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“Grunkle Stan, what’s that scar on your wrist?” Mabel asks and Ford freezes in the kitchen. He thought the children were already asleep. He’s definitely not up to speaking to anyone right now. He’s too taken up with containing the rift. He’s strategizing how to get back to the basement without being noticed when Stan answers.
“Well Mabel, a vampire got ahold of my wrist and when I shook her off she left me with this scar!” Ford has to roll his eyes. If Stan had been bitten by a vampire they would all know it by now.
“Grunkle Stan!” Mabel cries a little too loud for the late hour, “I’ve read the journal and I know that’s not true! How did you really get hurt?”
Ford is struck by the phrase, ‘get hurt,’ not get that scar or get that cut, but how did Stan get hurt.
“Someone hurt me real bad, I didn’t think I would make it. But I’m ok now,” Ford can hear how forced Stan sounds right now. He wonders what kind of injury Mabel has really stumbled upon. He shakes his head. Wondering about his bother’s old hurts is hardly helpful at the moment.
Mabel makes a sad sound and there’s a moment of silence.
“I’m ok, pumpkin. It was a long time ago.” Stan says quietly.
Another pause and Ford can hear the TV running quietly in the background.
“Stay right there,” Mabel tells Stan seriously.
Stan doesn’t answer but Ford can hear Mabel clatter away. He decides this is probably the best time for him to head back down to the basement.
As he walks back to the basement, he pauses in the doorway of the living room where Stan sat staring at the TV. He takes in the sight of his brother in his typical uniform of boxers and an undershirt. But instead of sitting still drinking Pitt Cola as he usually does, Stan is sitting in the armchair rubbing his wrist. After a moment, he begins to scratch viciously, seemingly not paying attention to the motion.
Ford is startled a moment later by Mabel arriving in the opposite doorway.
“Hi, great uncle Ford,” she says. Stan startles, opening his mouth to say something.
Mabel distracts him with a cry of “Got it!” She runs over to Stan and sticks something on his arm, “There! See it says 'all better'.” She tells him as she pokes at the sticker. Stan smiles at her and she gives him a brilliant grin in return. Stan shoots him a look over the top of Mabel’s head and Ford understands he’s not welcome in this moment.
He turns without speaking and goes down to the basement.
Ford has noticed many of Stan’s scars over the past weeks. His brother’s knuckles are thick and hard with calluses and scar tissue. He’s got small scars on his cheekbone and forehead. Ford guesses those are from fights. His arms too are covered with nicks and slashes. Ford has seen a least one cigarette burn on one of Stan’s forearms. There’s almost something that looks like healed road rash mostly hidden by Stan’s boxers. Ford doesn’t think too hard about the scars. His brother has clearly led a hard life. It's not Ford's greatest concern at the moment.
He thinks about it a bit more when he notices the scaring on Stan’s shoulder though.
At first, he thinks it’s a tattoo but the way Stan’s skin pulls around the marks tell him it’s a scar instead. He finds himself looking at the mark whenever he and Stan are in the same room. There’s something familiar about it that he can’t quite place.
Eventually, Dipper notices his attention.
“Are you looking at Grunkle Stan’s tattoo?”
“His tattoo?” Ford asks, surprised that the obvious signs that it’s a scar haven’t reached Dipper.
“Yeah! Mabel and I spent like a week trying to figure out what it is but Grankle Stan swears he doesn’t have a tattoo. We got really really curious one day and uh-” and suddenly Dipper seems at a loss for words. Ford raises his eyebrows at the boy and waits for him to choke out the words, “Anyway! We’ve never seen the whole thing. Do you know what it is?”
Ford shakes his head trying to think why he knows the symbol. Where could Stan have gotten a mark like that?
“Can you ask him?” Dipper sounds eager.
“I don’t think he’ll tell me anything, Dipper. And you shouldn't harass Stan about it. People deserve their privacy you know.” He tells Dipper.
“But you’re curious about it too!” Dipper protests.
“Yes, I am. But if my bother doesn’t want to talk about it, I won’t force him,” he tells Dipper, still distracted.
“Yeah, but you don’t talk to Grunkle Stan at all.” Dipper says quietly and Ford feels a pang of guilt. He has issues with Stan, sure, but the kids don’t deserve to be subjected to their strife.
Ford doesn’t know what to say to that. Instead, he pats Dipper's back by way of apology. Luckily, Ford is saved from having to form a real answer by Soos yelling for Dipper to come see something or other.
Ford sits in his lab later, thinking about what Dipper had told him. Ford is even more curious about the strange mark now. He shouldn’t be. He has much more important things to worry about. But he’s also taken time off of worrying and working to play Dungeons, Dungeons, and more Dungeons, he supposes he can spare some energy wondering about Stan’s strange scar.
It’s not until after Weirdmageddon that he has time to worry about things so trivial as his brother’s scars again. It happens in that first exhausted day. Stan is spacey and confused. He doesn’t know who he is and doesn’t recognize anyone. Stan's vulnerability makes something in Ford's chest hurt.
On the way back to the Shack, Stan stumbles and almost falls. Ford ends up supporting him the rest of the way home. At the Shack, complains about his clothes being too tight and Ford offers to get some of Stan’s own clothing. Ford needs to change too. His pants were slipping down the whole way home.
They end up getting changed in the same room. Ford would like privacy and he doesn't want to make Stan uncomfortable, they are essentially strangers right now, but he doesn’t trust Stan not to fall flat on his face. That's is what he tells himself anyway.
As Stan pulls Ford’s sweater over his head he manages to bring the undershirt with it. Ford turns to take the sweater from his brother and he takes in the scars on his skin. There’s a host of cigarette burns on his chest. He also notices what might be a stab wounds on Stan’s upper chest; he recognizes the pattern from his own scars. There’s more road rash on his hip. There are more scars Ford can’t puzzle out too.
When Stan turns to grab his own shirt, Ford sees the whole burn scar and remembers immediately. The hot elements on the portal. He pushed Stan onto those burning elements the day he went through the portal.
The way the marks have healed, black and mottled, tells him Stan probably didn’t get proper medical care. He almost asks before he remembers that even if Stan would answer him honestly, he can’t. He doesn’t know if got medical care any more than Ford does.
“Wow, I got in a lot of trouble in the past didn’t I.” Stan jokes and Ford smiles weakly as he’s buttoning his shirt over the scars.
“I guess so,” Ford answers weakly and waits for Stan to hand over his pants. He feels sick with guilt. He has destroyed his brother, body and mind.
After the kids go home they start gathering supplies for the Stan’o War II. They also begin to move everything important in the Mystery Shack into storage and Ford works meticulously to remove anything dangerous from the Shack.
As Stan is packing some boxes for the boat, Ford pulls him aside.
“I have something for you,” he tells Stan.
“Sixer, are you getting all sentimental on me?” Stan teases. Ford shoves his shoulder gently.
“Ah, shut up,” he says good naturedly, as he pulls something out of one of his supply boxes for the Stan’o War.
“Here,” he hands over a little tub and Stan opens it curiously.
“Uhh, thanks Poindexter, but I have no idea what the fuck this is.” Stan tells him.
“It’s burn cream. My own invention. I uh, made it for myself once in a dimension with pretty similar plant life to this one. I’ve improved it now that I’m back on earth. It’ll help keep scars moisturized and should help with any skin tightness and such.” He rattles off. Talking about inventions is easy. Talking about why he’s made them is less so.
“Thanks, Sixer. But didn’t you just say you need this for yourself?” Stan points out.
“Come on, Stan. I have my own,” he pulls out his own tub of the stuff, “Besides, I made it myself I can always make more.”
“Ok ok, fine I’ll take your plant moisturizer.” Stan grumbles but he smiles at Ford too and puts the tub carefully in his own box of supplies to bring on the boat.
It’s not until they’ve been on the boat for a few weeks that he notices Stan rubbing at his wrist again. It’s an absentminded itching, more a nervous tick than anything but by the time Ford notices Stan doing it the skin at Stan’s wrist is hot and red. He grabs his brother’s wrist gently.
“You’re going to scratch your skin off if you keep that up.” He tells Stan.
Stan takes a moment to come back into reality it seems.
“Huh? What – I, thanks,” he tucks one hand under his thigh, “I didn’t even notice I was doing it.” Stan admits.
Ford wants to ask. He’s dying to know. But relearning how to be his brother’s friend means he has to learn not only to when to encourage Stan to open up but also when to let him have privacy. Learning to set and maintain healthy boundaries or something like that. Mabel had given him a book after she had noticed how bad Stan and Ford were bad at being people who liked each other. She had apparently asked a librarian for help.
Ford read every word. The book talked a lot about codependency and boundary setting and Ford could certainly see parts of his relationship with Stan flashing before his eyes as he read.
So, he was trying not to push Stan. That doesn’t mean he doesn’t try to get a peak at Stan’s wrist for the rest of the night.
When he finally gets a good look that same night he almost regrets it. Stan has a set of thick scars on the inside of his wrist and down his arm. They’re inflamed from all the scratching and even in the dim light of their cabin they look shiny and terrible.
He only gets to see them because Stan is rubbing them again. He’s gentler this time. Only rubbing his fingers across the skin, with a faraway look.
Ford gives up on giving his brother space, as he sets food down in front of them both.
“Do they hurt?” he asks.
“Not anymore, just itch like hell.”
“Probably, because there’s some nerve damage.” Ford guesses. The scars look extensive enough for it.
“Probably,” Stan responds absent mindedly, “I only just remembered how I got them last night so it might have something to do with that too.”
“Maybe,” Ford allows, “want to share?”
Stan looks at him hard for a moment as he chews slowly.
“You heard what I told Mabel,” he says eventually.
“We both know that wasn’t a real answer,” Ford tells him.
Stan sighs loudly and leans back in his seat.
“No, it isn’t. There’s not much to tell. It’s probably the most boring scar I’ve got.” He admits.
“You don’t have to tell me,”
“Don’t tell me you’re not curious,” Stan responds with a pointed look.
Ford gives him what he hopes is an encouraging look.
“I tried to kill myself in 74 - with shiv. I figured either I’d be dead or out of prison. Turns out the loony bin isn’t much better than prison. I don’t remember a whole lot after that.”
Ford winces. He asked for it but this is worse than what he’s been imagining. He’s done some reading on the world he’s missed out on and he knows that by today’s standards those places were wildly inhumane, not that they were humane in his day either. He grasps his brother’s wrist, the scared one.
“I’m sorry,” he tells taking care to look Stan in the eye as he says it. He hopes Stan understands. He’s sorry that Stan felt he had to do that. That he had to ask for help so drastically. That his attempt to get help landed him somewhere so terrible.
Stan shrugs, “I’m ok now.” He says and Ford remembers the night with Mabel, ‘I’m ok, it was a long time ago.’
“I’m still sorry.” Ford says firmly, squeezing and releasing his brother’s wrist.
Stan nods and if he’s a bit spacey for the rest of the evening Ford doesn’t push it.
They have started sharing nights. Neither of them calls it that, but they have nights where neither can sleep and there’s nothing to do on the boat, so they tell each other stories about their lives. The good, the bad, and the ugly all come up. Sometimes Ford will prompt Stan, “Remember that time…” and Stan will launch into a story from their childhood that they both know by heart but that Ford wants to relive together anyway. It heartens them both when Stan can remember. Other times Stan will ask about the portal. Ford has so many stories, good and terrible to tell, and they fall out of him once Stan gets him started. He’s had no one to tell them to for so many years.
Stan’s ten years as a drifter are the hardest to for them to talk about. He’ll tell Ford about the crimes he committed in his time at the Mystery Shack and Ford is fairly sure he knows everything there is to know about the Mystery Shack itself but he knows almost nothing about those ten years of Stan’s life. He’s not sure it’s something he should want to know about.
Even so, one night, Stan opens up, if only a little.
“You know how I quit smoking?” Stan asks him.
“How?”
“Got kidnapped.”
Ford chokes on the tea he just took a sip of.
“Excuse me, what?”
“Yeah,” Stan grins in a strange painful way, “I was turning tricks in Illinois and some asshole kidnapped me for two weeks.”
And that’s a revelation of its own too. Stan was turning tricks in Nevada. Ford feels an old sour guilt bubble up in him. Stan was so far away and so hurt for so long and Ford could have done anything, better than nothing at all. Yet, here they were. But Stan had survived. Everything Stan tells Ford makes him more amazed that Stan is alive.
“Might’a been a month actually. Wouldn’t give me any cigarettes. You’d think cold turkey for a month would do it but I tried to smoke after I got out. First time I did, I almost threw up. The guy smoked like a chimney the whole time and every time he was done he’d put it out right on my skin. I used to like the smell. It doesn’t smell good but uh-” he doesn’t have to finish though. It smelled like home, like their mother.
“How you do it? Get out I mean?” Ford asks because he has to know. If he’s going to have nightmares about this he needs to know his brother made it out.
“I chewed my way out of the trunk. I think he wanted to kill me in the first week but I played nice, screamed pretty. I knew him before he kidnapped, me y’know. We went on a few dates,” Ford isn’t familiar with streetwalker slang but he assumes this means that Stan had serviced the man before, “so I just made sure he liked me, that he knew me. He must’a really trusted me at the end because he threw me in the trunk with a shovel and then left me in there for a few hours. I chewed my way out and made a dash for it. Stupid fucker. Never saw him again.” Stan has a look of vindictive pleasure on his face. Ford isn’t sure he agrees.
“What’s his name?” Ford asks in a low flat tone. He’s trying to keep the rage out of his voice but his hands are shaking on the table.
“Ahh don’t worry about it.” Stan says, leaning back in his chair and with a fake relaxed air.
“Stan, tell me his name.” Ford asks, tone even more deadly.
“He’s already dead, Sixer.” Stan says firmly, “Wasn’t pretty either.”
Ford thinks that the man probably didn’t die ugly enough but he decides not to push for more details. He’s made Stan relive enough tonight. Ford wonders if he could steal some time tape and kill the man himself. Or maybe just rescue Stan. Or go even further back and prevent this all from happening. He remembers how vivid those scars cigarette scars are even all these years later. And he knows that those scars are probably the least of that man did to Stan. That man thought Stan was just a street walker, not worth anything. He can’t imagine. He considers calling the kids, asking how to get his hands on time tape. But he thinks better of it. He has no desire to fight in Globnar. And Stan is here, he survived.
Ford stands and gestures to Stan. Stan just looks at him in confusion.
“Stand up, Stanley.” He says.
Stan looks suspicious but stands. Ford rolls his eyes at his brother but pulls him into a hug as soon as Stan’s on his feet. Stan stiffens at first but finally he hugs Ford back, gripping him tightly.
“I’m ok, Ford.” Stan tells him and Ford feels a strange dizziness. He’s the one who should be telling Stan that Stan is ok now.
“Yeah, yeah, I know.” Ford says and holds Stan tighter.