It’s 1991. Stan’s been living in his brother’s house for a little less than a decade. He’s been legally dead for a little more than five years.

He avoids seeing his family in person. His parents would know who he was in an instant if they saw him. More distant relatives, he can fake it with. He wears gloves he made with an extra stuffed finger sewn onto them when he has to.

He knows that eventually he’s going to need another way to deal with his hands. It’s nerve-wracking enough to try and pretend to be Ford with people who’ve met him before without the fear of having his cover blown every time someone tries to shake his hand.

Coming up with the story itself is easy. Ford was always embarrassed about his extra fingers. Nothing Stan said had ever really changed that, (of course it hadn’t. Had he ever really done anything good for Ford in his lifetime? Ever really made a difference that was worth making?) He’ll just tell his family that he’d finally broken down and found a surgeon who’d removed them.

Of course, something like that would leave a couple of scars.

Stan takes another swig from the bottle, just one more. He doesn’t want to lose his steady hand here. He could give himself nerve damage, sever a tendon, lose the use of part of his hand if he’s not careful. Maybe even if he is careful. He’s not a surgeon. It’s not like he really knows what he’s cutting into here.

He lays out the scalpel and butterfly bandages. He’ll make the first cut in his right hand, just outside his pinky. If he can still use his right hand afterwards, he’ll make the second cut then and there. Get it over with.

Might certain houses have memories, Stan Pines? Is it possible that as you take the knife to your own flesh, this house remembers a day when another man sat where you sit now? Laying out scalpels and sterile bandages, taking a drink to steady his nerves…Adjusting the mirror that he’s placed above the newly shaved-in bald spot on his head, where he knows he’ll have to make the first cut…

Is it possible the house hears as you bite your lip to keep from crying out, and compares the sounds you make to what it heard come out of your brother? The noises he made on the day that, as you do now, he took a knife to himself in the interest of keeping his secrets? Does it know which of you went the longest without whimpering? Which one of you cried the most when it was over? Would it matter if it did?

Would it make any of this any easier?