Chapter Text
“That’s a ladder.”
“I know, Stanley. I have functional eyes in my skull.”
“A ladder.”
“Yes, yes, I heard you the first time.”
“A ladder in the middle of this goddamn ocean, Ford!”
“Stating the obvious doesn’t suit you,” Ford scoffs, the eyeroll dripping from every curve in his words as he crosses his arms over his chest, and Stan forces his jaw shut.
Not because Ford’s blaséness makes Stan any less freaked the hell out by the thin, rusted metal spears and algae-overgrown rungs poking out of the dark seawater. Neither does he feel any more comforted and unbothered by how said water acts around the thing – as if it is not water anymore, but something more gelatinous, something that is able to be dug into and pulled to the side, allowing the ladder to stand dry and untouched. It reminds Stan of the teasing faces he would make at his twin brother over dinner when they were kids and their parents looked the other way for a second. And he knows for a fact, despite failing physics class with bravado, that water should not behave as if it would resist the touch of fingers to the degree that someone’s hand would cause it to be contorted and stretched like that.
It looks, for a lack of better word, painful. Like the ocean itself is hurting.
But all Stan’s lack of ease and subsequent want to tuck his tail between his legs is in vain. He knows by now that there is absolutely nothing that can convince his stupidly stubborn brother to get back to the engine room and turn the ship in the opposite direction of the thing in front of him. After all, Ford has led them here by following a particularly angry, zit-like dot on that fancy schmancy wristwatch of his – the one that mostly reminds Stan of James Bond movies, yet Ford keeps insisting that he has no idea who or what Agent 007 is. Something that Stan doubts very much, seeing as Ford was suckerfish-like stuck to the scummy school library of Glass Shard Beach in the fifties and sixties – and there is a red tint to his sclerae that Stan has grown familiar with after a year at sea. It means that Ford has prioritized the blue light from Dipper’s old and handed-down laptop and its internet access over resting his old man self; and as Mabel so wisely puts it, everyone gets cranky and prone not to listen to their sibling’s reasoning when they neglect their beauty sleep.
Which is why Stan just tilts his head to the side as he crosses his arms, meaning for his inspection of the rusty ladder to border on cartoonish expression, and blows a loud raspberry. “So what, we light it on fire and get the heck out of here, right?”
“What!” The speed with which Ford spins around could separate full-fat cream from skim milk, and his glasses slide down his nose with the momentum. “Stanley, how could you suggest such a thing? Haven’t you listened to a single word I’ve read to you about this exact spot? Do you have any idea how lucky we are to have managed to even find it, and now you want to–... to–!”
Apparently lost for words, Fords instead expresses himself by gesturing with his hands, and if Stan had stood any closer, he would be several bruises richer already. He sighs and catches his brother’s wrist before Ford accidentally hits something very immovable and manages to break a bone.
“Relax, nerd, I was joking. I’ll go get the backpack.” If he rubs his thumb over Ford’s skin with a little more tenderness than he should when he lets go, that will be just another figurative pebble in a metaphorical glass jar in Stan’s chest. “But you’re carrying it.”