[Dipper comes down out of the blue one night. It's after Dinner and everything is nice and quiet. A lots ...happened this month and he kind of wants to check in? With his uncle? But also he has some important business, too.]
[All of it is innocuous! Nothing to do with addressing grief and horror!]
[ A lot certainly has happened, and coming back down in the wake of all the excitement has been...
Odd, as it so often is in these cases. And as he so often does in these cases, Ford is trying to keep himself busy.
Easier said than done. They need to decide what they want done with the house, but that's not only Ford's decision to make. It's not his house, and even the house it's roughly based on hasn't been solely his house in a long, long time. Some parts are so similar to what he remembers of they Mystery Shack that he can't stand to change them, whereas others are so different—so wrong—he can't stand not changing them. Regardless, he doesn't have a workspace set up to his tastes just yet.
There's one thing he does know for certain, however—he wants his thinking parlor back. Fortunately, a formal dining room isn't something that suits their needs, so he's perfectly comfortable setting to work packing it away and moving the items within elsewhere... late of night, of course, becaus who needs diurnality anyway? ]
In here, Dipper!
[ Ford does not step out to greet him, mostly because he's currently in the process of packing a box full of sparkly dishware. ]
[The house really was a surreal minefield in a lot of ways. Dipper had been surprised to find his room entirely his own and his sisters elsewhere on the attic floor. He’d opened up that room exactly one time and never again since.]
[He comes into the dining room, pausing at the threshold to take in what he’s up to.]
Not a fan of the china?
[This room being a dining room had been one of the stranger differences but one of the ones that kind of made him go “oh” since, you know. Most normal family homes did have those, so he guessed if they were all a family for a long time it made sense.]
[Dipper heads over so he can actually start helping. May as well!]
That's fair. It's a way more formal looking dining room than I think we'd ever use. We had something like that at Mom and Dad's but, even then, it wasn't quite like this.
[No china cabinet full of nice dishware, just an open room off the kitchen where the dinner table was, that sort of thing. Dipper does not often talk about their house in Piedmont, but it's been on his mind a little more of late, what with one of the boxes he found down in the basement.]
What do you plan to do with the room, then?
[He suspects some kind of work room or something. He remembered Ford having multiple spaces for his work back in Trench.]
There wasn't one in Stanley and I's house as children, either.
[ The idea of regularly eating somewhere besides a breakfast nook is a strange one to him, and the idea of having a room that just sits deliberately unused for extended periods of time is even stranger. ]
This room is more or less in the same place that my thinking parlor was in the Shack. I'd like to convert it back into a similar room.
[It's been some time since the loud commotion out in the hall. There's no more yelling, no more gun shots. Everyone is gone.
However, Stan doesn't return to the scene of the crime. Instead, a puff of smoke slips in through the open window and forms into Pollux right on top of what Ford is trying to decipher. Of the family Omens she's the least likely to make personal calls like this, but she's here now, squawking at Ford like an alarm with her wings outstretched to be big and scary.
If Ford tries to ignore her, she will fly up and peck at his metal plate. This is important!!!]
[ It took fighting through endless distractions and an exploding pen, but Ford finally has Dipper's hidden message sorted out—and then Pollux lands on the book right as he's trying to dot the last period. ]
Pollux—!
[ ... Wait a second. Pollux doesn't usually seek him out directly like this. Seeking out Castor is one thing, but Ford himself? Even if she hasn't gotten so distressed as to outright speak to him, that's still not a good sign.
Ford closes the book, not even worrying that it's going to smear the still-drying ink. ]
[The question gets her to stop squawking, and she shoots off into the air and over Ford's shoulder. She's very fast, but she purposefully leaves a thick smoke trail for Ford to follow.
It takes him down the hall, past quite a bit of gunfire damage, and down the stairs. Once he hits the ground floor her trail leads out the door, but he probably won't need it anymore at that point. From there he'll be able to hear Stan struggling in pain.
When Pollux left Stan was still face down in the dirt, but he's trying to get himself up on his feet now and using the Red Herring for leverage. "Trying" being the key word, of course - every time he moves more than half an inch he hisses and has to still so he can catch his breath and keep everything from tilting.]
[ Ford, fortunately, has a great deal of experience chasing down omens. And, fortunately(?), he does not in fact need to be guided once he's outside. ]
Stanley!
[ Not dead, but clearly injured and struggling. Ford hurries to his side. Castor fades into existence in a swirl of dark smoke alongside him, then zips ahead and swoops in anxious circles around Stan's head. ]
[This is excellent news. Honestly he thought he was going to have to force himself up the stairs to go get Ford, but not having to deal with that is such a relief.
Castor is less of a relief though, and Stan makes a weak half-hearted attempt to shoo away.]
Cut it out, I'm trying to get uh--!
[That was a little too much though and Stan wheezes. He reaches out for Ford though. A little help?]
I...broke some ribs, I think? Ugh, I feel like...like I got hit with a BOULDER...
[ Were it anyone else, Castor might be hurt. But Stan's default state of being is 'curmudgeonly', so it's a good sign if he's feel well enough to try to shoo her away. Satisfied, she flutters away and settles on the ground.
Ford is a little less relieved, however. ]
Broken ribs?! What on earth happened?
[ He does offer a hand out to Stan, though not more than that right away. He doesn't want to risk making it worse. ]
[ Fern has been looking for the guy whose name he probably heard but doesn't remember since his talk with PV. Well, looking might be putting it a little strongly, but he's glad when he spots the man on a walk in the forest. ]
Oh, hey, uh... [ ...yeah, nope, does not remember his name. ] Hi.
[ Fortunately, Ford's not hard to spot. It's probably pretty rare to find old men waist-deep in shrubbery trying to draw a weird looking bird.
And yet, Ford is the one who stares at Fern like he's doing something strange. Not something he's not supposed to be doing, mind. Just something unusual. ]
[ He makes an uncomfortable sound like a grunt and turns to look at literally anything else. He just thought, maybe, he could be Finn! And technically, he is Finn, just with his name changed. But he's supposed to be apologizing, not making excuses. ]
Um... yeah. So, um... I, uh, wanted to apologize for... everything else, too. Causing all that trouble, and making a mess, and... uh...
[ He kicks at the ground, somehow looking even farther away now. ]
[ Again, Ford's instinctive inclination here is that while he's not really mad at Fern, he doesn't actually forgive him. As Ford sees it, a lot of the trauma all of them went through could have been avoided with a smidgen of honesty, and Dipper wouldn't have ended up doing... all of that.
But... Fern is apologizing. And while Ford doesn't know this Fern, he does know a Fern, and he knows that Fern well enough for an apology like this to strike him as noteworthy. ]
That's...
[ Ford heaves a sigh and starts extracting himself from the shrubbery. ]
Listen. Did Stanley explain anything about Trench to you?
[Stan hadn't planned on being gone all that long. He was just running some errands, picking up stuff he'd been meaning to get. Something that hasn't happened in a long while happened on his way back though, and he still feels a little off from it. It's tough to describe, and he doesn't really want to describe it, but...there's at least one person in the house who should know.
After dropping off everything in the kitchen (even Bona Lisa, sorry girl), Stan gets to the top of the basement stairs and hesitates. There's a lot of things Stan would rather keep to himself, even if he's supposed to be talking to the family more, but this one...the more he sits with it the more unsettling it feels. Like forcing a puzzle piece that doesn't fit right.
Finally he steels himself, knocks on the door frame, and calls out.]
Ford? You down there? I, uh.
[Last chance to chicken out. He pauses, and takes a breath.]
[ Fortunately (?) Ford still easily loses track of time these days. Stan is gone longer than he means to be, and at no point does Ford notice long enough to worry.
But he's not so preoccupied that he doesn't hear the knock—and when he opens the door and hears what Stan has to say, he completely forgets about his project downstairs. ]
What kind of memory thing?
[ Cause there's a few options! There's Stan's normal memory thing, and while he hasn't had one of those in a while it's not impossible. Then there's the Grove-specific kind with the past lives. And then there's the general memory related fuckery that's happened to them at least a few times a year since the day they first woke up in Deerington. ]
[Thankfully Stan looks to be generally himself, so it isn't any sort of backslide in his cognition, or immediate and obvious general fuckery. He does seem a little uncertain though, and he rubs the back of his neck.]
One of those flashbacks that hits like a punch to the face. Except, uh. It doesn't really fit with anything else...?
["Punch to the face" is clearly the only explanation for any redness around the eyes, and nothing else. Nope, this wasn't an upsetting memory at all!]
[ Okay. Stan looks normal (aside from redness around his eyes that Ford sees no reason to acknowledge) and this sounds like it might be a Grove memory. Those are both good signs! It means nothing exceptionally weird is going on. ]
I would assume it's from here, yes. Do you...
[ He waffles, like he so often does with emotional subjects, but not for as long as he might have before. ]
[Ford is the best for that, and Stan nods at the suggestion.]
Yeah. Yeah, downstairs is good. I don't want Dipper overhearing.
[He doesn't elaborate on that, but he'll follow Ford back downstairs and shut the door behind him. This is a sitting down sort of conversation though, so he helps himself to the nearest chair.]
Okay, so. Weird memory. Right.
[He coughs into his fist, equally awkward about the emotional vulnerability here. But there's important things Ford should probably know, even if they somehow ignore how intense everything feels.]
I, uh. I...
[Fuck, this is hard.]
...I remembered the night Shermie's kids died. How the kids wound up with us. I was leaving Heimr's stall and then all of a sudden it's like I was there, reliving the whole thing. [He forces an awkward laugh, to push through.] Must've looked like an idiot to anyone else walking by.
[Maybe, but that's not the point. He's letting himself skirt around the hard part.]
[ Ah, it's one of those sorts of conversations, then. One of those ones where it doesn't matter how mature Dipper is and how much he's been through, it's still not one for him to overhear.
Ford leads Stan back downstairs. Unlike his lab back home there's a little area near the stairs that contains no lab equipment, just a table, some bookshelves, a couch, and a couple chairs. It's not really a sitting room, but is a room that allows for some high quality sitting. Ford claims the couch for himself, then settles in to listen. And...
Oh. Oh, yeah, that explains it. Ford has no memories of Shermie's kids as they existed in the Grove—hell, even back in their home dimension he barely spoke to Shermie at all after leaving for college—but he can't imagine it was easy on Stan. ]
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loser where is your inbox
October 20th ish. Post Ghost
[All of it is innocuous! Nothing to do with addressing grief and horror!]
Grunkle Ford?
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Odd, as it so often is in these cases. And as he so often does in these cases, Ford is trying to keep himself busy.
Easier said than done. They need to decide what they want done with the house, but that's not only Ford's decision to make. It's not his house, and even the house it's roughly based on hasn't been solely his house in a long, long time. Some parts are so similar to what he remembers of they Mystery Shack that he can't stand to change them, whereas others are so different—so wrong—he can't stand not changing them. Regardless, he doesn't have a workspace set up to his tastes just yet.
There's one thing he does know for certain, however—he wants his thinking parlor back. Fortunately, a formal dining room isn't something that suits their needs, so he's perfectly comfortable setting to work packing it away and moving the items within elsewhere... late of night, of course, becaus who needs diurnality anyway? ]
In here, Dipper!
[ Ford does not step out to greet him, mostly because he's currently in the process of packing a box full of sparkly dishware. ]
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[He comes into the dining room, pausing at the threshold to take in what he’s up to.]
Not a fan of the china?
[This room being a dining room had been one of the stranger differences but one of the ones that kind of made him go “oh” since, you know. Most normal family homes did have those, so he guessed if they were all a family for a long time it made sense.]
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[ He holds up the latest dish to go into the box, a crystal goblet with a pink tint to the glass. ]
I wouldn't say I dislike it, but I can't think of many situations where I'd reach for this instead of a coffee cup.
[ He picks up some brown packing paper and start to wrap the cup up for storage. ]
Regardless, I do need to move it out of this room.
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That's fair. It's a way more formal looking dining room than I think we'd ever use. We had something like that at Mom and Dad's but, even then, it wasn't quite like this.
[No china cabinet full of nice dishware, just an open room off the kitchen where the dinner table was, that sort of thing. Dipper does not often talk about their house in Piedmont, but it's been on his mind a little more of late, what with one of the boxes he found down in the basement.]
What do you plan to do with the room, then?
[He suspects some kind of work room or something. He remembered Ford having multiple spaces for his work back in Trench.]
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[ The idea of regularly eating somewhere besides a breakfast nook is a strange one to him, and the idea of having a room that just sits deliberately unused for extended periods of time is even stranger. ]
This room is more or less in the same place that my thinking parlor was in the Shack. I'd like to convert it back into a similar room.
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Backdated to Dipper's death, after getting his ass kicked by Dopple-Odile
However, Stan doesn't return to the scene of the crime. Instead, a puff of smoke slips in through the open window and forms into Pollux right on top of what Ford is trying to decipher. Of the family Omens she's the least likely to make personal calls like this, but she's here now, squawking at Ford like an alarm with her wings outstretched to be big and scary.
If Ford tries to ignore her, she will fly up and peck at his metal plate. This is important!!!]
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Pollux—!
[ ... Wait a second. Pollux doesn't usually seek him out directly like this. Seeking out Castor is one thing, but Ford himself? Even if she hasn't gotten so distressed as to outright speak to him, that's still not a good sign.
Ford closes the book, not even worrying that it's going to smear the still-drying ink. ]
Where is he?
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It takes him down the hall, past quite a bit of gunfire damage, and down the stairs. Once he hits the ground floor her trail leads out the door, but he probably won't need it anymore at that point. From there he'll be able to hear Stan struggling in pain.
When Pollux left Stan was still face down in the dirt, but he's trying to get himself up on his feet now and using the Red Herring for leverage. "Trying" being the key word, of course - every time he moves more than half an inch he hisses and has to still so he can catch his breath and keep everything from tilting.]
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Stanley!
[ Not dead, but clearly injured and struggling. Ford hurries to his side. Castor fades into existence in a swirl of dark smoke alongside him, then zips ahead and swoops in anxious circles around Stan's head. ]
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[This is excellent news. Honestly he thought he was going to have to force himself up the stairs to go get Ford, but not having to deal with that is such a relief.
Castor is less of a relief though, and Stan makes a weak half-hearted attempt to shoo away.]
Cut it out, I'm trying to get uh--!
[That was a little too much though and Stan wheezes. He reaches out for Ford though. A little help?]
I...broke some ribs, I think? Ugh, I feel like...like I got hit with a BOULDER...
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Ford is a little less relieved, however. ]
Broken ribs?! What on earth happened?
[ He does offer a hand out to Stan, though not more than that right away. He doesn't want to risk making it worse. ]
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after PV's return as APV
Oh, hey, uh... [ ...yeah, nope, does not remember his name. ] Hi.
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And yet, Ford is the one who stares at Fern like he's doing something strange. Not something he's not supposed to be doing, mind. Just something unusual. ]
Fern?
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Yeah, uh, that's me. I... guess I lied about that last time, huh. Sorry about that...
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[ Well, not okay? Ford is still a little put out about the lying thing. But he's not actually mad about it, either. ]
... understandable, I suppose, in a new place like this.
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Um... yeah. So, um... I, uh, wanted to apologize for... everything else, too. Causing all that trouble, and making a mess, and... uh...
[ He kicks at the ground, somehow looking even farther away now. ]
what... you saw.
[ He clears his throat. ]
Um. Yeah. I'm really, really sorry.
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But... Fern is apologizing. And while Ford doesn't know this Fern, he does know a Fern, and he knows that Fern well enough for an apology like this to strike him as noteworthy. ]
That's...
[ Ford heaves a sigh and starts extracting himself from the shrubbery. ]
Listen. Did Stanley explain anything about Trench to you?
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Before Neo Eden
After dropping off everything in the kitchen (even Bona Lisa, sorry girl), Stan gets to the top of the basement stairs and hesitates. There's a lot of things Stan would rather keep to himself, even if he's supposed to be talking to the family more, but this one...the more he sits with it the more unsettling it feels. Like forcing a puzzle piece that doesn't fit right.
Finally he steels himself, knocks on the door frame, and calls out.]
Ford? You down there? I, uh.
[Last chance to chicken out. He pauses, and takes a breath.]
......I had a memory thing happen.
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But he's not so preoccupied that he doesn't hear the knock—and when he opens the door and hears what Stan has to say, he completely forgets about his project downstairs. ]
What kind of memory thing?
[ Cause there's a few options! There's Stan's normal memory thing, and while he hasn't had one of those in a while it's not impossible. Then there's the Grove-specific kind with the past lives. And then there's the general memory related fuckery that's happened to them at least a few times a year since the day they first woke up in Deerington. ]
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One of those flashbacks that hits like a punch to the face. Except, uh. It doesn't really fit with anything else...?
["Punch to the face" is clearly the only explanation for any redness around the eyes, and nothing else. Nope, this wasn't an upsetting memory at all!]
I guess that means it's something from here?
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I would assume it's from here, yes. Do you...
[ He waffles, like he so often does with emotional subjects, but not for as long as he might have before. ]
Want to talk about it? Downstairs?
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Yeah. Yeah, downstairs is good. I don't want Dipper overhearing.
[He doesn't elaborate on that, but he'll follow Ford back downstairs and shut the door behind him. This is a sitting down sort of conversation though, so he helps himself to the nearest chair.]
Okay, so. Weird memory. Right.
[He coughs into his fist, equally awkward about the emotional vulnerability here. But there's important things Ford should probably know, even if they somehow ignore how intense everything feels.]
I, uh. I...
[Fuck, this is hard.]
...I remembered the night Shermie's kids died. How the kids wound up with us. I was leaving Heimr's stall and then all of a sudden it's like I was there, reliving the whole thing. [He forces an awkward laugh, to push through.] Must've looked like an idiot to anyone else walking by.
[Maybe, but that's not the point. He's letting himself skirt around the hard part.]
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Ford leads Stan back downstairs. Unlike his lab back home there's a little area near the stairs that contains no lab equipment, just a table, some bookshelves, a couch, and a couple chairs. It's not really a sitting room, but is a room that allows for some high quality sitting. Ford claims the couch for himself, then settles in to listen. And...
Oh. Oh, yeah, that explains it. Ford has no memories of Shermie's kids as they existed in the Grove—hell, even back in their home dimension he barely spoke to Shermie at all after leaving for college—but he can't imagine it was easy on Stan. ]
The plague, I take it...?
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