Feeling Sick

Getting Better

I still don't own Gravity Falls or its characters, that hasn't changed.

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    Ford opened his eyes and immediately looked at the time. 7:52 in the morning, "Not bad," he said to himself. He looked around and saw Stan in the kitchen, and Ford was about to call out to him when he turned and looked at the stairs leading to the attic.
     "KIDS, WAKE UP. I'M GOING TO THE STORE!" Stan yelled. Ford winced and covered his ears quickly. Ford released a tiny groan as his head pounded, but apparently Stan heard it and walked over to him. Ford noticed that Stan had the thermometer in his hand once again.
     "Morning Pointdexter," he stated casually, as if he hadn't just yelled loud enough to wake up the people of Delaware. "How you feeling?"
     "Good morning Stan, and like shit," Ford croaked. He grunted when his twin shoved the thermometer into his mouth. He looked around and saw that kids coming doen the stairs, yawning and rubbing the last traces of sleep from their eyes.
     "Open," Stan commanded. As Ford obeyed, the younger twins looked towards their grunkle with identical looks of confusion that instantly melted into those of worry when they heard Stan say, "Hmm, 103.1, not good."
     "Grunkle Stan, what's wrong with Grunkle Ford?" Mable asked at the same time that Dipper asked, "Grunkle Ford, are you ok?"
     Ford shifted uncomfortably, being the center of attention had always made him nervous and added onto the fact that he had tried to avoid any attention for thirty years under the constant threat of death made the close scrutiny excruciating.
     "I-I'm fine kids, just feeling a little under the weather, don't worry about me. Go eat your breakfast," Ford tried to sound reassuring but his voice ended up sounding raspy and exhausted.
     He really wasn't surprised when neither of them looked convinced, he would have been worried if they were convinced by his flimsy lie. However, one look from Stan and they went to eat and Ford was immensely greatful.
     "Ok, I am going to the store, I'll be right back, this place better still be here when I get back," Stan said. He looked at Ford then whispered to the younger twins, "I want you to watch him, because he will try to do things no matter how sick he is."
     The kids looked at each other then nodded. Stan, satisfied with the answer he received, threw a last goodbye over his shoulder and walked out to his car.
     Five minutes later, Ford made his move. He slowly stood up and made his way to the vending machine, he was anxious about the portal. It was already disassembled, but he still had to cheack the whole basement for anything that might have followed him through and there would be a snowball in a forest fire before his family was hurt because he didn't feel well enough to look for a deadly creature.
     Just as he was about to punch in the code, Ford heard two sets of feet run towards him. He looked behind him in time for his great niece and nefew to grab his sleeves and drag him, weakly protesting, away from the secret door.
     "Sorry Grunkle Ford, but we can't let you go down there like this. On yhe bright side, you get to spend the day with us!" Mabel said cheerfully.
     Dipper, on the other hand, looked serious. "Grunkle Ford, if you go down there while you are this sick, there are so many ways that you could get hurt. You could trip and impale yourself or fall to your death, you could find some creature and if you tried to fight it right now when you are this weak, you could easily get killed by it! We just met you a month ago, I'm not going to lose you already because you did something you know that you shouldn't do."
     Ford was so confused. He was trying to go down there in order to protect them all but here were Dipper and Mabel keeping him away from his task. He never wanted to worry anyone, and he could clearly see that Dipper at least, was very worried. Even though these weren't his kids, he felt that paternal instinct kicking in and making him want to protect these two children from worry of any kind.
     It was that paternal instinct that kept him from the basement. He ended up deciding that, until he was well enough to fight anything that he might confront in the basement, he would stay away from the vending machine.
     "So," Ford wheezed, "what do you kids want to do?"
     While Dipper put on a thoughtful expression, Mabel's eyes lit up on a pink book that sat across the room from the recliner that they all rested on. She scooted out of the chair and dashed across the room to grab it.
     "We can tell you about all of the adventures that we've had here!" Mabel said enthusiastically. Ford looked at Dipper to see an expression of agreement on his face
     "That's actually a really good idea Mabel, we might have even encountered a few creatures that  you haven't seen already Grunkle Ford. So, what do you say?"
     Ford looked between the two eager faces and knew that even if he wanted to (which he didn't) he wouldn't have been able to say no. "Ok," he said, nodding in consent, "let's see what all you've done."
     With cheers of victory, Mabel and Dipper high-fived and Mabel crawled back into the chair while settling the book on her Grunkle's lap.
     Together, they looked through Mabel's scrap book while the young twins took turns filling Ford in on their countless encounters with the weird creatures of Gravity Falls.
     Thirty minutes later, Stan pulled up the dirt road and brought in the groceries. He had ended up buying a Milky Way for Dipper, Gummi Koalas for Mabel, M&M's for himself, and since he didn't know what Ford liked anymore (Ford probably didn't know what he liked either since he hadn't had Earth candy in 30 years) he just bought a dark chocolate Hersheys bar. After all, Ford had always loved dark chocolate. Other than that, he only got bread,  the ice, and apple juice because he realized that they were out.
     "Kids! I'm back and I got some candy!" Stan called, looking around.
     "Just a second Grunkle Stan!" Mabel said. Stan walked towsrds the living room and looked at the chair. There, he saw a pale albeit mostly happy Ford with a child on each side of him and a scrap book in his lap, and all three of them were bundled up under the blanket.
     Ford looked up and blushed. "T-they wouldn't let me go down to the basement," he tried to explain. Stan couldn't help but notice how, even though he was embarrassed, Ford still looked happy.
     Stan shrugged and tossed the two kids their respective candies and as they thanked him, he reached back into the grocery bag. "This is yours," Stan said, toddong Ford the chocolate. "Don't eat it until your temperature goes down a little bit."
     Stan would have laughed at the confused puppy look on Ford's face if it hadn't been so sad. It was sad because apparently, it had been so long since someone had done something nice for him that he just didn't know how to respond.
     Finally, he settled for a simple thank you and set the chocolate down. Ford shooed the kids off of himand stood up to get his medicine. the younger twins went off to do separate activities and Stan followed Ford to get him the proper amount of Benadryl.

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*6:00 that night*
     Ford and Stan were sitting in the kitchen, with Ford sucking on an ice cube. When he finished, Stan grabbed the thermometer and put it into his brother's mouth.
     Ford sat there, mulling over what he wanted to say and how he wanted to say it. Stan took the thermometer out of his mouth and looked at the reading. "Huh, 100.2ºF, not bad," Stan said, "You can eat that chocolate now if you want to."
     Ford grabbed the chocolate off the table and opened the package. He broke off a piece and offered it to Stan. "No thanks," he said, "I never did understand how you could eat that stuff."
     Ford sighed and set the piece down.  "Look, I know that I have never been the best brother, and I don't know what I ever did to deserve you because you are one of the greatest people I've ever met and I'm a terrible person," well, that hadn't been what Ford had wanted to say, but there was no stopping it now, "I guess that I just wanted to say thank you, for everything, not just the chocolate. I also hope that I can repay you for everything you've done for me. I just-"
     A hand over Ford's mouth cut him off. He looked over the hand into Stan's eyes and found that his brother looked both exasperated and happy.
     "I'm going to stop you right there Pointdexter, first off, you're not a bad person. Yeah you've made some mistakes, news flash buddy, we all do. Secondly, I'm not exactly a saint myself, have you seen my criminal record? For the last part of your rant, you're welcome, I'm sure that you'd do the same for me. So, covered everything? Good, now sit back, shut up, and eat your chocolate."
     Ford just sat there for a second, dumbfounded. Then without a word or any reguard to his cramping body, he pretty much tackled the still seated Stan in a hug.
     Now it was Stan's turn to be dumbfounded as he slowly returned the hug. They stayed in that embrace for a good six minutes until the click of a camera made them aware of another presence. They both jerked away from each other in surprise and looked in the direction of the noise. There they saw Mabel standing with a camera and a cheerful look on her face.
     "Scrapbookertunity!" She exclaimed before dashing off to put the newest picture in her scrap book.
     The twin brothers looked at each other and broke into broad grins, one face pale and a bit clammy and the other mostly healthy and Ford realized that, as he bit into a piece of chocolate, that this might not be such a bad day after all.