lost my eye, about two to three years into my journey if I recall correctly. In the meantime I just wrapped that side of my face in parts of my coat to avoid further… complication… in more than one sense of that word.”

Stan hadn’t heard from Ford about it taking that long, but it makes sense. Being on the run isn’t usually conducive to stopping and getting prosthetics made. Still makes him feel a twinge of sorrow at what his brother had to go through to get to this point.

“Grunkle Ford, I’m sorry you had to go through that while traveling dimensions…” Dipper pipes up, looking down at his hands with a little frown, “That kind of thing just finds the worst time to happen, like how Mabel was already having a bad day with bullies that day… When it rains it pours, right?”

Ford nods, pained understanding all on his face. Stan holds him close by the shoulder as his face gets too contemplative. He smiles back at Stan, returning the favor.

“You want to get a pretty prosthetic eye like I do sometime, Grunkle Ford?” Mabel sure has a way to lighten the mood, earning a chuckle from Ford faster than anything has gotten such a thing from him, “We could match! I got all the colors of the rainbow, sometimes all at once! Even got a cool galaxy one Dipper likes too!”

“Heheh, we’ll see about that, Mabel,” Ford laughs, humoring her the way only he can, “I’m sure there are plenty of options in this dimension for me to enjoy decorating my eye.”

Ford laughs and leads the others in following suit without any other words. It’s a relieved kind of laugh, like the weight of the world has been lifted from his shoulder just like that. Stan can tell it’s relieving to his twin to have his secret missing eye off his chest and, on top of that, to realize he shares something else with his niece.

The conversation continues as the laughter slows down and Stan’s just happy his brother found some peace with that side of himself, that he doesn’t need to be afraid of sharing it around his family anymore. That his willingness to tell him about his eye after cleaning it in front of him brought him here, where he could learn about Mabel’s prosthetic eye. He can feel Ford’s joy as he relates experiences with his prosthetic to earn similar stories from Mabel and there’s nothing better than the building connection between them.

“I used to have a bionic eye for a few years into my journey,” Ford pulls the thing out of his pocket to show the kids as they stare at it in awe, “It allowed me to see for a time by connecting to my optic nerve remotely. However it was damaged when a bounty hunter shot it with their laser gun, so I had to go back to the normal kind.”

“Whoa, that’s so cool!” Dipper admires it, fixated on it like a hawk, “I love its golden iris! You’re saying you could see with it?”

“Yep!” Ford replies gleefully, pocketing the metal eye as he talks further, “It was a very disorienting kind of sight, so I wasn’t keen on trying another one, but I kept it as a keepsake!”

The kids nod before they look offscreen as someone calls from out of view, looking back with slightly disappointed expressions on their faces.

“Mom says we’re getting late for dinner…” Dipper scowls a little and Mabel just looks sad that they have to go already, “Sorry, Grunkle Stan and Ford, we gotta go. We’ll talk again soon?”

“I’m sure we’ll be communicating soon enough,” Ford replies good naturedly, “I think me and Stan need to have a little one on one chat soon anyway. We’ll see you next time.”

“Grunkle Ford, don’t forget my suggestion to get new prosthetic colors!” Mabel reminds as the call winds down, to which Ford enthusiastically smiles and gives a thumbs up, “We’ll have so much fun matching up! Bye!”

“Goodbye!” Stan and Ford say at the same time, waving at the camera as the call ends with the kids returning the gesture.

Stan looks at Ford and the first thing that they do is hug, so much discussed between them already. The second thing is to laugh at their botched attempt to prank the kids. The bloody towel lies at Ford’s feet as the only proof of their prank. Stan kicks it aside as they stand up from the chairs.

They have some more discussion to do and it has to be somewhere more pleasant than the kitchen and most especially the bathroom. Looking out of the window, it looks like a nice sunny day on the Arctic waters, a perfect view to have a chat over.

It’s been a long couple of days and Ford knows it just as well as Stan does as they go to have their needed talk.

The water splashes against the side of the boat, crashing into the metal and spraying out as if frustrated that it can’t push the boat away from its anchor. Ford focuses on the scene, filling his chest with deep breaths of the fresh Arctic air as he leans over the railing. Stan stands beside him, hands in his pockets. The silence is palpable.

Ford feels euphoric when he remembers the conversation with the twins. The failed prank. The reveal that Mabel has a prosthetic eye just like he does. The twins’ supportive voices reminding him just how much he’s loved despite anything he might’ve done. Their reassurance that he didn’t deserve to lose his eye like that. And something about that is just… unfathomable to him.

Can he really think of his lost eye as a punishment or even just deserved when his young niece lost hers to a simple accident? He can’t ever bring himself to even consider that she deserved it or lost it as a punishment, it makes him sick to even bring it to mind.

He just struggles when he puts that logic on himself. He knows his family doesn’t think he deserved it and said so verbally, but his guilt is one of the hardest things for him to hurdle. Stan’s definitely helped him see things differently, but it’s only the start of a process Ford fears will take longer than he wants it to be. Ford huffs and wishes things weren’t so messed up with him.

“You know the kids love you a lot, Ford,” Stan breaks the silence with a sincere care in his voice as he informs him of the obvious, “I hope findin’ out Mabel’s like you helps ya see how much you didn’t deserve to lose that eye. Ya can’t just say she didn’t deserve that but then turn around and say that you did. Either both of ya deserved that or neither of you did.”

Ford nods with a bittersweet smile, but Stan’s not done.

“And you know which one I’d rather believe,” Stan pats him on the shoulder, affirming the unsaid, “I love both you and Mabel. I think you two deserve the world if I’m being honest.”

At this, Ford stares harder at the messy ocean, wondering how easily Stan could say such a thing about him when it’s him that deserves the world. Ford already had his shot at the world and…

Well to put it simply, he’d messed up that chance.

“We can agree that Mabel deserves the world,” Ford chuckles, trying to deflect from the uncomfortable truth of his inadequacies, “I wish I’d spent more time with her last summer, then maybe I would’ve noticed her prosthetic eye and felt comfortable enough to tell her about mine.”

Stan shakes his head like he hadn’t understood his point.

“When I said you deserved the world along with Mabel, I meant it, alright? And hey, let’s add Dipper to that too while we’re at it,” Stan wraps an arm around his shoulder while his words become deadly serious, “My family deserves the world and I don’t care how much they messed up or think less of themselves because of it. You’re part of my family and I…”

Ford watches a flicker of guilt cross his twin’s face, guilt that feels misplaced.

“I’m sorry for disowning you the night you came back,” Stan apologizes almost too quietly to hear, looking out at the ocean to avoid Ford’s gaze, “I was angry and upset about how ya took coming back home and me and everything and I… I feel terrible about it.”

“Stan, the only one who should be apologizing for that night is me,” Ford mumbles just loud enough to be understood, “I’m sorry I threatened to kick you out of the house.”

“We both have things we need to apologize for, not just you,” Stan chuckles and leans against the railing with Ford, “But if it helps, I do forgive you for that.”

The way Ford’s shoulders lift just a little at the forgiveness makes Stan crack a smile.

“Yeah. It does help,” Ford admits, his voice inflected with a little emotion as his eyes start to water, “I forgive you for disowning me. I hadn’t really thought about what you said that night all that much though.”

“Same here,” Stan slaps the railing and laughs with a little twinkle in his eye, “I think that night was just one we wanted to forget, huh?”

There’s nothing to do except nod because it’s the truest thing ever said. Ford hadn’t even wanted to remember that painful conversation, especially after Weirdmageddon, and it turns out Stan didn’t either in a way that let them go on this journey without too many hangups. Of course the hangups still existed, but… they got through it easier than they could’ve otherwise.

“We have a lot to work through, don’t we?” Ford muses as he observes the ocean ahead of them and admiring the orcas sailing through the water alongside them, “I mean, since I’ve shown and told you about my eye, I’ve been thinking about how much we don’t know about each other because of our years apart and… well our inability to just talk about it.

“I think I might not have found a reason to tell you I lost my eye if I hadn’t had to clean it in front of you, if I’m being honest,” Ford looks back at the ocean below the boat, at the current fighting against the hull, a frown creeping down his face, “And after everything that happened when I told you about it that helped me with my mindset, I don’t know if I want to keep that sort of thing a secret from you anymore.”

Stan falls silent and Ford knows he’s just thinking about what he’s just said. But his heart pounds in his chest regardless, afraid of having taken a step too far in a direction Stan’s too uncomfortable with. But Stan just wraps an arm around him with a grin that spans both ears and laughs wholeheartedly.

“Heh, if you think that’s gonna start fixing all our problems, then sure why not?” Stan lets Ford go but only to return to leaning on the railing, “Certainly wouldn’t break us any further. And if it gets ya to think you’re more than your mistakes, I’ll gladly tell ya all about my life, heh.”

Stan smiles at Ford and it’s such a kind one that Ford has to take a mental step back. This is the closest he’s felt to his twin since the sixties and he’s scared of messing it up again. But Stan doesn’t seem afraid of bonding again, even after everything should’ve proved that leaving Ford behind is his best option. Ford hates the way he can’t get any closer to Stan without feeling the guilt prickle forward out of nowhere. Why he hadn’t thought about revealing his eye to him until now.

“Stanley, I… thank you for…” Ford gulps, unsure of how he’s going to say what he’s grateful for when he’s grateful for so much he has no words for, “…for being the best brother I could ever have. It… I couldn’t have made it without you, both literally and metaphorically.”

“Anytime, Sixer,” Stan smiles, squeezing Ford’s hand supportively, “I’m just grateful that we’re together again, that we can talk about that kinda stuff!”

Ford feels his heart warming up at Stan’s earnestness.

“Sure beats hiding things until we explode,” Ford teases, punching Stan on the arm playfully, “I’m certain that a life spent telling you about my journey through the multiverse will be the best life I could’ve hoped for.”

“Not unless I scare ya off with my terrible tales with that cartel first!” Stan returns with an aggressively playful noogie that makes Ford laugh so hard his chest hurts, “Hey, you wanna hear what I told that guard now?”

Ford had forgotten about the thing Stan was talking about before everything happened but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t want to hear about it.

“After everything, yes, I’d love to hear what you told that guard,” Ford replies, feeling amused as Stan lights up and gets ready to reveal whatever it was he’d said, “Go ahead, what did you tell him?”

A beat later and Stan reveals it with a bright eyed grin.

“Not my fault you can’t cover your own ass!”

Stan cracks up and Ford can’t help but join in. It’s a bit of a stupid one liner, but it’s just stupid enough on top of the wait in order to even hear it that it becomes hilarious. They end up laughing and hollering so loud it echoes across the ocean. Talk about delayed gratification for a joke.

Ford doesn’t care, just glad he was able to talk to Stan about his experiences, as grim as they unfortunately tend to be. He’s glad Stan’s as supportive of a brother as he is and he wouldn’t trade him for the world. Not anymore at least.

The laughter continues into the evening and Ford doesn’t even mind that they lost a potential day of anomaly hunting. And if anything, he gained another day to bond with Stan. Even if it’s through a very unconventional method.

Joy fills Ford’s heart as Stan’s love for him becomes apparent, giving him no room to even consider his lost eye being a punishment for any reason.

So much joy that Ford feels the urge to be a bit more silly about his prosthetic, turning from Stan and slipping it out of his eye to hide it behind his back.

Ford turns to Stan with a finger pulling his eyelid down, sticking his tongue out for extra effect. Stan startles a little with a little yelp, before slapping Ford with all the playfulness of a cat play fighting.

But as playful and nonthreatening a slap it might’ve been, Ford’s grip on his prosthetic was light at best. He feels the slippery thing leave the fingers behind his back before he can turn and see where it’d gone. But he doesn’t have to wonder with the little “plonk!” he hears a few seconds later. His heart skips a beat as he tries to play it off.

“Hey, that’s enough pranking with your eye, Six,” Stan states drily, a humor in his voice that can’t be masked, “Come on, come on, put it back in…”

“I… I can’t,” Ford squeaks as Stan rolls his eyes like it’s another prank, “It slipped out of my hand and fell in the ocean!”

“That’s like the weakest excuse of a prank I’ve ever heard, Ford,” Stan’s eyebrow raises in suspicion as Ford pulls his hands from behind his back to show that they’re empty, “You put it in a pocket, that’s like pranking 101!”

Ford shakes his head and proceeds to empty his pockets to show him it isn’t there, opting instead to peer over the edge of the boat when Stan asks about the deck behind them. There it is, bobbing in the water. Now Stan believes him as it floats away from their boat with the waves. Stan quickly grabs their fishing net but before he can even dip it in the water it gets swept away in a current.

“Oh. That’s bad,” Stan murmurs, heading in the direction of the helm without another word. Ford grabs his arm and stops him from doing so. “What? We gotta fish it out!”

“Stan, I don’t think I want an eye clogged with seawater and other gunk,” Ford says with half a smile while Stan seems stressed, “I told you I have a stash of extra eyes earlier, remember?”

“Oh, right…” Stan looks off to where it’d been sent, which is far away from here by now, “Sorry about that.”

“Nah, it’s fine. It’s on me for pranking you while standing near the water,” Ford reassures as he heads to their quarters for a quick search for his sterilized jar, “Let’s see…”

Ford searches his travel bag, where he swears he packed the jar for their journey. Stan looks over his shoulder, still nervous as the search takes longer than Ford expects it to.

It only takes three search-throughs for Ford to realize one important fact.

He didn’t pack his extra eyes.

“I… may have been a little… confident… that I didn’t need my other prosthetics when I packed…” Ford scratches his neck sheepishly, “Looks like we’ll have to either set sail for home or you’ll just have to deal with this until we go home next summer.”

Ford points at his empty eye socket with a grin, almost eager to just go with it the whole way. Almost, because he feels too exposed without it. The wind when he steps back outside stings his socket in a worse way than it does to his organic one as well, so he’s more than eager to get a replacement of some kind.

“Hey, you heard Mabel, didn’t ya?” Stan grins with a smug look in his eye, confusing Ford until he continues the thought, “Now we oughta get to land and get you a glittery pink eye for the rest of our trip this year!”

“It’s not that simple to get a fitting but… alright,” Ford muses, wondering what kind of eye he could request as Stan laughs in his face, “Will certainly be an interesting look for me… in the meantime, I’ll use the broken shell of my old bionic eye.”

Ford puts the thing in his eye as Stan looks at him weirdly.

“Better not turn it on, you saw what it did last time,” Stan says warily but Ford can only laugh, “What, it’s true!”

“Would you rather I just went with my socket out?” Ford asks with a laugh in his voice, “I don’t really have a choice here!”

Stan rolls his eyes but Ford can hear the chuckle before it starts.

“Yeah, yeah, let’s go get you a new one somewhere,” Stan waves him over to the helm, “Get rid of that ugly thing when we do, why don’t ya?”

Ford shakes his head, a keepsake is a keepsake. Stan scoffs but it’s markedly lighthearted.

Despite losing the only prosthetic he brought along for their trip, Ford’s in high spirits.

Nothing can bring him down knowing Stan’s on his side.

Not even losing his eye, in both senses of the word.

Ford smiles and enjoys the view as Stan gets them going for a new one.

Maybe I could build my own…