Rolls out of bed and into your inbox.
Cat Stan au where the only difference is Stan as a cat has six toes
Ouuuughghhh.
I love it. It changes nothing, just adds another flavor of angst on top of everything.
Because Stan doesn't realize he has six toes. He's struggling with the reality of being a cat as it is, he's not going to take the time to look at his feet and notice the extra toes. Just trips over himself a bunch and shakes it off as being clumsy, whatever.
But Ford notices. Day three of having this stray breaking into his house and Ford, in the middle of picking it up to throw it out again, catches sight of its big paws, and the extra toe's sticking out of each one. Just holds it and squishes all its feet, grinning a little to himself and telling it all about statistics and polydactyl in animals vs humans and how exciting it is and-
Ford has a cat now.
Through miscommunication city, Ford names his new cat Sixer. He threw it out there as a little joke to himself, but the cat reacted so positively (Stan was trying to make connection of Sixer=childhood=Stan) that it sticks, and he starts feeling all those warm feelings he's been suppressing about Stan through reminiscing about his brother to his new cat.
The cat that now feels betrayed that Ford is giving Stan's special name for him to his pet cat of all things. Cannot get Ford to realize he doesn't like it, because every time Ford calls him Sixer he reacts, so that must be his cats name :)
A fact that goes hard into mega angst when Ford finally believes Stan's dead, allows himself to process the thought of 'this cat used to be my brothers' and comes to his own conclusion that Stan named the cat Sixer in his honor, and breaks down more about it.
Side note, in a hilarious twist of fate, wolf Ford doesn't have extra toes. He's got normal wolf feet, something he doesn't realize for months. He clocks his new buddy Felix's big feet, but brushes it off as Felix being young and not yet grown into his cursed cat feet, then doesn't think about it for months.
