#EXAMS ARE OVER.......I AM FREE........IT HAS BEEN FOREVER SINCE I'VE WRITTEN FOR THESE CHARACTERS AND ITS SHOWS

[portalford]

In the Light that We Have Found

AO3

It hits Stan out of nowhere, for no reason at all.  It’s not like he’s been thinking about it.  He makes a point to avoid thinking about most things, actually, and this thing in particular.  But he’s thinking about it now.

He’s happy.

He can’t remember the last time he actually thought about his own happiness.

Well, that’s not true.  He thought about it a lot last summer, but while the feeling was definitely happiness, the thought was more focused on how fast it could all go wrong if the kids learned the truth about him and what he was doing in the basement.  So, yeah, he was happy, but he was also somewhat existentially anxious and incredibly stressed.

Business as usual.

But he’s not existentially, generally, or even sort of anxious right now.  He gets twinges of “this can’t last” and “he won’t stay” every now and then, but they’ve slowed over the past month or so as this does last, and as Ford does stay.

He pokes cautiously at the sleeping anxiety.  He pokes a little less cautiously.  He’s a skeptical fool, maybe, but a skeptical alive fool.  Surely something is going to screw this up for him.

Nothing does.  He’s just really, truly, uncomplicatedly okay.

“Stanley?”

Stan looks up, and sees Ford eyeing him warily.  He realizes he’s been sitting in dead silence, clutching a cooling mug of soup, for God-knows-how-long.

Whoops.  

Ford is still watching.  “Are you okay?”  It comes out cautious, a little hesitant, like Ford’s afraid of the answer.

Stan almost laughs.  Trust Ford to completely misinterpret silence.  Then it’s suddenly less funny.  Misinterpretation and miscommunication are what got them into that whole mess forty-odd years ago, and if anything in Stan’s world ever killed happiness, it’s that.

That and Bill Cipher, may he rot forever.

“Yeah,” Stan says, and offers Ford a smile.  “I’m fine.”

Ford smiles back, but it’s the smile he gives when he thinks he should be smiling, not when he actually feels like smiling.  He’s concerned while trying to look like he’s not concerned at all, and doing a really bad job of it.

What the hell.  Why not share it around.

“I’m fine, Ford, I swear.”  Good start.  Keep it up.  “Better than fine, really.”

Ford’s running his fingers up and down the chunky knitted scarf Mabel sent him in her last package.  He got some purple sticky briar things in it the other day, and has been carefully disentangling the burrs from the fabric.  “Really?”

“Yeah, really.”  Stan takes a sip of his lukewarm tomato soup.  “Just thinking that I’m happy.  S’all.”

Ford’s mouth quirks a little.  “You’ve decided to express your happiness with solemn staring and ignoring food?”

“You got something to say about it?”  Stan leans over the table a little, but doesn’t take his hands off his mug.  It’s been a chilly morning.

“Of course not.”  Ford’s tone is nothing but false innocence.  “I just seem to remember you telling me that the path to happiness was not books or contemplation.”

“That was two weeks ago,” Stan says loftily.  “I’m a changed and enlightened man now.”

Ford is visibly biting back a grin.  “Certainly.  Well, I wish you luck with your new life path.”

“Eh, who needs luck.”  Stan slugs the rest of his soup in one go.  No sense in letting it go completely cold.  “You can just cheat the sucker.”

Ford rolls his eyes, but he’s definitely smiling, and for real this time.  He’s stopped his nervous finger-twitching and has gone back to cleaning up his scarf.

“So I’m doing pretty well for myself,” Stan says, and apparently it’s his turn for hesitation, “but what about you?”

Ford looks up, surprised.  “Me?”

“Yes, you.”  The you idiot is unsaid, because this is a Meaningful Conversation, but heavily implied, because it’s applicable and Stan isn’t going to let it slide.  “How’s your path to enlightenment going?”

Ford stares. “Stanley, are you asking me if I’m happy?”

“We really need to work on your habit of being blunt about everything,” Stan says.  “Did you never learn how to sugarcoat?”

“No,” Ford says. “I leave that to you.”  He folds his hands together, looks at Stan, and waits.

Damn it.  Ford wants him to say it, but he won’t actually ask, because that would be telling.  Stan sucks it up and says it, but only because he doesn’t want this to turn into emotional chicken.  “Yes, Ford, I’m asking if you’re happy.  No sense in fifty percent of this crew being sour.”

“Technically we don’t have a crew; I’ve automated most of it,” Ford says, because he’s a pedantic bastard.

“Not the point.”

“Well, no.”  Ford’s back to smoothing out his scarf.  “And yes.”

“Yes, it is the point?”

“Yes—no, it’s not—”  Ford stops, looking annoyed.  “No, the fact that we do not have a crew is not the point.  Yes, I am happy.”

Stan flicks his mug, making a small but satisfying ping noise.  “Way to suck all the emotional high out of that, Stanford.”

Ford scowls.  “It isn’t my fault you actively try to confuse me.”  And yeah, Stan deserves that.  “Stated plainly, I am very glad that you’re happy, and I myself am happier now than I have been at any point in the past thirty years, give or take.  Except for parts of this summer, apocalypse notwithstanding,” he adds.

Stan’s grinning like an idiot, and he really has turned into a sappy old man.  Only Ford would narrate his emotions like exposition in a really lazy movie.  “Damn, Sixer, you’re gonna make me cry.”

“Oh, shut up, Stanley.”  Ford is smiling too — a little less maniacally, maybe, but big and honest all the same.

And maybe Stan isn’t really gonna cry, but he really is happy.  More than that: he’s happy, and neither anxiety-poking nor honest-conversation-having managed to dampen the feeling.  In fact, the honest conversation only made him more happy, because now he knows for sure that Ford is with him on this.

So Stan is happy.  

Maybe he’ll try to think about it more often.