Chapter Text
He could barely remember how their latest fight had started.
Not that it mattered, since that seemed to be the only thing that happened anymore between him and Ford-at least during those periods when they weren’t ignoring each other’s existence.
Even as he sniped back at the self-righteous jerk, on the inside Stan was fighting bitter laughter.
Thirty years of struggling and working and building and begging, and this was his reward.
What a joke.
He did feel bad that the kids were watching this, looking like they’d rather be anywhere else. It brought back…a few uncomfortable memories of crouching with Ford at the top of the stairs, clenching tiny hands around the banister as they listened to their parents yelling back and forth at each other in the pawnshop before finally slipping away to hide in their room, which he guessed Dipper and Mabel were probably gonna do any second.
He’d tried to hold his temper in for their sake, but all it had taken was one snide comment from Ford about his tours being an insult to honest work for him to snap back that without ‘em the nerd would’ve still been stuck in the portal-and, well, it goes without saying that the conversation rapidly deteriorated from there.
Everything was starting to hurt from how long they’d been snarling at each other: Stan’s chest, his jaw-heck, even his left arm was starting to throb, which was kinda weird.
And he could feel himself starting to run out of air, his lungs getting tight-but he just took deeper breaths and soldiered through, cuz there was no way he was gonna give in and let Ford get the last word in, he’d given up pretty much everything else for him so he could at least keep this -
Whoa.
Maybe he’d been yelling a little too long. Everything was getting all…spinny.
Stan blinked, and scrubbed a hand over his face, frowning at the faint sheen of sweat he could see through the sudden black spots.
“Um, Grunkle Stan?” he faintly heard Mabel calling, “Are you okay? You don’t look so good.”
“Don’t worry, I’m certain he’s just coming up with another excuse for why he hasn’t done anything wrong.” The scornful words echoed on the very edges of Stan’s hearing; maybe he needed his hearing aid fixed…
“Go ta hell, Ford.” Stan lurched to his feet, deciding that he was done with this discussion.
Not
that he was giving in, just…leaving to regroup. So he could gather his strength, come up with a better argument
that would maybe make Ford understand that he’d needed him back and the heck with what happened to the rest of the world
, maybe he should go upstairs and lie down until he could breathe again and this weird floaty feeling went away-
The blackness, which had been just a series of spots, spilled across his vision all at once like a curtain of ink.
Faintly Stan felt his hand starting to throb from where maybe it had landed on the dino skull, and he tried to grab onto it to regain what was left of his balance, but his fingers weren’t moving the way he wanted them to, and he just slipped again-
Oh-he’d landed against a soft, squishy surface, through which he could faintly hear something that sounded like…whales?
“...Soos?”
It was his last coherent thought before someone turned out the lights for good.
“What the [term that wasn’t quite appropriate for use around children his niece and nephew’s age] is wrong with you?!”
Dan Corduroy’s daughter-Wendy, Ford faintly reminded himself-shoved him out of the way as she hurried forward to help the large, hairless gopher repairman lay Stanley down on the floor, since the aforementioned repairman had started shaking Stanley’s shoulders and begging for him to wake up in a way that didn’t seem overly helpful to the situation.
Ford found himself stammering pathetically for a moment, before he brought himself back under control. “I-I thought he was just-being dramatic, or-or acting up to gain sympathy-”
It was mortifying how swiftly his fight-or-flight response kicked in at being glared at by a teenage girl, no matter how fierce it was. “He wouldn’t do that in front of the kids , you moron !”
Before Ford could splutter out an adequate rebuttal, she had pulled out her cellular phone and was slamming her thumb into the buttons, while with her free hand she struggled to undo Stan’s tie; after a moment she just pulled out a pocket knife and cut it apart in a swift movement, then tore open his collar.
Dipper and Mabel had run over to Stan’s prone body, and crashed into the gopher man and each other trying to help.
Faintly Ford registered that he should probably be doing something too, but it was as if his limbs had become encased in a sample of the Molasses Swamp from Dimension CND3-LND, which was…extremely aggravating, because he was still waiting for Stanley to open his eyes and confirm that he was just joking, and all this fuss they were making over him was quite unnecessary.
He’d be doing that any second.
Surely he realized he’d carried the joke far too long already, this was getting ridiculous.
He was upsetting the children.
Though Ford had to admit that his acting skills had improved in the last forty years; he was doing a remarkable job of looking pale and limp and almost-
“Soos,” Wendy ordered out of the blue as she held the phone away from her ear, “take the kids out to the porch and wait for the ambulance.”
“What?!” Dipper demanded, his young voice cracking even more than usual, “But-but Grunkle Stan-”
“NOW.”
Soos ( that was the repair-gopher-man’s name) hiccupped, gulped, then scooped up a child in each arm and staggered out onto the porch.
As soon as they were gone, Wendy put two fingers to Stanley’s neck, and muttered a few more not child-friendly words before she interlaced her hands and started pressing down on his chest over and over.
“Come on, you stupid old man, do not make me give you mouth-to-mouth,” she hissed, before slamming her hands down hard enough that Ford winced.
Surely that would be enough to make Stan wake up and stop this charade.
…He didn’t move.
Somehow that was enough to shake Ford out of his stupor.
“Get out of my way.”
The shock glove barely had time to finish powering up before Ford slammed it down onto his brother’s chest.
He jerked, arching up off the floor for a moment, before going limp again.
Ford was just powering it up again, running everything he knew about restarting a heart and the effectiveness of CPR through his thoughts-when Stanley let out a shaky, pained gasp, and started coughing as his eyes flickered open.
In a swift, efficient movement Wendy had turned him on his side and was rubbing his back, murmuring words that sounded far more gentle than Ford would have expected from someone of her temperament.
“It’s okay, Mr. Pines, you’re gonna be okay. We’re gonna get you to the hospital, and you’re gonna be okay.”
Stan stirred weakly, and the idiot actually began trying to push himself up. “No-no hos-”
“ Yes , Mr. Pines!” Wendy pushed him back down far too easily. “You’re not weaseling outta this this time, not after you scared the kids by nearly-collapsing in front of them.”
Stan blinked, and then tilted his head with a little confused frown. “Where…”
“I told ‘em to wait for the ambulance.” She was still rubbing his shoulder. “Just-take it easy, okay? If it’s really stupid expensive, you can take it out of my wages for the next month.”
Stan’s eyebrows shot up into his bangs for a moment, before he let out a little noise that was somewhere between a cough and an amused laugh. “...The way…these things cost…more like…the next two months.”
Wendy gave his shoulder a gentle punch, even as she chuckled softly. “Don’t push it.”
Ford tried not to feel like he was on the outside of a situation he didn’t belong in.
Thankfully it wasn’t much longer before the ambulance arrived.
There wasn’t enough room for all of them to ride with Stanley, and Ford didn’t exactly remember how to drive anymore, so they packed themselves into Soos’s (somewhat questionable) van and followed to the hospital, possibly violating multiple traffic laws but this was an emergency so it was more than justified.
Ford hadn’t been in a vehicle filled with this much tension since that time he was captured by a group of bounty hunters who eventually ended up killing each other off in order to avoid splitting the reward money.
Except that this situation was filled with anxious worry, rather than avaricious hostility.
Ford’s stomach lurched when he saw how red and blotchy Dipper and Mabel’s faces were, and the way they clung to each other’s hands as they watched the ambulance through the windshield.
Once in a while the van would lurch from one side of the road to the other because apparently Soos’s vision kept getting blurry from tears, so after a few minutes the twins climbed into the passenger’s seat together so they could hand him tissues.
This left Ford in the back with Wendy.
He had even less ability to talk to teenagers properly than he’d had when he was one, much less one who generally viewed him with about as much visible interest as she would an ant crossing the road, so for a while neither of them spoke, or did much of anything but stare at the floor. Out of the corner of his eye Ford noticed that Wendy’s hands were clenched around her knees, hard enough for the knuckles to turn white.
Eventually the niggling of Ford’s conscience proved strong enough for him to clear his throat and say aloud, “...Thank you. You…showed remarkable prowess in handling the situation.”
Far more than he had, at any rate.
Wendy didn’t answer, or give any acknowledgement that she’d heard him, aside from her jaw clenching and unclenching the tiniest fraction.
He was just beginning to accept that he wasn’t going to receive one, when she murmured, “I’ve learned how to handle when stuff like that happens.”
They pulled up in front of the hospital before she could elaborate.