Something I like about Timestuncle is how, no matter which situation Ford finds himself in, he would avoid at all costs directly asking for help. He’d pose it as a mutual beneficial arrangement, or offer a sort of services exchange, or something, but he’d never phrase it like he needed the help. Only that out of his options he decided to approach Stan (who is just another stranger to him, from Stan’s perspective in one case, or a much older version of his brother in the other) and lay out the deal he wants to make.
Because Stanford pre-Weirdmageddon can’t trust anyone. Especially not now that he’s been transported back in time. He’s a man in his 60s transported to his own past, and runs into his 20-something year old brother? His brother who is in some of the worst times of his life, looking haggard and haunted and tough but dirty and tired too. He doesn’t know what to make of this Stan he found, so different from the man he’d returned home through the portal to.
Ford can’t let himself trust anyone. He’s been burned too many times. But when he’s forced into the past and he needs tools and food and shelter and he miraculously (or unfortunately, Ford still hasn’t decided) runs into his then-estranged brother, he starts to think at the very least he can use this situation to his benefit.
But not to ask for help. Certainly not. He can assist the younger Stanley (or whatever ridiculous fake name he’d been given) and in return get Stan’s assistance in providing while he works his way home.
(Don’t get me started on how complicated he feels at seeing Stan at this stage of his life).
