#i would say the next one will be happy
This is a companion to my other work in the same AU, Hello Blue.
Stancest:1.6K
Description:The furnace goes out at Pines Pawn and Ford thinks about Stan. Based on the AU that you see color for the first time when you meet your soulmate, but altered: you experience color over time as you learn to love.
Warnings: angst, incest, Ford is basically an icicle, also he is very sad, I’m sorry
The first color that Stanford saw was green.
It was winter in Glass Shard, and the ancient furnace powering Pine’s Pawn had finally given out. He remembers watching the snowflakes land one by one, sticking to the cold glass of their- his tiny bedroom window, slowly covering the view of the gray, slushy street outside.
Inside the room, Stanford was miserable. Despite the four sweaters, three pajama bottoms, mittens, and hat atop his head, even buried down underneath two thick winter blankets, Ford’s slim frame still shook from the chill. Though he knew it was medically impossible, he was near certain that his sensationless toes and fingers were beginning to contract gangrene.
He turned over and curled into a tight ball, pulling the blanket over his head to capture the heat of his previously-visible breath. Idly, he lamented to himself the loss of his personal space heater- Stanley. Stanley always seemed to emanate heat somehow; sticking to jeans and a scant white tshirt even in the dead of Jersey winter. But Ford had always hated the cold; piling on layer after layer in a desperate attempt to preserve what little heat he had to work with in the first place.
He supposed it was just another unfortunate side effect of his abnormality.
Still, he did miss the tenderness of Stan’s touch, the way he would draw Ford’s back flush to his bare chest under a pile of warm winter blankets, trailing little lines of kisses up and down his shoulder almost as a lover would.
Ford scoffed to himself, throwing the blankets off his head in exasperation of their ineffectiveness at heating him. Fuming on the memory of Stan, he dragged himself down from the top of the bunk bed, ripping the blankets from his bed and tossing them on top of Stan’s. He crept back underneath them, pulling them around himself and doing his damnedest to ignore the way his body seemed to instinctively warm in this location. He certainly didn’t turn his head further into Stan’s old pillow and relish the remains of his lingering scent. He huffed, frustrated at his own weakness and glared at the blank wall.
Lover. As if he could even use that term. Stan had hardly even been a brother toward the end. After all, what kind of brother would sabotage Ford’s chance to finally, finally get out this dingy, backwater town and be somebody? To overcome his… his freakishness and overshadow it with his sheer genius? But no. Stan didn’t want that. Stan never wanted Ford to grow up and possibly overshadow him. He didn’t want Ford to get that precious education that would allow him to break free of this shell of a man that he was becoming. Stan wanted him to stay the way he was; smart, but not too smart. Funny, but not funnier than him. And vaguely aesthetically pleasing, after all twins and whatnot, but without holding a candle to Stan’s beauty…
Stan used to call him that. Beautiful. He didn’t see it; couldn’t see it. He couldn’t imagine how anyone could see something even remotely worthwhile in his physical body. Which is why he coveted his intellect so closely; why he pushed himself to know and ask and understand more than anyone else. Maybe with enough intelligence someone would see something good in him.
But Stan had never needed any of that.
He was so casual about his affection, so flippant at times, that Ford imagined that anyone else might have taken offense to it. Stan very rarely complimented directly on any of his accomplishments; he was never happy for Ford when he did well on a project or came home with straight A’s. Hell, he wasn’t even excited for him the first time that Ford found out he might be able to go to West Coast Tech. He never cared about the important things; the things that mattered to Ford. But he had cared about him in other ways.
Stan always called him beautiful after they made love.
He always took time out of each day to pay attention to Ford’s hands; gently rubbing from the base of his palm all the way up his fingertips, tugging them apart as if in rapt fascination with the way the joints and ligaments beneath the skin flowed. He would brush against his shoulder as they walked down the hall at school, just to show him that he was there. He held Ford’s face in his hands as they kissed, rubbing soft circles along his jaw, kissed softly down Ford’s neck before he was far enough down… He was always careful to mark Ford because he knew how much his older brother liked it, keeping the hickeys and bitemarks just out of sight, because ‘C’mon Stan, people can’t see that…’
He didn’t even realize that he was crying until the tears began to roll down his still chilled cheeks. He tried to stop, but the memories began rolling in. Every soft touch, quiet exchange, and compassionate conversation he had ever had with Stan filled his mind.
He cried until he simply couldn’t anymore; until his stomach hurt from the sobs wracking his frame, his face covered in ice-cold tears, Stan’s old pillow beneath his head drenched. Carefully, he turned it over, hoping, praying that somehow he hadn’t ruined the scent that clung to the old pillow. He had. Ford sighed and stretched out to lay flat on his back and froze as something caught his eye.
Staring back at him, carefully taped to the underside of his bed just out of sight from anyone standing up, was the sign they made years ago for Fort Stan. His eyes briefly traced over the silly, childish scrawl of the sign, a sad smile tugging at his lips at his own signature and skipping over his own deformed and freakish handprint to focus on Stans.
Stan’s handprint and name seemed to call to him, drawing his eyes in magnetically. Carefully, he snuck one of his hands out of the cacophony of blankets to reach up and trace it. It looked… different. Something about it had changed, had heightened his senses. He frowned a bit, blinking hard and staring back at the old sign. The moment the revelation hit him, the air whooshed out of his lungs as if he had been socked right in the gut.
Color! He could see a color! Suddenly the heat of mystery began to pump through his veins, and he pushed the blankets off of himself. Frantically he looked around the room, his eyes picking up on the colour in one of the blankets, one of the planets of his ‘Explore!’ poster, the strange stuffed monster head of Stan’s he found himself unable to part with.
But what was it?! What did all of these things have in common? He vaguely remembered an old argument with Stan about the color of the monster head, both of them speculating. Stan had sworn it was blue, but Ford figured it was orange. But which was it? Blue? Orange? He had to know! He desperately grabbed an illustrated encyclopedia off his bookshelf, plopping down in his desk chair and flipping through the images hoping to spot something with the color. But every image glared back at him the same black and white tone he had always known. It took him nearly ten minutes to register the fact. Ah. Not a colored encyclopedia then.
Half of his sleep deprived mind reminded him of the hour and he wondered for a moment if he should give in and rest. But he couldn’t! He had a mystery to solve, he would never be able to sleep without knowing about his new experience in the world! He looked about again to take inventory of his belongings, and his eyes fell on the orchid proudly perched on the corner of his desk. His mother had given it to him for christmas, claiming that he needed something other than his constantly growing pile of laundry that was alive in his room.
The leaves of the orchid were colored. Green. The thought drifted across his mind. Plants were green.
He stood quickly, pumping a fist in the air.
Green! Plants were definitely, without a doubt, green! They needed to be so in order for photosynthesis to function properly. With a light smile on his lips, Stanford trailed one of his fingers over the delicate leaves of the plant. Color. It was amazing, everything that people talked it up to be. To experience a love so profound and legitimate that you began to experience the world in a new way. It was incredible, one of his favorite aspects of human biology.
He basked in successfully solving the mystery of the new color again, turning around with a hand in the air as the words ‘High six!’ died on his lips.
The heat of discovery seemed to instantly drop away and the cold seeped back in.
Love. He had felt real and honest love. That’s what it took for chromo-sectional perception. A deep and authentic sensation of affection.
He had loved Stanley. He had really, really loved Stanley.
And he had lost him.
Ford threw himself back down with a moan, cocooning his once again frozen form in his blankets and forced his swirling mind to still. The guilt was nearly overwhelming, the deep, raw and biting loss even more so. But it was already 3am and he had school tomorrow. He needed to compartmentalize. He would think about Green tomorrow. He would think about Stan tomorrow. He’d… figure it out. Somehow. But for now, right now, he needed sleep. He shut his eyes tightly, wiping away the evidence of his earlier tears, and willed it to come.
Eventually he did fall into a fitful rest, his dreams filled with the strange and painful imaginations of what spring would look like this year: bright buds and bursting blossoms and the beckoning of beginning new things- all without Stanley.
