Shermie Adoption Au - Tumblr Posts

A One Time Thing

So, um, I might have made the mistake of writing fanfic on my phone instead of sleeping. Again. I got randomly stuck by the idea of an AU where Sherman takes Stan and Ford away from their parents when they're kids and does his best to take care of them on his own, and I just knew if I didn't write it now I wasn't going to ever.

It had just been supposed to be a one time thing.

When Sherman had still lived at home, it wasn't entirely uncommon for him to be woken up by the timid knock of a small hand at his door, overlayed by the sounds of yelling and crashing from the kitchen downstairs. Somehow - call it practice, maybe - he could sleep through the cacophony of angry sounds. But at the first tiny tap of knuckles on wood, he'd be groggily pulling himself out of bed with a slurred "I'm coming".

Allowing his little brothers to take refuge in his room when mom and dad were at each others throats and the twins were too upset to sleep alone wasn't an uncommon occurrence. He was the big brother, by quite a lot actually, it was his job. He was born first so that he'd be there to protect them when they came after. So he'd already have the experience gained through trial and error. So he could test the waters and let them know where it was safe to step. So he could be there to save them if they started to drown, because if he wasn't, they'd pull each other under instead.

He needed to wade out into the frigid storm and get them back to shore. Even if he was still just a kid too. Even if his brothers were too caught in the current to realize it. Even if the sharks were closing in. Even if there was blood in the water.

Blood.

Stanley's nose bled as Sherman hauled him up bodily, grabbed Ford's hand, and slammed the door to their parents' house with one last string of profanities thrown over his shoulder at their dad.

It was just a one time thing. That was what he told himself as he drove the two eight year olds to his cramped apartment and put them to bed on the couch with an icepack for Ford's black eye and a couple of tissues up Stan's nose. It was just for one night. Just until Pa calmed down enough that Sherman didn't feel violently ill at the idea of leaving the kids with him. Just until Sherman could trust that his brothers would be safe at home. It was just a one time thing.

A day stretched out into a week. A week became a month. A month became a year. Sherman had to leave them in the apartment more than he was comfortable with. He didn't want to, he lived in a crappy area, and there wasn't anything for them to do. He promised he'd try to get more time off, but someone had to pay the bills and no matter how burned out he was, he was not going to take a nine year old up on his offer to "help" by pickpocketing. Stan got himself into trouble enough as it was already. They were decently self sufficient at least. They could keep eachother occupied. Sherman still felt like he was failing them when there where entire days he didn't see them awake. When he had to be out for college classes before they even woke up, and stay out for late night shifts until long after they'd put themselves to sleep. He had to turn down coming to Ford's spelling bees and Stan's sports competitions. He had another job interview.

He hugged them, and promised it was just a one time thing.

Sherman's little brothers didn't complain as much as the other children did. He wondered if that was normal. The few times he could get off early enough to pick them up and walk them back to the apartment, he usually saw the other kids their age whining at their parents about all sorts of things, but the twins rarely ever protested anything. It wasn't like they couldn't. He remembered them both nagging and being stubborn with him when they'd all three lived at home. They were his brothers, they were supposed to be difficult with him. They were supposed to tell him that he couldn't boss them around.

They never did.

It couldn't be normal. He asked if it was, the first time he had to go to a parent teacher conference. Teachers worked with kids the whole day after all, they should know what was normal and what wasn't. All he'd gotten out of it was a lot of questions and sceptical glares. He assured the teacher he was only there because their real parents couldn't make it.

He assured them it was just a one time thing.

Feeding three people on one 20 year old's budget was hard. People his age were supposed to be spending their money on movies, dance halls, and dreams of motorbikes. Not pasta and bread. He was pretty sure Stan shoplifted a few snacks when he allowed the twins to go with him to run errands, but he wasn't about to bring it up. He couldn't bring himself to tell him no. He just wished he could pay for it instead. The fact that he had to stretch their budget to the point where he couldn't even buy his twelve year old brother a few sweets made him feel like a failure. Not nearly as much of a failure as when he looked in the pantry the night before his next paycheck and found nothing but a pack of instant noodles and some random leftover ingredients from the birthday cake he'd managed to squeeze into the budget. He put food colouring on the noodles and joked to the kids that it was worms. They ate it with joyful shrieks and the ultimate preteen-boy accolade of "gross".

Sherman filled the largest glass he had with water and drank, quietly telling himself that it was just a one time thing.

The years continued to creep by, and the twins never complained. So he supposed he was doing something right. What exactly, he wasn't sure. It didn't feel like he was doing anything right. But he supposed he had to be, because his brother's never made a fuss. Then came that one night, one that felt eerily familiar, when there was a knock on his bedroom door. The hands that made the noise were larger, stronger than they'd been, but somehow still just as timid. At the first tiny tap of knuckles on wood, he'd groggily pulled himself out of bed with a slurred "I'm coming".

There'd been a military man at their school that day. Talking to their upperclassmen about war and duty and enlistment. Stan and Ford were still too young, it didn't concern them, and Sherman told them as much as both teens broke down. Sitting together wrapped in blankets and going around and around in aimless circles of attempt reassurance as he tried to assuage their fears. The silent threat that had been looming large but seemingly distant suddenly felt far too close. As if it could be upon them any day.

That didn't matter though. They'd be okay. They'd made it this far, they could keep going. Sherman wasn't going to leave them. Not when doing so would put them back home with Pa. That wasn't going to happen, they'd be fleeing to Canada or Europe or whatever before he let that happen. They wouldn't go back. He wasn't just going to let them go without a fight.

Eventually, he managed to get the two teens calmed down enough to fall asleep. All cramped together uncomfortably on his bed. Cramped, but safe and calm.

He hoped to whatever good was out there that it wasn't just a one time thing.

Based on the quickie fic I wrote, A One Time Thing. Poor overworked basically dad Shermie.

Well. Guess who had some late night Emotions™ and wrote another drabble on that "Sherman adopts Stan and Ford when they're eight because Filbrick is the worst" story?

The room at Sherman's apartment was smaller than the one at their parents place had been. It was cramped, the singular window was poorly insulated, and the wallpaper was flaking. Almost everything in it was second hand - deeply cherished childhood toys picked up from garage sales piled in a corner, a banged up desk Sherman's college was going to throw out anyways nestled under the drafty window, an old space heater Ford had to repair nearly every winter puttering away snugly next to the drawer with it's missing handle. Everything was old and worn, but in a good, reassuring, way. Like a pair of well used shoes, slowly adjusted to it's wearer's feet and fitting far more comfortably than a new pair ever could. As far as Ford was concerned, it was infinitely more a home than the pawnshop had ever been.

Maybe that made sense though. He'd soon spent half his life there. The latter part. The better one. The one spent living in a shoddy apartment which's walls nonetheless practically oozed with love and family. The one without dad looming large like some invisible but always precent danger. The one with memories permeated by safety and stability.

Ford knew much of that stability was a carefully crafted façade, propped up on his big brother's shoulders. He'd caught on to it long before Stan, but in retrospect it was obvious. The way Sherman would skip meals so they never had to, the way he always seemed to be working overtime, all of it. It wasn't a stable situation at all. But he'd made it feel that was. Always made it seem like there was nothing to worry about. Ford and Stan had tried to help out wherever they could, doing chores when there were any and otherwise just being good and staying out of the way. It had taken a long time for the permanence of the situation to sink in. For the realization to hit that they wouldn't get sent back. That no matter what they did, Shermie wouldn't get fed up with them and cart them back to Pa.

But what if it wouldn't be up to him?

"Hey, Stan?" Ford whispered into the quiet of the dark. From the bunk under him, he heard a low grunt of affirmation.

"Yeah?" There was no trace of drowsiness in Stan's voice.

"I can't sleep."

"Tell me about it."

Ford dropped his arm over the side of the bed, letting it dangle. It didn't take more than a few seconds for Stan's hand to find it. Five fingers intertwining with six. An old gesture of reassurance. Quiet and secret, Pa wasn't big on sentimentality. That stuff was for women and crybabies. The secrecy wasn't a necessity anymore, Sherman didn't mind, but the gesture had carried them through long enough to become ingrained.

"I'm scared." Ford said. The confession came with ease. Just one of the millions that had been dispersed into the darkened bedroom over the years. Half a childhood spent.

"Me too." Stan's voice answered, drifting up from below. "Ya thinking about the war?"

Ford nodded into his pillow, before remembering Stan couldn't see him. "Yeah."

Silence descended on the room like a blanket again. Soft, but very palpable and almost suffocating.

It had been a perfectly normal day at first. When they woke up that morning, everything had been just fine. Perfectly average. You never really appreciate 'avrage' until it's threatened.

There'd been recruiters at their school, talking to the older students about war and enlistment and other things Ford wanted nothing to do with. It was something he was going to ignore. It didn't concern him. He and Stan were both too young. He'd felt a strange sense of almost invulnerability at that. So he'd just kept walking. He'd gotten caught up in an interesting discussion with his physics teacher at the end of the lesson, and was far more concerned with the fact that he was running late to meet up with Stan for lunch. But then it'd hit him with the same speed and ferocity as an oncoming freight train that while he and Stan might be in the clear, that same certainty was in no way extended to Sherman.

The closest thing to a parent they had, and an uncaring universe had just added his name to some nebulous lottery where being picked would spell tragedy.

Sherman was security, and now he might be ripped away.

Suffice to say, they hadn't gone to get food after that. Instead, the entire lunch period had been spent locked up in a bathroom stall, Stan trying his best to talk Ford down from the ensuing panic attack without becoming overwrought himself.

"What do we do, Stan?" Ford's voice was low and miserable. He'd managed to pull himself together for the entire evening, not wanting to worry Sherman. But problems always seemed much bigger in the dark, and this one was insurmountable enough in daylight.

"I donno." Stan said. "Do ya wanna go talk with 'im?"

"I don't know."

Ford went quiet again, just listening to the rumbling heater and the odd car passing by outside. If there was one thing he missed about their old room, it was the sound of the ocean. A busy road was no substitute for calming waves.

Did he want to go talk to Sherman? Yes. The sense of comfort he usually got - both of them usually got - from doing that was so deep rooted it was only surpassed by the comfort they could find in eachother. But this was about Sherman, so venting their fears with him might help. He never got upset at them for doing so, not for being 'sissies' or for keeping him up when he had work in the morning or for bothering him. The fact that they could go wake him up if they needed it was another one of those truths that had taken a long time to sink in. But after a bad bout of the flu had almost escalated to hospitalisation for both of them because they wouldn't tell Sherman they weren't feeling well they'd sat down and had a very long chat about the importance of communication. It still felt like night and day compared to Pa.

"I guess I want to go talk to him. But it feels stupid."

"You know he wouldn't see it like that." Stan's hand squeezed Ford's comfortingly.

"I know. But..."

But what? Ford wasn't sure how to articulate the issue. Not even to himself really. He wanted to go and ask for reassurance, he wanted that familiar comfort. The one that made him think of sitting up late at night being hugged and reassured through childhood stomach aches and emotional breakdowns over bullies. That strange paradoxical feeling of a miserable situation made almost... Cozy? None of those situations were ever good. The things that facilitated them hurt. But that hurt facilitated closeness and safety, and those emotions were always the ones that remained. They were good memories tinged with something bad. Or maybe bad memories overwhelmed by something good?

So yes. He wanted that. He wanted to make a good memory out of this hurt.

But that felt selfish.

The situation was horrible. Horrible to the point where trying to make something good, however miniscule, come out of it almost felt like it'd be disrespectful. Making light of something that should stay dark. That should hurt, and only hurt.

"Ford? Ya still awake?"

Ford breathed shakily through his nose. Trying to stop his voice from wavering the way he just knew it would.

"I want to go talk to him. But it feels wrong."

"Why?"

"I don't know how to- I don't-" Ford paused, focusing on breathing again. Intellectually, he knew he didn't have the keep the emotions tapped down. Another lesson Sherman had worked hard to drill into them. It was okay to cry and dad was an asshole for demanding they don't. But he still didn't want to. It still felt somehow weak. Shameful. "I want to go, I want to make it feel better, but I also don't want to make it feel better because it hurts and it should. It should hurt. It's awful."

Stan remained quiet for another few seconds. Usually he had no qualms about blurting out whatever came to his mind, but maybe this situation required more thought.

"Let me get this straight... The reason you don't want to go and talk to Shermie is because ya want to be upset?"

Ford didn't know if that was it or not. He couldn't make heads or tails of his own emotions. They felt huge and overwhelming, too big to fit inside him but also too big to unravel and understand. Like a nest of gigantic snakes all tangled up in eachother, chaotic and confused, hissing and biting itself.

"It's bad. It's so bad that trying to make it good feels wrong." He didn't know if that was it either.

Stan let go of his hand, and Ford instantly mourned the loss of contact. Comfort? Wasn't comfort what he didn't want? He was so confused, he just wanted everything to make sense. He lifted the corner of his t-shirt to wipe at his stinging eyes as Stan's face appeared over the side of the bed.

"Ford... Look, it's okay to let things hurt, but it's also okay to make them hurt less." Stan looked at him intensely. Ford felt himself becoming even more choked up at the scrutiny. "No, seriously. It's like... Like breaking a leg, right? Remember that time in fourth grade when you did that?"

Ford nodded, slightly unsure what this had to do with anything.

"It hurt, and it's okay that it hurt. It made sense that it hurt, and you don't pretend like it doesn't. But just because it makes sense that it hurts doesn't mean it was bad that you got painkillers and a cast. Without that junk it wouldn't have healed right."

That... He supposed that might be a valid analogy. Maybe Stan had a point.

"So... You think we should go?"

"Are you going to feel any better if we don't?"

Ford considered for a moment, still warring with the conflicting emotions twisting his stomach all up in knots. But he thought maybe it was slightly less. Shaking his head, he excavated himself from the nest of blankets and clambered down the ladder. Moving through the darkened apartment and arriving to knock at their brother's door as they'd done so many times before.

In the end, it did help. Sitting huddled together on the bed in the dark until the sun began to rise and the fear crept away with the shadows. Until it felt safe enough to fall asleep, secure in the knowledge that everyone would still be there come morning. The situation was large and looming and firmly out of their control. That much didn't change. They couldn't decide how things would end, but they could decide how they would cope. And they would cope.

Together.

"I'm going to pretend that I think you're joking, because otherwise I might have to do the 'responsible parent thing' and scold you."

Had this bit of dialogue pop into my head and it wouldn't leave.

I'm imagining that Sherman does end up getting drafted. He leaves his little brother's his apartment and makes them promise to look after each other, they're almost legally adults, and it's either they take care of each other or they're sent back home.

Sherman survives (I'm not that cruel), but being without him for the years he's gone is not an easy adjustment. But, sharing in that trauma of almost losing their closest parental figure and just generally being less emotionally stunted thanks to a lack of Filbrick's influence causes the twins to not drift apart like in canon. Ford is just as scared of being separated as Stan is.

If Shermie has to go to Vietnam while the twins are in high school, do they live on their own or stay with another family member?

I'd imagine Shermie leaves them his apartment and they stay there together, but that he might've called Ma to check in on them regularly. (She at least wasn't terrible, and does actually care even if she didn't stop the abuse).