Chapter Text
There is a distinct difference between the sound of a gunshot, and the twang of a fired crossbow.
There are many variables with a gunshot. The type of gun, how well maintained it is, or the round fired, large or small. The angle the gun is held, the room it's in, so many minute changes that affect the end result.
The variables at play with a firearm was part of the reason Stanford Pines never bothered with them. Guns were finicky, required more maintenance and practice, and the chances of an accident skyrocketed when a gun was brought into play.
More tangibly, a gunshot was loud.
So no firearms. A crossbow was a little less practical, but the variables in its use were less. Notch, aim, shoot.
Now, standing in the doorway of his cabin, snow slowly drifting just beyond where the porch roof ends, Stanford wishes for the loud sound of a gunshot.
Because now, stuck still in the cold winter morning, an unloaded crossbow sitting in his hands, Stanford knows the sound a crossbow bolt makes when it cleaves into a human collarbone.
The noise is quick, and a drier sound than he might have thought. The sound almost disappeared into the cacophony of its follow up, the delayed thunk thunk thunk of someone losing their footing on a wooden floor. Swaying and falling like a tree backwards, landing in three, maybe four inches of snow.
Snow continues to drift down, a dusting that settles everything in a fine, cold layer. Everything past the front door is white, except for two dots of bright red that just made landfall.
Stanford has just killed his brother.
The whole world stutters for a moment. Time does not so much as slow as it does lag, buffering. Stanford's mind grinds to a halt, his thoughts turning over like faulty gears catching over and over. He is reminded of his mother's old sewing machine, the one she used maybe twice a year in his childhood. How it would click, click, click, like the trigger of a crossbow and jam when going over thick fabric. His mother would sigh and lift the presser foot, run her fingers underneath it to clear a path, undaunted by the needle positioned millimeters from her long fingers. She'd start the machine up again, slower this time, and it would clunk and click itself back into a rhythm.
Stanford's mind turns over.
He drops the crossbow.
It falls to the porch with a clatter, the sound heavy and sudden. There is no bolt in it to misfire.
Stanford's mind turns over.
Stanley remains where he fell, his left heel caught awkwardly on the last front step. He's wearing boots, old ones. The soles are worn down to nothing.
Stanford's mind turns over, catches and starts.
His knees collapse forward, jolting his whole body with gravity and pulling him down those last three steps. He cannot feel the impact of his shoes on wood, on snow.
Stanley is laying on his back, arms spread wide. He made no move to catch himself when he fell. He does not move when Ford crashes to his knees next to him.
There is an arrow sticking out of his throat.
The fletching juts out only an inch from the skin, stuck out from the bottom of his neck. The skin there twitches once, twice, and stills. Blood bubbles up from the wound.
Here on the ground, nestled in the snowy shadow of his home, Ford's hands hover hesitantly.
Blood continues to ooze.
Thick globs of it pool in the hollow of Stanley's throat. The stain spreads over the top of his white shirt, seeping into the fabric. It slides like oil down the sides of his neck, dripping into his bed of snowy grit.
Ford reaches around it all, and presses his palms to his brother's face. Twelve fingers clutch at sallow skin. Stanley's eyes are wide.
Stanford shakes his brother's head, just a bit.
The forced movement changes nothing. Stanley does not move on his own. His eyes stare open. They are brown eyes, and they match his brother's. Wide, with darkened skin underneath them that speaks of sleepless nights and a fear that burrows like a weed. But in this moment, Ford's eyes are wet and glassy, darting from the arrow to the blood and back. In this moment, Stanley's eyes are dry and unfocused. Unseeing.
His mouth is open slightly, and his teeth glint milk white against Stanford's palm.
The silence stretches torturously.
The snow begins to melt under Ford's knees, and he knows from experience that the frozen water will bring a chill with it. But he cannot look away from his brother. He leans over, bent and grasping at his limp face like it is the last piece of driftwood in a frothy sea.
Once, when they were both children, Ford demanded that they make a plan in case of a shipwreck, when they were sailing around the world. They scribbled steps in crayon in an old notebook, and Step Two was always to find something to float on.
Step One was always to find each other. Wherever we go, we go together. They'd never planned for if they ever got separated.
Please Come! The postcard had read. And Stanley had.
There is no breath in the body on the ground.
Ford takes just as long to find his voice as he did to find his mind. He wonders how it must sound, now. Rough and scratchy on a good day.
He wonders if Stanley would even recognize it now. This is the first word he has spoken to him in ten years.
Ford forces his jaw apart. His tongue is heavy in his mouth.
“Please.”
Stanford's hands are cold where they are pressed against Stanley's skull. His brother's face is colder.
“Stan…Stanley?” Ford asks, shaking. There is no reply.
Stanford heaves a great gasp, he can feel his chest expand against his knees, folded up as he is. He swallows back a sob, feels it catch in his throat. It stays there, trapped, where it doesn't belong. The arrow in Stan's neck does the same.
“Stan, you have to wake up now.” He says. Just like he used to when they were children, getting ready for school. Like he expects his brother to groan and throw the covers off his bed to stand. Like he expects an answer.
The blood slows in its path to the ground. Dead men don't bleed.
Ford shakes Stan again, gently. The skin of Stanley's face ripples slightly, but his eyes do not move.
Stanley's face has changed dramatically in the decade they've been apart. The baby faced, wide cheeked boy is gone. The man lying in the snow here is hardened, with toughened, worn skin. He has a scar on his chin that Stanford doesn't remember.
“Lee,” Ford starts, his voice wobbling. He can feel tears bubble out of his eyes. He takes a breath that is staggered and labored.
“Lee, you gotta get up. Wake up. Wake up, Lee.”
Stanford lets go of his brother's head. All he does is soften his grip, but gravity takes it and it flops backwards into the snow without resistance. The sight of it is sickening, and for a moment Ford kneels there, still, hands outstretched, surprised.
Then he jolts like he's been electrocuted and lurches forward. He cannot stand to look at his brother lying there in the snow like a broken doll for one more second.
He grasps wildly at Stan's body, clawing into his dull red sweatshirt and hauling him up, dragging him sideways and into Ford's arms.
Ford remembers the weight of his brother well. He grew up with him, after all. Ford remembers late nights and early mornings when Stan would brave the heights of their bunk bed and flop over Ford in bed, wriggling like a fish on the line and laughing.
The body in his arms is lighter than it should be.
For a moment, a brief flash, Stanford thinks this whole thing is a mistake. A misunderstanding. This man is not Stanley. With his worn out boots and long hair. With his sunken eyes and washed out face. Old clothes, threadbare and dirty. This man is some other poor soul, and the real Stanley is going to pop out of the old El Diablo that's parked in the driveway and find his twin sobbing in the snow over a stranger.
But then Ford adjusts the body in his arms, pulling the torso until it's braced against his knees, and the crossbow bolt lodged in Stanley's throat rests at Stanford's eye level.
Fat tears roll down Ford's cheeks. They stick to his skin at his chin and hang there, near frozen in the morning air. Ford realizes he's making noises, little hitched breaths that are loud in his ears.
He squeezes the body in his arms closer, tucks its head under his chin and holds it. Ford's breaths arc out above his brother's head, turning to mist as it hovers for a moment and dissipates.
Stanford begins to rock, back and forth, slowly, breathing in stilted gasps as he moves. He rocks like a boat, like they both imagined their boat might one day. Forward and backward, a soothing motion Stanley once did for him, when Ford was sick. Whispering assurances and telling small stories just to fill the air.
The air now is filled with small noises of grief and the smell of metal.
A wetness seeps into Ford's vest, and he desperately hopes it's snow.
On a slow rock backward, dazed, he looks down and finds that it's not. His movement has jostled the bolt in his brother's neck, and blood has oozed downward, covering Stan and Ford's lap. The blood is lukewarm, and cooling.
Ford finds himself rambling. At first, he cannot make out the words, so transfixed on the red that is spreading like a stain down his brother's front. He stops rocking for a moment, then starts again. Faster. The movement is less now a soothing gesture, now it is the frantic shuddering motion of desperation.
“I'm sorry. I'm so sorry Stanley. Stanley. I'm so sorry-” Ford hiccups around a sob.
“I didn't mean to. Stan. Lee. Please. You can come back now, I'm so sorry I-”
Stanford chokes for a moment, and he can feel tears rushing down his face, making landfall in Stanley's hair.
He leans back again, just an inch, to look down at the body in his arms. At his twin's face, dead and lifeless, pushed into his chest.
There is blood pooling in Stanley's mouth, a bead of it escapes and dribbles down his chin.
“I promise,” Ford starts, swallows, and sobs again. His next sentence feels wrong to think, wrong to say. But he knows, he knows in the space in his chest just underneath Stanley's empty eyes that this is important. This is something Stanley wants.
“I promise, I won't be mad anymore.” He whispers.
Stanley stays where he is, where he was struck, where he fell. Silent.
“Please come back.” Stanford pleads to his corpse.
.