I don't usually see a lot of scenarios where Paranoid Ford is comforting Mullet Stan (it's usually the other way around), so I thought I'd make one myself.
Meme base belongs to @twenty-four-seven-angst-prompts
Fandom: Gravity Falls || CW: - || Ford brainstorming on what to do about Bill and what he can do. (one shot)
______(~700 words)______
Ford tapped his pen with one hand against the notepad that had nothing legible on it. And nothing productive. His other hand was holding up his head as he looked off across the small dining room table where Stan was, at this point, doodling on the notepad in front of him.
Ford couldn't think straight long enough to come up with any real ideas, or even remember much of the ones they'd come up with by this point either. He felt like a loosely tied together mess right now.
He lifted his head up enough to scratch his hand through his hair and take a drink from his coffee.
"I don't know what to do here." Ford said.
Stan didn't look up or stop drawing. "Yeah, that's the whole point of this. We're figuring something out."
Ford took a look at the scrambled list in front of him, couldn't even read it, didn't have to when everything on there was scratched out.
"I can't do anything here." Ford angrily gestured at the table with his pen. "I fall asleep, Bill starts the portal. I stay awake, he'll find someone to send here after me."
"You're smart, you can figure something out." Stan said, looking back at him across the table. "Besides, I'm here now too, so come on."
Ford dropped the pen and forcibly ran his hands through his hair, frustrated. "Yes, you're here. So do something." He pleaded.
"I am doing something." Stan countered. "I'm coming up with great plans," he tapped his finger on the table and then continued a bit smug like it was enough, "and if anybody shows up looking for a fight it's not just going to be against you."
"That's great for one person, but what if five showed up?" Ford asked.
"We could handle it." Stan said, lazily waving a hand at the idea.
Ford scoffed, sinking back down in his seat, muttering lowly. "'We could handle it.'"
"Well we would." Stan said.
He held eye contact, Stan expectantly waiting and holding his gaze.
"Well?" Stan asked.
And begrudgingly, Ford didn't actually think it wasn't true. "Okay, fine." He conceded, rolling his eyes. "Yes, we would be able to handle it, but these are all short term solutions."
Ford continued, counting briefly on his fingers. "Keeping an eye out, holding onto a bat - It can't last forever. Something's going to happen eventually."
The one, unavoidable certainty was that this wouldn't last.
"I know." Stan said.
"So, what can we do?" Ford asked, feeling wrong for asking it when he was supposed to have the answer for the question already. Should have come up with the solution yesterday, last week, any of the thousands of moments before it'd gotten this bad.
"What do you got?" Stan asked.
Ford looked down at his notepad, only seeing the scribbled out lines there and mind swimming to come up with any idea or solution. "I don't... know."
His attention threatened to scatter away from him entirely, but he remembered Stan, saw him at the top of his vision and looked back up again to see him there. A terrible mullet, a dirty coat, not even half the mess Ford knew he looked like right now, and he was here. And that was enough to make the room lighter, less heavy.
"I've got you." Ford said. It wasn't a solution or even an idea, but it was the only thing he could see that he had right now.
"Yeah, you've got me." Stan agreed.
"That's not an idea though." Ford said.
Stan smiled casually. "Yeah, I know, but hey I'm here, aren't I?"
Ford smiled along with him, relaxing. "Yeah, you are."
"And I've got some great ideas." Stan said.
As Stan launched into ideas and they talked, Ford found the conversation was lost to him within seconds. He didn't remember what Stan was saying or even what exactly he said himself, even the general idea of what either one of them said a few minutes ago wouldn't stick. Except for the idea of a 'holy water grenade' from Stan.
Soon though, soon Ford truly lost his train of thought and- clarity came as his reality settled into cold and sore muscles and a slight headache.
Ford jolted all at once, waking up fully and realizing that he wasn't in his house and quickly after that he couldn't be in his house because he wasn't anywhere near home anymore.
Readjusting to his reality, he slowly pushed himself up, cold and numb. He’d tucked himself against the wall on the cold floor of a car on the supply transport he’d hopped onto last night.
He flexed his fingers to get his blood flowing back into them and warm himself up again, taking stock of what he had.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
When twenty-seven year old Mabel Pines stumbles across a banged-up time tape in the park, she tells herself that she's much too mature and responsible now to use it to go on a crazy adventure through time.
