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Stan was a lifetime scammer, a crook and a charlatan. He had been in jail, barely dodged Juvie and lived in more shitty back end motel rooms than he can count or cares to remember. By himself, gun in hand with his back to the wall in a closet, or letting the wheel of the Stanleymobile dig into his gut while someone else plots in passenger side, Stanley has had some shitty sleeping experiences. He doesn't really rank them beyond comparing them to that time in a Vermont motel that had great beds but also had a glory hole in the bathroom. (he didn't take a shower that week, opting to take a dunk in the river instead) While he's not staring down a glory hole in a strange roach motel and missing out on a shower, Stan has to wonder if having his brother and Bill in the same house is going to make the rest of his life consistently come up worse than Vermont.
They wont. Shut. Up.
When Stan had punched the isosceles asshole in the face, he had thought that would be the end of things with Bill. Granted, he also thought that would be the end of him. Things landed great for him, what with how they were able to jog his memory and all that, but his fucked up luck meant that Bill was back too. At least he was in an infinitely more punchable form, unable to posses anyone as he was.
The new, human shaped Bill could lift maybe thirty pounds if he tried, so he wasn't a complete bean pole, but he wasn't strong. (Stan liked that the kids could take him in a fight. He really liked that he, himself, could demolish Bill with one arm.) Even if he's not a total weakling, he's a total wimp, but the fucked up kind. Bill laughs even as he cries real tears at so much as stubbing his toe, unused to being a physical participant in the world long term. The full force punch Ford admits to giving him had Bill sobbing like a child and howling with laughter. The end result was a drawn out coyote yowling that almost made it not worthwhile. One thing that hadn't changed, according to Ford, was Cipher's endless ability to run his mouth.
You'd think having a pair of physical lungs with limitations like breathing could put a hard limit on it, but no! Bill was always running his mouth off about something. He'd choked on a stolen stancake more than once, still trying to force words out around the mushed up food trying to kill him at the breakfast table. He walked around, yammering on about tooth density and absurdism or some kinda weirdo talk from the moment he got up to the moment he fainted midsentence. It felt like there was only quiet in the house when he was asleep, locked out or locked downstairs, or pouting, ignoring his visiting parole officers.
Cipher had a special hard on- Ugh, no, no, no. Different phrase, ignore the sounds. Cipher was all about talking around Ford, especially. His volume seemed to double whenever they were in the same room. All comments were aimed at Ford, even when the words were supposedly to Stan, or Soos or the Kids. The shitheel seemed to revolve around Ford, making a nuisance of himself until Ford responded. Stan had thought it was revenge, at first. It figured the dick would want to make Ford as miserable as possible for the crime of making Cipher deal with being a person like everybody else. Now, though, he's seeing it like it really is: a brat pulling pigtails until he gets a reaction.
And Ford? Had started reacting. Sure it's easy to ignore someone short term, but if there's one thing Stan and other con men like him relied upon, it was persistence. Cipher had all the time in the world to hang around, cause trouble and talk at Ford. Plus they had history to poke at Ford with. The reactions had been deathly quiet at first. Tired and bitter hisses just about covered all that Ford had to say to Bill. At some point, when Stan had his head turned something flipped. Ford started poking back at the noisy fucker. It was satisfying to see him stunned into silence when Ford would ask him things, finally being the one uncomfortable with talking. Sure the creep kept doing the verbal equivalent of sticking his open hand face down on a hot stove, but it was entertaining to watch him recoil and shuffle off like a kicked rat. And the more they talked the louder Ford's responses were, bringing the former triangle's volume down as his increased.
The seeming verbal equilibrium was too good to be true, as most things in Stan's life were, because right now Stan was considering shacking up with some fucking creature to escape the mutual noise of those two banging in the basement. Sure they're at least on another level of the house, but damn it, he knows way too much about his brother's love life.
First Pointdexter is all "I hate Bill, the only thing I want to do with Bill is an autopsy" and then it turned into "He has changed Stanley. I am willing to tolerate him until the Theraprism takes him back" and now it's "I want to cut Bill up, but we both enjoy it."
Stan fell in with a leather crowd for a couple of months, and he still remembers the Three S: Rule Safe Sane conSensual. Stanley knows that the noise he's hearing are not safe or sane, even if it is consensual, and he hates that he knows that. Stanley was willing to learn meta-astrophysics and rebuild an extremely complicated portal to another dimension just to get his brother back, but there are some things a man should never know about his brother and his " muse" and he's considering tossing them both back into the portal and pulling the memory gun from its plaque on the wall so he would never have to think about it. Yeah they'd probably get in trouble with the weird, squishy fish thing that runs a reform center for demons, but Stan could argue their case, probably. The kids can help. They're naturals at supporting a grift by now.
A particularly clear cry of his brother's name comes through the floorboards and Stanley, who has been wearing his brother's name for thirty years, feels filthy by proxy. Fuck this, he's getting out of here. He puts his teeth in, throws on some house shoes, a bathrobe, and his glasses. He pulls his keys out of his good shoes (no thief will ever find them there) and ventures up the stairs with all the skill a man of his age and skill set can muster. When he arrives at the door to the attic, he doesn't bother knocking, hearing the twins arguing. He cracks the door open and sticks his head inside.
"Ugh! Dipper!" Mabel yells, frustrated. "You can't pick Babba, AGAIN! I need variety. There has to be another song!"
"Hey, you like this song, too! It's not my fault you didn't like anything else that's loud enough!" Dipper notices him first, flinching back and landing on his rear end on the bed. "Grunkle Stan!"
"What are you two doing?"
"Grunkle Ford is being loud again, so we're picking trying to pick something to fall asleep to. Dipper wants Best of BABBA again, but he picked that the last two times. I've been dreaming about bell bottoms for a week."
Stan opens his mouth. Stan closes his mouth. He pinches the bridge of his nose to ward off the headache that's percolating in his sinuses.
"Who's ready to go sleep over at McGuckett's place tonight?"
"Sure thang, Grunkle Stan"
"Works for me."
"Just remember to plug your ears before you're all the way down the stairs." The children both make faces of disgust, as they should.
"Grunkle Stan, can I throw Grunkle Ford an intervention?"
"Sure thing, pumpkin. But lets make it tomorrow, after a good night's sleep." Stan laughs, gearing up to run out of the door as fast as possible. "Be sure to get glitter in his hair."
"Will do, Grunkle Stan."