My favorite flavor of Stancest is when they are both unhinged about each other. My second flavor is jealousy.
This came from the idea of Ford becoming increasingly jealous of Stan becoming involved with another researcher until he can't handle it anymore.
This is Pre-Stancest and they've been hunting and researching for a few months now. Well, they stop at this sleepy little village to collect some intel about a mysterious and deadly anomaly that happens in their waters. At this village, they come across another researcher, some professor that is also looking into the same mystery. They hit it off but Ford finds that this professor has his eyes set on Stanley.
And Stanley has his eyes set on him.
At first, Ford as dealing with it. It was nothing more than the silly and harmless flirting that Stan does at ports all the time. Nothing serious, nothing permanent. Ford has the security that Stan will always be with him, come back to their boat, sleep in their room, travel the world by his side. But this professor, this interloper. He's getting cozy and bold. And Stan isn't necessarily pushing back his advances.
It doesn't help that Ford can clearly see the distinctions between himself and the professor. They're both similarly built, close in age, intelligent (though Ford would never say anyone is as intelligent as him unless their names were Fiddleford or Stanley), a pension for proper diction, and a hunger for the unknown. It stings when he sees that man's 5 finger hand clasped around Stan's bicep. The bile from inside churns dangerously every time he is near, every time he encroaches on his Stanley's space. He can't stand it.
Stanley convinces Ford to let him help him on the mystery, that it would be a help to have three heads reviewing over the material. Ford can't say no even though he wants nothing more than to leave this man to port and never step foot on that side of the world ever again. So they research together. He gets closer to Stan. A darkness inside of Ford threatens to break free the longer he has to bare his presence. The only reasons he keeps himself in check is because Stanley is happy and that this is temporary.
It all comes ahead when Ford finds the man trespassing on their boat and rifling through Ford's personal belongings in the lab, looking to steal Ford and Stan's research. And he did not some without a weapon. Gun in hand and gasoline in the other, Ford could easily tell that he planed to kill and burn them in their boat after getting what he wanted. It placids the vindictive part of Ford's jealous heart when he finishes tying him up, gun safely tucked away. Any other time, Ford would have dealt with him himself and been done with it but not this time. No, Ford wants answers. He wants reason. He wants Stan to see the kind of man he truly is and come running back to Ford and never leave his side again. He won't let Stan be hurt by men like him.
Ford manages to get wretch the truth from the professor. He spot Ford and Stan has easy targets they moment they walked into the port. He had been having a dry spell in his research and was running out of money to continue. He realized that Ford would have plenty of tools, money, and means to replenish his research. Using Stan as a way to get close, he would then steal the findings and take the credit, killing them both to cover his trail. Stan was only one of many big and dumb men that he had stolen and killed from to fund his work, Stan was only different because he was tied to Ford, someone who could elevate him from no one to someone. He never liked Stan and only tolerated him as a means for quick fame and fortune.
That darkness that Ford kept locked up burst through at hearing how this man was treating his brother as a pawn. It's not until Stan comes back to the boat does Ford stop, stunning back into the present. All things outside mattered not when in one hand Ford held a bloody and beaten professor and the other, the tentative trust of the only person Ford ever loved. Caught red handed (literally) Ford began blubbering. About catching the professor, about how he treated Stanley, about what he was going to do, about how he didn't deserve Stanley, about how no one deserved Stanley, about how Stanley could do so much better, about how he could be better for Stanley than this professor, about how he could treat Stanley right - baby please just give me a chance, I had to do this, he was going to steal from us and no one gets away treating you that way - and Stanley is kissing him.
Ford loses himself to it completely, unable to function without his body pressed against Stan's. He's lost and Stan has managed to find him all over again. When Stan pulls away, his face covered in red from Ford's stained hands, Ford swears he never looked more beautiful. But he would soon be proven wrong because Stan tells him how he has always loved him and wasn't going anywhere. He then shows Ford something that makes him fall over again. In Stan's own space are the professors research and material stolen by Mr. Mystery himself. Stan was using him just as much as he was trying to use Stan all for Ford. When they wrung all of the usefulness out of him, Stan was going to dump him and present the findings to Ford in case their own research turned up nothing.
Ford wanted to ravish him right then and there. Except they still had a murderous professor to deal with first.
The professor found his end in the same deadly anomaly that already claimed so many before. They watched as he disappeared below the water and never surfaced. They set sails away from the village and the anomaly, deciding to start the beginning of their news lives in smoother (and warmer) waters for an extended honeymoon.
