Woah, it's weird in here

So their interactions thaw out a bit but Ford still keeps his distance. In his mind they don't exactly have to reconcile right now. He'll get to go off to college at the end of the summer. Stan doesn't factor into that. Ford doesn't want to try to find space for him. After he's done everything he's wanted to, then maybe, just maybe he could spare some time and effort to repairing their relationship. He thinks Stan is on the same page.

He's wrong but that's plot for another time lol.

Ford is over the moon with getting to meet the author! They're so alike. It feels like he's found the only person in the world who gets him. Sure, sometimes Great Uncle Dipper and Grauntie Mabel's hesitant reconnecting feels awkward with everything Ford is dealing with with his own twin, but he gladly follows Dipper around to learn everything he can from the man.

Similar to canon-verse, Dipper isn't mad at Ford for trying to turn the portal off. He tells Ford he would have made the same call. That the world is more important than a single life despite it being his own. Ford jumps on the hero-worship train with that and strives to be a selfless scientist like his great uncle.

I have a vague drabble idea of just Ford gushing over the author to a silent Stan and the two of them dissolving into an argument over the whole thing. Stan stays away from Dipper and is steadily isolating himself from the family post-portal incident out of guilt, fear, and self-loathing.

Most of the childhood abuse is going to be lightly touched on, nothing specifically stated, in regards to how I write Piranha because there is a thread of uncertainty surrounding his memories and how his rage and resentment has warped even his positive experiences. He's an unreliable narrator because he jumps to extremes no matter the situation. I also don't want to write detailed scenes of abuse or sexual assault! APTTW is a story about brotherly bonds and how different/difficult they can be. Yes, dark topics will be included but nothing concrete or upsetting (I hope).

To get back to your more focused questions, his childhood in glass shard was not pleasant! the moments with his mother and playing with Ford on the beach are the only shimmers of positivity that Piranha can vaguely recall. Everything else gets overshadowed by how Filbrick abused them. I diverge from the original inspiration here and have Filbrick be physically abuse towards Stan and sexually abusive toward Ford.

It adds another element of Stan resenting his twin. For some reason Filbrick is seeing them differently and choosing to be 'affectionate' with Ford and not him. Which circles into an endless victim blaming cycle Piranha will often go into. He is furious that his brother is 'choosing' their father over him. He is upset that he doesn't have whatever his twin does that makes him 'desirable'.

For the Shermie questions...he's not a huge part of Piranha's story, to the point that Piranha himself forgets he has another brother. I'm thinking Shermie will have been older. He suffered similar abuse Ford is going through and that's why he was so desperate to leave NJ and cut contact with the family. Of course there's an undercurrent of guilt because on some level he is aware that Filbrick won't stop at abusing one child of his, but there's also the fear that if he spoke up no one would believe him. Caryn is aware that her husband is a piece of shit child molester but she's too afraid of his authority to do anything to stop him or speak up. So that adds another factor to Shermie staying silent. He's following his mothers lead to keep himself and his own growing family safe.

Piranha loves his mom. Or at least he thinks he does. Any memory of her is blurred and hard to work out. She died shortly after the twins grew into teens. Anything left of her memory gets distorted by all the trauma Stan goes through. Sometimes he wants to hate her for leaving them with a monster. He wants to blame her for Ford 'choosing' Filbirck over their bond. But he can't because she's not around. She's more akin to a ghost to Piranha. She had to have been here once but she couldn't have been important if she also 'choose' to abandon him. I like to believe that all Stanley's are mama's boys but with Piranha he just has a hard time seeing her as a parent and not a pillar of good that has betrayed him. He's not completely aware that she knew about the abuse. Some part of him insist that she had to have known but the larger part of himself doesn't want to taint what little happy memories he has left so he forces himself to live in ignorance of her part in Filbrick's horrible actions.

He's a contradictory asshole who cherrypicks which moments of his life were 'good' and 'bad' most of the time with disregard to the actual context of the events. And even those are constantly changing! Piranha's mind is a whirlpool of hate and rage and thirst for power and violence. Which he does in up finding in his relationship with Bill-Lee!

In Piranha's drifter days, he furiously sought after powerful groups and integrated himself in them. He yearns to be useful, to be the desired tool. He knows he can't function on his own so he finds the top dog and works hard to become their lap/guard dog/right hand man. In his mind, if he's useful and wanted, then bad things can't happen to him. His bosses will have no reason to hit and hurt him if he is 'good'. Which is another thing he diminishes about Ford's own abuse. Ford is the 'good' twin and therefore his punishments aren't him getting beaten or physically tortured. No, Ford is special to their father and gets treated like he is something to be attained, that he has value Stan does not. This of course isn't any of Ford's fault but Piranha isn't able to understand that. He just sees their father favoring and being 'kind' to Ford and not him. So he chases the title of 'good' in the hopes he will get the same (and what he thinks is preferable) treatment.

Piranha is more or less an assassin for hire. He'll do any odd job given to him as long as he's getting paid or being praised. He grows to enjoy killing, taking power away from someone else instead of having it be taken from him. He enjoys treating people the way he was treated as a child. Murder and crime is easy for him to do and puts him in the good graces of very powerful people. Though he does make mistakes, kills someone he shouldn't just because he wanted to, and makes equally powerful enemies. There's a point where he tries to create his own gang but fails spectacularly when they all band together to try and take him down. This teaches Piranha that he isn't meant to be a leader. He doesn't last very long as a lone wolf either. He craves attention and love he thought his twin was getting instead of him. So he repeatedly seeks out crime syndicates he can impress and worm his way into. He also does everything in his power to not think about the past, to hyper focus on what's happening to him in the present, which is also why his memory is so fuzzy. He spends so long running from any self-reflection that he simply isn't capable of it anymore.

The kid pulls off puppy dog eyes way better than Stan can. Or he’s guessing so since he can’t see the boy’s eyes. Emma-May sighs but reaches out to lift Stan up onto the bed by his scruff. Stan takes full advantage and shoots up to be by Tate’s side and away from her judgy statements.

So what if he’s dirty? A little grime never hurt anyone. Probably. Dirt is good for kids. Builds immunity. At least that’s what Stan used to try and pedal to his Ma. He’s not sure she bought it though. 

“What do you think of keeping kitty?” Emma-May questions softly, drawing the covers over her son’s legs. 

Tate wiggles down into them comfortably. He beams at her with a wide smile. “Can we?” She nods and he gives an audible happy noise, hands coming up to pet down Stan’s sides. 

Yeah, yeah. I’m stayin’ for a bit. Don’t get too excited. Stan tells the kid. I’m leavin’ once your Ma’s got a handle on everything.

“Good point kitty.” Emma-May wraps an arm around Tate and also offers her fingers for Stan to sniff and eventually rubs against. “If he’s staying with us, he’ll need a name.”

The boy puffs his chest out and smiles, confident and proud. “I drew you good, Mystery! Look,” He points to carefully scribbled pink dots near the bottom of the page. “I made sure to get all your toes!”

If Stan felt like crying before now he wants to flood the room with waterfalls. The kid had painstakingly drawn out each of Stan’s twelve toes. It’s poetically sweet. 

Stan always made sure to draw Ford’s six fingers whenever he drew him. It was an important detail. Stan himself in those drawings were always wearing shoes or something, so he didn’t have to worry about putting that much effort into drawing himself. A circle with brown hair and a big nose wearing a striped shirt, that was Stan. Who cares about six toes if you could never see them?

Yet Tate had drawn him perfectly. Even the grumpy frown on the cat’s expression matched his reluctantly amused tone he often took with the boy. Everything about him is displayed happily on the drawing. Tate liked his snippiness. Tate liked his weird feet. Tate liked him.

It’s really good, Stan chokes out and blinks to get rid of the feeling of his eyes welling. A modern Picasso. Put that masterpiece on the fridge.

“Yes, yes.” Ford mumbles, distracted by squishing Stan’s toe beans with reverence. “It’s incredibly rare for a feline to only develop polydactyl on its hind legs.”

Funny how being a cat suddenly make his feet special. Stan growls and jerks his leg out of his brother’s grasp. Ford shoots him an offended pout before probing his toes with the end of his chewed-up pen. Gross. Stan kicks at it half heartly in warning.

Six toes on each foot hadn’t been all that spectacular when he was human. It wasn’t as obvious or as life changing as six fingered Stanford. Feet could be hidden with socks and shoes, but fingers? Eh, not so much. 

Sure, most of Stan’s footwear would rub up against his wider than average bridge and leave raw, red, and sometimes bleeding marks on his extra toes. Sure, most of Stan’s life he’s had to deal with walking with a slight limp to try and alleviate that uncomfortable pressure. Sure, Stan’s gait was something people made fun of him for until he learned how to throw a punch and pretend words didn’t bother him. 

Six toes weren’t even close to the weirdness of six fingers.

As a cat all those things went away. No more awful shoes that didn’t fit. No more forcing himself to walk on the inside of his feet to avoid a majority of his pain. No more mocking or harshly spit words. Cats were commonly known to have polydactyl so even those extra digits were no longer special. Stan couldn’t decide if he like that or not. 

And yet here was his brother, who often dismissed his extra parts as unimportant, as something not as noticeable Stanley they hardly count, curious and excited over them. 

Stan hisses and lets his claws swipe across the back of Ford’s hand. They leave angry little marks but don’t draw blood. Ford jumps away from him and lands on his ass in the soft dirt. His eyes are wide behind his glasses and Stan spits at him before darting up the porch stairs and around the front door.

“Heavens, Ford. Leave the critter alone. We haven’t even settled in yet and yer already harassin’ him.” Fiddleford plucks a couple cords of his banjo and rocks back to peek at Stan hiding in the shadow of the partly opened door. “He’s no fan of strangers.”

Stan scowls at the hillbilly and debates slinking further into the house to explore. He is kind of worried about bumping into something and breaking it though, so he remains close to Fidds as a point of reference. Fidds wasn’t one to yell at him for behaving like a normal cat. Ford, he’s not sure yet. 

“You’ve told me the story on how he stopped a kidnapping.” Ford gets to his feet and dusts himself of, glancing between the man on the porch and the door. “Do you think we could train him for duties in the field?”