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Ford blinked his eyes sleepily, absentmindedly wondering if he should slip his glasses off as he rested his chin on his arms in front of him. His sweater seemed awfully soft, his eyes awfully heavy, and there was a more than decent chance he was about to drift away at the new Stan-o’-War’s little table.
He could hear the rain pouring outside, as well as the gruff sounds of his brother shouting at one of the port officials currently attempting to keep them from docking. Turned out no matter how many legal documents you had with you, one of you until very recently being legally dead and the other’s name still accessory to his twin’s criminal record didn’t make for easily sorting these things out.
Letting Stanley handle the details might not have been the best decision, but he’d sort of insisted on it. Maybe he was better at telling when Stanford was tired than Ford was himself. And his brother was better with arguments anyway -- even if he would only admit that when Stanley was arguing with someone else.
But it was a nice change of pace for that bit to be true, so he’d let it slide. Besides, the sleepiness was a fact, and it was only very recently that it starting to tug on him was met with emotions aside from “dread”. For the first time in his life, Ford was suddenly both of an age where “nap time” felt like something nicer than an inconvenience, but simultaneously no longer a form of capitulation. His sleep was still far from devoid of nightmares, but he was really starting to appreciate it.
Probably evidence he was getting old.
There was a point in time where that concept too, along with things like needing nap breaks, would have been annoying at its very best. But sitting there in the dimly-lit cabin of the ship that somehow already felt familiar, the idea didn’t actually sound so bad.
Stanley’s voice had increased in volume, although Ford still couldn’t make out his words. Maybe it was all a product of his fuzzy brain, tired from their day of traveling, and maybe it was best if he didn’t catch wind of the undoubtedly tactless haggling that was occurring just a few feet outside. Maybe the weird sentimentality of drowsiness was the only reason it made him smile.
But as much as he would have claimed that if his brother had walked in on him at that moment, grinning softly to himself as he started slowly falling asleep curled up in the little wood-paneled nook formed between the table and bench, he knew it was more than passing thoughts that were holding his attention. Had been a lot more than just passing thoughts since the end of the summer, and the start of whatever this surreal new chapter in his life was.
Stanford Pines had seen places no human was ever meant to. He had been to dimensions where his entire species didn’t exist and his oddity status was only amplified, gazed into the eyes of countless things both larger than and intent on eating him, climbed the ridges of the H’kalai range in Dimension 67, spent entire nights up, and alone, and hoping with all his might that nothing would attack him while he recovered from particularly rough days (--and vice versa), and gazed upon more things than are dreamt of in anyone’s philosophy.
And yet the situation he couldn’t wrap his mind around was his current one. A second chance. Someone at his side again -- someone he cared about deeply.
He'd never imagined he could have that again.
Confusion and gratitude came hand in hand, apparently, because the even the idea itself filled a massive hole he’d been trying to function with for decades.
Standard theories of molecular formation, if his fuzzy brain would pardon the sudden tangent, stated that all atoms (excepting the noble gases) have to fill their outermost electron shells to achieve stability. Bonding. They find themselves forced to seek out others, to share their electrons, if they want be truly functional and complete. The goal being to find a molecule they could fit with, forming a bond, and sticking together -- a goal that those that couldn't would continue to pursue with little other purpose.
Ford was firmly of the opinion that anyone who’d ever felt truly lonely knew what it was like to be damn jealous of the noble gases.
But to finally feel those connections -- whether it was through mending old bonds, or forming new ones (ionic? covalent? metaphors, all he was really forming here were some painfully extended metaphors…..) -- was a weight off his shoulders he hadn’t realized how resigned he’d become to carrying.
You got used to it, really. Bearing your charge, and instability, and slowly deciding you could go it on your own, if you really had to, and who cared what damage it caused? You forgot that it was even possible for you to forgo the jealousy and get that stable configuration you so desperately needed (wanted?) for yourself.
Now he was sleepily resting his cheek on his arm, watching his glasses lenses go all wonky and barely even caring. There was a sound at the cabin door and it only just registered with him that Stanley’s arguing noises outside had stopped.
“Well the good news is we’re not about to get arrested,” his brother said as he stepped inside, accompanied by the sound of stamping rain boots in the doorway. “This is a new feeling for me," he paused, seeing Ford slumped across the table "...Hey, you doin’ okay there, Poindexter?”
Ford made a noncommittal affirmative noise and leaned slightly further into his arm, glasses getting pushed up his face even further.
“You sure?” Stanley asked, sounding unconvinced.
“Just thinking,” Ford murmured.
“About?”
He sort of wanted to let it spill out. The two of them were getting closer again, but that didn’t mean they’d talked about the ins-and-outs of everything happening in each other’s heads yet. Ford knew neither were always happy places. But they had time to get to that. Later. (Finally?)
Being haunted by loneliness was something to actually make yourself bring up to someone when you were just a little more confident it was losing its power. As they healed, the time would come.
“Electromagnetic forces,” he said, at least half-honestly instead.
“Sheesh, is that really gonna give you sweet dreams?”
Ford didn’t have the energy, he supposed fittingly, to try to maintain he wasn’t tired. He gave another small noise of agreement instead.
“You can sleep in a bed, you know. We have those. I made sure.”
Made sure he had, ribbing Ford with his elbow when he pointed out their old bunk bed arrangement was probably also the most practical setup for a boat cabin with limited floorspace. And maybe Ford had quietly admitted that a few dimensions back he’d gotten a knee banged up badly enough that there might be nights he couldn’t get on the top bed anymore, and maybe Stanley had said something about it being okay because Mabel “cured” his fear of heights anyways.
And maybe everything was a little bit different and not different at all at the same exact time.
It made sense though. A lifetime ago, the prospect of sailing the world with his brother had been exciting to Ford because it spelled adventure -- seeing far-off places, finding strange new things, going places he’d never been before. And a pile of adventures later, when it finally came to fruition somewhere other than a New Jersey beach, and he’d seen so many things and places other than that, it sounded just as good -- but because now, it felt like home.