Chapter Text
The world faded into gray and Stanley Pines failed to notice.
In his defense! He had been both very cold and incredibly embarrassed at the time, both things that served to help him ignore his surroundings rather than bring them into greater focus. Besides, Stan didn't loose color along with everything else. He could still see the cold-blotted red of his nose from the corner of his eyes, and he could still see the dusty brown of his jacket were the collar was pulled up to protect his face.
So no, actually, it was entirely reasonable for him to have completely missed when time stopped moving normally and the whole world went grayscale! Especially given Stan hadn't known that was something that could just happen.
That would be what he would tell himself for years to come.
What happened next wasn't his fault. He didn't know.
He didn't know that he should have kept his head down and face hidden when he heard the thud of hooves and jingling of bells.
Extra Stan, 3 dollars or better offer!
Pa had scribbled the message on a torn piece of cardboard in a blind fury, and shoved Stan outside to stand in front of the shop with it. A spur of the moment punishment for Stan failing a test in a truly spectacular fashion.
It was also the worst thing to ever happen to Ford, although the why of it wouldn't make itself known until much, much later.
In the moment Ford just found it deeply humiliating. And Ford wasn't entirely sure if he was embarrassed for Stan or embarrassed of Stan. Because Pa was doing this to humiliate Stan, sure, but also Stan was his twin - everyone who saw one of them would inevitably think of the other. And people were going to see him. Lots of people probably already had! Pa had shoved him out almost as soon as they got home from school! It was well past dusk now so he'd been out there for hours.
It was winter but half of their bullies lived on the same street as the pawn shop. People were going to see Stanley! People who would shove Ford into lockers about it later! And Pa made it sound like Stan was going to have to go out there every day during break until he stopped being mad about the test.
Ford was bracing himself for that, actually. Pa would have to let Stan in to sleep so Ford would need to stash food in their room for Stan to eat. No way Pa would let him come in for lunch, and breakfast and dinner would be mood dependent. As for the cold, Ford's jacket wasn't much thicker than Stan's was but Stan could always wear Ford's under his own... layering was a good way to keep warm.
And there had to be a way he could talk Pa into letting Stan in so he could go to the bathroom during the day.
Ford had finished his homework and just started on his usual chore of sweeping the shop (and was doing his absolute best to ignore his twin just outside the storefront as he mulled over how best to help him) when he met The Thing That Wasn't His Brother for the very first time.
Of course, Ford didn't know it wasn't his brother at first. It looked like his brother. The voice was the same, too.
The bell over the door jangled and Ford looked up to welcome the customer, only to balk at the sight of Stanley coming in early, bright red from the cold with the hand-made sign folded under one arm and his hands cupped together by his chest.
"Stanley!?" Ford whisper-yelped. His twin turned to him blinked a couple times like he was surprised to see him on the shop floor. Even though Stan had to have seen him through the window.
Then a bland smile spread across Stan's face and he stepped in so the door could swing shut behind him.
"Hello, brother," he said with a strangely flat affectation.Which was weird but not particularly high on Ford's list of priorities.
"Stanley you have to go," he hissed as wrung his hands around the handle of his broom. "Hurry, Pa went upstairs so-"
"Pa? Oh, good," Stan said, interrupting Ford in that same detached tone. Then, much to Ford's horror, Stan stepped around him and walked to the foot of the stair. He put his foot on the bottom step, took a deep breath, and, despite Ford's growing panic, shouted; "hey! Pa!"
He didn't say anything else to Ford. He didn't even look his way.
A door slammed upstairs and feet started to stomp down from the upper floor. Ford held his broom close to his chest and stared at his brother's back, waiting for Stan to turn around and quickly explain to him what was going on in his head.
But he didn't. And he stayed put as their Pa came thundering down the stairs. Pa's face was just as red as Stan's, though his was with anger rather than cold, and Ford shrank back towards the far wall. It really didn't matter that Pa wasn't angry with him when he looked like that.
"Stanley, if you-!" Their Pa started as he reached the landing, gearing up to start shouting down the house. Only to stop short when Stan thrust his cupped his hands forward towards him. Ford couldn't see what he held from where he was but he could see their Pa's expression shifted from furious to something unreadable behind his thick glasses.
"The green lady gave me three dollars and said to go inside," Stanley said. His voice was calm and even in a way that didn't sound right, and when he looked back over his shoulder to gesture towards the storefront window Ford saw his expression was still oddly blank. "She said if you sent me back out she would take her payment back."
Ford followed Stan's gaze and saw a green station parked in front of the shop. There wasn't any lady that he could see but she probably was still in her car. It was freezing out, after all.
And, well. As angry as Pa was three dollars was a week of groceries. He wasn't going to let go of that just to keep a punishment going.
By the time Ford looked back at him the man had made a visible effort to calm himself. Probably so whoever the green lady was she didn't decide to stick her nose even more in their business.
"Leave it on the counter," Pa ordered, "then get your ass to your room."
Stan nodded without complaint. He walked back over to the counter and carefully set down a small mountain of polished pennies on the wood. Only pennies.
Almost in the exact moment that he did that station wagon came purring back to life and peeled off down the street.
Ford stayed locked in place through it all. Stayed put until after Stan had vanished upstairs and Pa snapped at him to finish his chores and before he went following along after.
Moses, what was that? Ford started sweeping again, more frantically than before as his thoughts turned into a whirlwind of what was that what was that what was that???
Stanley had been visibly shocked when he was shoved outside, and if he thought about it Ford could assume that Stan had been almost as mortified as Ford about the whole thing. Maybe that was it? Sure, Stanley had always brushed off Pa's punishments before, but Pa had just told the whole world (or at least the whole street) that he thought Stanley was an unwanted spare.
Pa had always been open about the fact that Ma and him hadn't expected twins. Ford had just never really believed he meant it until just today. He thought maybe Stanley had already known, though. Stan always said that Pa didn't really like him much.
By the time Ford had finished cleaning and flipped the open sign to closed he had come to the conclusion that Stan acting strange was simply a combination of failing a test, standing for hours in the cold, Pa's rage, and public humiliation. Apparently that was what it took to finally strike Stan's sense of shame.
... Only for Ford to be completely thrown off again when he got to their shared bedroom and found Stan sitting completely rigid on his bed, staring at the opposite wall without really looking at anything.
Stan turned his head only slightly when the door opened without moving his eyes from whatever fixed point he had locked on. He was still wearing his jacked, too - though the melting snow had left it soaking wet. Most unsettling was that Stan had the same bland smile on his face as he had downstairs, even though he wasn't looking at anything.
"Stanley?" Ford cautioned.
His brother slowly turned his head towards him, but it took a little longer for his eyes to follow along and land on Ford's face. The bland smile stayed, giving nothing away.
Stan had scared him before. On Halloween in particular he liked to jump out from hiding places wearing his monster mask to make Ford jump and scream. But he had never unsettled Ford before. The feeling was so new that Ford didn't yet know the word to describe the chill that went down his spine when Stanley looked at him.
It made him sweat but Ford still stepped into their room and closed the door behind him. Then he leaned against it just to be safe, so there was at least a small barrier should Pa decide to come storming in.
"Stanford," Stanley finally said slowly, catching on each syllable of his name in a way that almost sounded robotic. "Are we identical twins?"
Of all the things he could have said, Ford had maybe expected that the least.
"Wh-?" He cut himself off and really looked at Stan. He was wearing wet clothing and he looked vacant. Hypothermia? Ford didn't actually know anything about how it worked but he knew people got it from being too cold and that it made people act weird. "Are you okay?"
"We're twins and we have the same face," Stanley explained with calm detachment, "so are we identical? Or are we fraternal and just look the same now?"
Stan gave no indication that he was kidding. His strange smile stayed in place and his whole body stayed unsettlingly stiff. He had to be sick. Or maybe he had slipped while he was outside and hit his head?
"...Ma says we're identical," Ford said slowly.
There was a brief flash of confusion across Stan's face, an emotion that Ford was actually pretty used to seeing on him. The familiarity made him relax a little. What was there to be scared of?
Ford cleared his throat and said, "listen... I know you don't want to but you should probably do your homework. Pa's still pretty mad, so..."
Stanley had started to touch his face, moving his hand like he was trying to fidget with glasses that he didn't have, all without taking his eyes off of Ford. Aaaand Ford was right back to feeling uncomfortable! Great. He bit his tongue and leaned further back against the door, suddenly wishing he had left it open.
"I should do my homework," Stan muttered under his breath, completely devoid of his usual dramatics or annoyance at the idea. Just that the samd blank smile.
And that was too much.
Ford reached out for the doorknob without looking away from his brother. He couldn't look away from Stan suddenly. Something just felt so wrong and the unease had begun to shift into actual, proper fear.
"I'm gonna find Ma," Ford explained in a little squeak. And yeah, that was what he was doing. It wasn't like he was running away from his brother, that would be silly! He just needed their Ma to come and tell him everything was fine. "You might have caught a cold or something."
It took another six months before Ford knew without a doubt that that Thing wasn't Stanley.
And then nothing was fine at all.