A/N: This is a heavy piece, even for me and I wrote it. Please do not interact if you are triggered in any way by mentions of depression, suicidal ideation, or anything related to those topics. Look after your mental health and please be aware of your limits.

Basically, it's a small character exploration of a depressed Stan after Weirdmageddon. No comfort, just hurt.

He can't feel anything anymore and that's the worst part. Nothing is bad, per se, but nothing is good, either. It's this weird sort of numbness that is the fucking worst, and he hates it and he wants it to stop – just for an hour, just so he can have the slightest bit of motivation or drive to do literally anything – but it won't stop and now it feels like his head is full of cotton and static and nothing and he wants to scream and cry and bleed and make it stop all at once and it just. Won't.

It was supposed to be better, supposed to be fixed and everything was supposed to be good. That's why he did this isn't it? So he could stop feeling guilty and sad and nothing all the time?

But it didn't work and now he's left staring at the horizon wondering if it wouldn't be easier just to take that final step. He'd never really do it – at least that's what he tells himself so he doesn't feel even guiltier at night – but the knowledge that it's there, that he has a backup plan if everything keeps on like this, is what's keeping him from screaming during the day and crying at night after yet another nightmare that won't leave him alone no matter what he does. He wouldn't take that step. At least, that's what he tells himself.

He almost can't tell when he's lying anymore.

It's sort of comforting – at least then the burden of pretending all the time is taken off his shoulders.

Sucking in a deep breath, he stares at his hands. They're clenched into fists so tightly he's surprised he isn't bleeding by now, but it hurts and the pain is a good distraction for the cyclone of nothing and everything whipping through his brain.

Okay, he tells himself, forcing the static to quiet down at least a little. Remember. It gets harder when his mind is like this – which it is practically all the time now – but he has to at least try.

Staring out at the line where the ocean meets the sky, he waits for names and faces to surface one by one. Mabel. She's easy, she burns through the consciousness of everyone who meets her like the shooting star stitched onto her sweater. That's the one thing he can always remember about her – the sweater. Dipper. That one's harder, but eventually an image rises from the fog. It's a hat and a tuft of brown hair always peeking over the top of the journal –

The journal. It's the one thing he'll never forget, not for as long as he lives. He's sure of it and his nails bite into his palms even more. It's that fucking book that took everything away from him and ruined it, not just once but again and again.

The white noise in his mind crests again, like one of the waves he's looking at without seeing and now the emotions are back. They surge and fall, and he wants to scream in rage and fear and pain and cry from sadness and frustration and anger. There are some things he can't name and some he doesn't want to, but all he knows is that none of them are positive and right now he's willing to do almost anything to make it stop.

"Stanley?"

Ford. If there's one thing that he remembers even more clearly than the journal, it's his brother. Sometimes he wishes he could hate him. Ever since they boarded this ship bound for the Arctic, Ford has been walking around with a look on his face like someone murdered a puppy and made him watch it. It gets tiring. There are days when he can't even remember why he agreed to this trip, why he wanted to sail miles and miles into some godforsaken ocean where nothing lives with the one person who can barely stand to be around him most days. Something must have possessed him to get him to say yes.

Possession. That's funny, in a bitter, fucked-up gallows humour sort of way. He can't remember why right now, but he's sure Ford would hate it if he told him. He'd get this look like he was trying not to cry and doing a terrible job at hiding it and nothing would feel better.

Not that anything does feel better right now. That's the problem right now.

"Stanley?"

Right, Ford was asking a question. He turns to answer. "What's up, Sixer?" he asks, reaching for the first thing that floats to the top of his memory.

Ford flinches like he just got hit. "Dinner's ready," he says, hesitating like he wants to announce something else. "If you want," he says after a long pause, "we could star-gaze tonight. It's supposed to be a clear sky."

Stars. Were those something he liked before whatever goddamn catastrophe landed them here? He can't remember so he shrugs and responds in a non-committal way, heading for the tiny kitchen.

After the dinner he ate without tasting it, Ford asks him again if he wants to star-gaze. He shrugs and says yes because he might as well. He can't summon any conviction and he knows Ford can tell but nothing is said about it.

It could be the story of his life, everything lurking just under the surface and nothing being said about it. In between all the holes and blank spots his mind has become he can remember tension and anger between him and Ford. Words full of hatred, fights full of pent-up rage and frustration, and traded glances full of bitterness haunt him. Sometimes he wishes he could take it back, but sometimes he doesn't want to. He doesn't know which is worse. That also scares him.

He sits beside Ford on the deck, staring up at the stars and wishes he wasn't so scared. If he could feel something positive, hell, even something at all that'd be nice. Right now it feels like everything's a memory and the only thing in the present is a tiny boat in an ocean full of grey. It's both a metaphor and achingly real.