When Stanley arrived at the shack, he wondered if he should even knock. The wind screamed through the trees in the nearby forest, knocking their branches together eerily. An argument started in Stanley's mind. It was cold, the wind whipped his long hair across his face, and the frozen tendrils of his mullet snapped like whips across his face. Stanley's sense of self preservation had become skewed by his time on the road, and ever since his time in Montana, he wasn't quick to trust a creepy old shed again. A loud crack broke Stanley from his thoughts, as a particularly strong gust of wind caused the shack to lean heavily to the side. He pulled in a deep breath of cold air, and barked out a sickly smoker's cough as the air stung the back of his throat, he could swear his tonsils just got frostbite. Speaking of frostbite, he couldn't feel any of his appendages.
"Suck it up Stanley," he grunted to himself, this was his brother's house. Ford had asked for him to come up to Gravity Falls, and by God, after a decade, Stanley was ready to oblige.
"You haven't seen your brother in over ten years," he said, trying to talk himself out of walking into the wooden death trap.
"It's okay. He's family. He won't bite," he said confidently and knocked on the large wooden door. The door swung open, menacingly, Stanley jumped back, and in good time, since he was suddenly in the cross hairs of an old crossbow.
"Who is it!?" the young man behind the crossbow shouted, "Have you come to steal my eyes?!" Stanley blinked, the crossbow was still real as the cold ass wind on his back, but for a second a weapon pointed at him wasn't his main focus. He looked at his twin, eye shifting, breath catching in his throat. He looked as paranoid as a politician facing a polygraph test.
"Well I can always count on you for a warm welcome," he joked, trying to ease the tension, why the hell would anyone be after his eyes? He wondered if he greeted the mail man like this.
"Stanley, did anyone follow you? Anyone at all?" his brother asked looking around in the blizzard. As if he could see anything, it was a white out.
"Eh, hello to you too, pal," Stanley said awkwardly rubbing the back of his neck, he figured his brother would've dropped the act when he recognized him. Unless he knew about Stanley's track record, he had made a lot of enemies. Stanford grabbed his shoulder and dragged him inside. It's not like Stanley was complaining, he was freezing, but his brother was acting a bit… crazy. Now he was shining a flashlight in Stanley's eyes, he bat his brother away.
"What the hell?" he asked, seriously all this time in the middle of nowhere was driving dear ol' Fordsy bonkers. Did Stanford seriously think he'd showed up high?
"Sorry, I just had to make sure you weren't… uh, it's nothing. Come in, come in," he said not making eye contact, darting towards the back of the house. He had in fact been checking for drug use. Stanley thought, cursing his parents for spreading such slander. Not that it wasn't without merit.
"Uh, you gonna explain what's going on, here?" he asked following his twin into the creepy shack, there was all sorts of weird science stuff lying about, in all levels of disrepair. The only machine he recognised was a Mass Spec, he'd first seen one after getting busted in a drug ring back in '67.
"You're acting like Mom after her tenth cup of coffee," he said, trying to bring the conversation back to a common ground, it usually worked in business. The young man finally stopped darting about the house and stood mostly still, his 6 fingered hand clutched around a beat up journal. Leave it to the poindexter to keep a diary, he thought.
"Listen there isn't much time," Stanford said, holding onto the journal like he'd birthed the thing, "I've made huge mistakes and I don't know who I can trust anymore," he said, and turned the head of a skeleton away. Stanley could understand the sentiment, he too had made some made shitty choices and bad friends, but his twin brother wasn't the sort to get in trouble like he was. What could he have done anyway? He'd been in this secluded shack for the past eon anyway. But being paranoid about a skeleton… maybe the isolation had driven him mad, he heard somewhere smart people were more prone to craziness or something.
"Hey, uh, easy there," he said, he was worried now, what if ol' Fordsy had taken a jump off the deep end? "Let's talk this through, ok?" he said, looking around for something that could help him.
"I have something to show you. Something you won't believe," he said. Stanley shrugged.
"Look, I've been around the world, okay? Whatever it is, I'll understand," he hoped his brother wasn't in any sort of trouble, but then again, if he was losing his mind, what did he have left? Stan had never been the smart one, and he didn't wanna start anytime soon. They walked deeper into the rickety house. It didn't seem old, there wasn't much mold or anything, but the sounds it made as it shifted and leaned in the wind, made him nervous nonetheless.