#kainichivonwrites

[donutpwns]

ToTS AU Idea

So I was going through my WIPs and found this. Kinda like it so figured I’d share it. Who knows, if people like it I might write more, IDK.

There's a terrible stench, burnt fabric mixed with cooked meat; it nearly turns his empty stomach. There's a hissing sound that he can barely hear underneath Stanley's scream of pain, his brother's face in anguish. Instantly Ford regrets everything, even as he still hugs his journal to his chest. “Stanley! Oh my gosh! I'm so sorry, are you--"

The fist swings wide, missing him by a good foot, and then Stanley's knees hit the ground. His brother is breathing heavy and gripping his shoulder. The air still stinks of cooked meat. Ford tries to go closer, that burn needs to be treated after all, but freezes when Stan curls up on himself and screams, “Don't touch me!”

Ford stumbles backward until he feels the door at his back. He slides down the surface of it until he's seated on the floor, across from his brother with his journal hugged to his chest like a lifeline. There are the sounds of his machines running but it's all quickly becoming white noise as he listens to the way Stan is sniffling quietly. Reminds him of the sounds he used to hear coming from the bottom bunk when he was a kid.

Don't tell Pa. Real men don't cry. 

“Stanley?” he tries quietly and earns a watery, red-rimmed glare in return. He swallows and readjusts his grip on his journal. “We...need to get that cleaned up.” his throat burns and his limbs were starting to feel heavy as the burst of adrenaline began to fade.

Stan sniffs again and scrubs his face with the sleeve of his jacket. “It doesn't matter.” He looks away and grabs the edge of the console to try and pull himself to his feet. “Just give me the stupid book. I'll disappear and you'll never see either of us again.”

Ford drops the journal when Stan immediately collapses again, moving to his brother's side. Stan shoves him back but Ford still catches a look at the inflamed skin on his back, pattern matching the side of his console perfectly. Something in Ford locks up knowing that he did that. There's a boot print on Stan's shirt to prove it.

You're the older one, Stanford. You’ve got to look out for your little brother. 

If their ma could see them now. “I-I’m sorry, Stanley, I didn't mean--"

“Shuddup.” Stan slumps back against the console at an angle, keeping pressure off his burnt shoulder and avoiding the glowing mark. His eyes are all red and watery, the dark circles under them standing out more now that Ford was actually paying attention. How long had it been since Stan had gotten proper sleep? How long had it been since Ford had? “You don't care, so shuddup.”

Ford returns to his spot against the door, journal at his hip; his hand moves to the cover without him really thinking about it. Suddenly he remembers just how tired he is. This wasn't how this was supposed to go. Stan was the one in the wrong, what right did he have to be mad? The old anger mixes with the fresh guilt; Stan's breathing is heavy and he refuses to look at Ford again, his face streaked with dirt cut through by wiped tears. Ford was angry but he didn't want to hurt his brother any worse than a punch.

Maybe this was a bad idea, asking Stanley here. Thinking that for once he would just listen and do as he was told. Ford didn't have time to worry about him. Long gone was the days of bandaging Stan's wounds and comforting him. Though Ford had never been the direct cause of Stan's hurts, indirectly at worse.

Still, he wants to clean up the burn and bandage it, wants to let Stan sleep on his couch to heal. Wants to offer him food he knows he doesn't really have at this point. Wants to do something for the crumpled up man that used to be so big in his mind. He doesn’t have time to deal with ten years of emotional baggage topped with a fresh burn but still, his little brother is right there.

And somewhere around here, perhaps even in this very room, was Bill, watching and waiting for Ford to slip up. The thought of it twists Ford's insides more and there's the sudden thought of clarity that Bill knows about Stan now. He always knew, of course, the way that Bill knew everything, but he doesn't know that Ford still cares this much.

Ford didn't know he still cared this much. He doesn’t have time to care right now though. He should just let Stan leave; he could find another solution for the book even if his mind was fizzling at the mere idea of trying to think of a new idea. Leave it to his brother to make things so much more complicated than should even be possible.

“Stanley…” he doesn’t know what to really say, torn between wanting to tell Stan to go and asking him to stay. He stands once more when Stan tries to get back up and ignores his twin’s weak attempts to push him back. He’s not strong enough to actually lift his brother, not running on fumes and six hours of sleep four days ago, but he was at a loss. He still wants to yell and demand to be listened to, to force Stan to see his point, but even as short of a spat as they’d had was enough to further drain him.

Stan didn’t speak but allowed himself to be propped up, even getting an arm around Ford’s shoulders. Ford leaned into him despite himself as they moved back to a long-unused cot in the back of the room. Both of them practically fell back onto the thin mattress, though Stan very quickly scooted to put nearly a foot between them.

Ford swallowed thickly, hugging his journal to his chest as they sat in painfully uncomfortable silence. Despite himself, he looked around the room, wary of seeing the dreaded slitted eye staring at them. The room is quieting down as the machine begins to shut itself down. He watches the glowing symbol that begins to dull and, with a lurch to his empty stomach, can see what is clearly burnt flesh stuck to the side of the console.

He needed to work. He needed to figure out what to do next, what to do to stop Bill, how to clean up Stan’s burn. Did he even have any bandages left? He can’t remember if there was any left after the last time Bill had taken a boxcutter to his arm. Ford finds himself leaning forward as his mind swirls with all the things he needed to do. “Stanley…” he mumbles and tries to remember what he was going to say. Everything was so heavy.

He doesn’t hear Stan’s response as his eyes fall closed and his chin rests against his chest.

[donutpwns]

Insomnia and Hair

a little deleted scene from my Journey to the Roots fic for @ancientouroboros​ b-day

“Younkle Stan, you love me, don’t you?” she asks the question with a face that’s too cute to be threatening and yet very much is. She’s draped over the passenger seat from her place in the back, getting into the space Stan had claimed for himself for the night. A blizzard rages outside, impending their quest to Oregon with a required rest stop.

Stan makes a snorting noise and tugs his hood back over his eyes. He’s pretty sure the answer to the question is yes but emotions are for nerds. “Kid, I literally just met you.” he says dismissively.

There’s a grunting sound and the air is punched out of him as the full weight of his time traveling companion lands square on his stomach. He actually bites his tongue in surprise, which is probably why the string of swears that’s in his heart doesn’t escape his mouth. “What the hell, kid?” he wheezes once he has a bit of breath back.

She’s perched on his stomach, hands flat on his chest and an intense look on her face. “Our bond transcends time, Younkle Stan.”

Stan takes in the fact that her lips are blue and briefly fears she’s going crazy from the cold; he’d given her his jacket they’d just stolen yesterday, plus her own, and what few pieces of clothing he still had for a nest of sorts in the backseat. He couldn’t exactly run the heater all night -- that was a lesson you only had to learn once when living in your car -- but he had hoped she’d be able to keep warm enough. Then he notices that the blue is also around her mouth. “Did you eat something from the backseat?”

“It was only a little bit of Smile Dip, don’t worry, I learned my lesson.” she gives a bit of a bounce on his stomach and slaps his chest. “Besides the point! Younkle Stan, you love me and I can’t sleep so let me braid your hair.”

When did he get Smile Dip? Just the thought of the stuff makes his head hurt. He makes a half hearted attempt to push her off him so he can sit up better, rubbing at his eyes with one hand. “You want to braid my hair?”

“Yeah!” she actually shifts down, sitting now on his stretched out legs instead of his stomach. “Your hair is all gross and dirty so it’s perfect for braiding. See?” she lifts up the two pigtailed braids she’d turned her own hair into that he’d apparently completely missed. It was hard to believe she’d fit her mountain of hair into them. “C’mon, let me make you pretty.”

Stan is rapidly reconsidering how he feels about the kid, beyond his general rejection for his own emotions and the fact that even he knows it’s irrational to love someone you just met. That was how he got two of his ex-wives, after all. He shakes his head, sparing a glance at the darkened snow that has completely coated the front windshield. “Sweetheart, we have a long, annoying drive tomorrow. We should get some sleep.” He’s already dreading seeing Ford again, seeing him completely sleep-deprived is a whole ‘nother layer of rather not. “Get back to your nest. Maybe I can run the heater for a little bit until you get to sleep.” he offers like a consolation.

She actually seems to deflate a bit at that, like someone literally let some air out of her. She ducks her face down and tugs at her braids somewhat anxiously. “...I can’t sleep though.” she says it so quiet that he almost doesn’t hear it over the wind blowing outside.

And he remembers the way she twitched when she fell asleep in the front seat, the way she’d whimpered and clenched her fists. She’d said she didn’t remember what she’d dreamed of but nightmares always left a bad taste. Stan knows that better than most. He really hopes Ford can figure out what was going on with this whole mess; he was so out of his depth here.

Stan sighes and lets his head fall back against the glass, feeling the icy cold stab his scalp through layers of glass and cloth and hair. “One braid.”

Mabel instantly perks up, blue mouth spreading into a wide, metal filled grin. “Twenty!”

“Two.”

“Thirty!”

“You are really bad at haggling, kid.” he chuckles despite himself, raising a brow at her. “Get in the backseat, there’s no way you can do it from up here. You can do two and we’re undoing them as soon as you’re done.”

She surprises him -- she’s really good at that -- by pushing forward and hugging him tight about the neck. “Thank you, Younkle Stan.” and then she’s off him, scrambling with all the gracefulness of a dead opossum. “Alright, let's do this.”

Stan shifts to be sitting in the middle of the seat and tugs his hood down to give her full access to his hair.

Somewhere during the eighth braid and in the middle of Mabel’s story about the time her brother got them banned from a petting zoo by claiming the llama was actually an alien, he fell asleep. He’s not sure exactly what part but he wakes up to every last strand of hair woven into at least two dozen small braids and Mabel back in the front seat, her face slack and resting against his knee as she snores.

He finds himself smiling even if he wants to be annoyed. Emotions are so for nerds and he definitely doesn’t have any ever.

Well, better get his hair under control before they go save their brothers.

[donutpwns]

Stanuary - Love

When his father had demanded Stan come with him, he'd expected the worst. The feeling of dread had grown when he'd forbid Ford from coming with them, pointing his brother to the stairs. He'd exchanged looks with his brother and knew they were both thinking the same thing: what had Stan done now? The thought followed him to his father's car, anxiety cranked up when an old shoebox was placed in his lap.

His grades were in the toilet as usual, barely passing thanks to copying Ford's homework. He'd stolen a few candy bars from the local store but he was sure no one had seen him. He'd long since broken his last pair of glasses so it couldn't be that and it wasn't like he could really break his braces, not for lack of effort on Crampelter's part though. Maybe old man Samson had finally figured out that he'd been filching tools and stuff to fix the boat from his beat down old hardware store? Oh Moses, was that it?

His fingers tighten on the edges of the shoebox as they drive to park in a sandy parking lot on the beach; he can count the steps to where the Stan O War is sunk into the sand. Oh god, it was finally going to happen. Their dad was going to destroy their boat and they'd never get out of here. Shit, why had he stolen those tools? Shit shit shit.

“Stanley, there's a reason I brought you here.” His dad's deadpan voice cuts through his thoughts. He grips the steering wheel, the sunbaked leather giving out a muffled creak. “You're fourteen now and it's time you start acting like a man. That's why we're here.” And with that he's getting out of the car.

Stan gets out too, hugging the shoebox to his chest; whatever is in it feels heavy. “Is this about my bar mitzvah again?” He knows his dad was mad about the Groucho glasses but he'd still passed. Technically. And with very little cheating, thank you very much; just the occasional look at Ford who'd been mouthing the words. “I told Rabbi Bachman I was sorry.”

He can see a muscle twitch in his dad's cheek. “No. Give me the box.” He opens it once it's in his hands and sets it on the hood of the car. “This stays under the counter at all times; it's not a toy for you to show off to your little friends, you hear me?”

Stan doesn't have friends to show things off to, aside from Ford of course. But he doesn't correct him, especially when he finally sees what's sitting in the bottom of the box. It looks like a pistol from the westerns Ma likes to watch with a box of bullets next to it. Stan swallows, something heavy and wriggling climbing up the back of his throat. “Dad?”

His father picks the gun up and puts it in Stan's hands like it's just something one does. “My dad taught me how to shoot when I was your age and I taught Sherman how when he was your age. Now it's your turn to learn.” He taps the chamber, “We’re not leaving here until you are a decent shot.”

It's heavy and the metal is cold, it nearly slips in his sweat-slick hands. Stan doesn't like the weight of it; all he can picture is the way the cowboys fell from their horses with a bang and a puff of smoke. He knows they got up when the filming stopped but in the movies they’re dead. “Sh-shouldn't Ford be here too then?” Maybe he can postpone this forever. At the moment he can't think of anything he wants less than to be shooting a gun alone with his dad.

“This isn't about Ford. Your brother is brilliant but he can't even throw a punch, Stan. He's better off focusing on something important he can actually do. This is a man's weapon.” He grabs the back of Stan's neck with one hand and scoops up the box of bullets with the other. He guides them just a fair distance from where the parking lot ends and points to a mostly broken wooden fence that is supposed to mark the end of the asphalt and the start of the sand, though the sand has long blown past it. “Aim for the middle post and pull the trigger.”

It takes effort to not let the gun shake as he steps up, carefully aiming the gun towards said post. There’s a bump at the end of the barrel, is that what he’s supposed to aim with? He guesses so and lines it up with the top of the post. The trigger is firmer than he imagined it would be and it seems to fight him when he pulls it.

There’s no puff of smoke but there’s definitely a bang, so much louder than Stan was expecting and it nearly makes him drop the gun when it jerks in his grip. He fumbles and hugs it to his chest on habit. “Shit!” he yells.

He flinches when his father’s palm finds the back of his head with an audible smack.

His dad grunts, “Aim again and don’t drop it this time.”

He hates the weight of the gun in his hand and his ears are ringing slightly from the bang. “Dad, I don’t—”

“Do what I said, Stanley. We’re not leaving until you hit that post.” He says it with the finality he always uses to threaten them and Stan knows that he’ll be standing here until dawn if he doesn’t do what he’s told.

BANG

Miss.

BANG

Miss.

BANG

He clips the very top of the post three to the left of the middle with that one and lets his hands fall in front of him. The ringing in his ears is louder and his hand is starting to ache a bit from how the trigger resists being pulled. Frustration is bubbling up to fight the unease of the whole situation. “Dad, c’mon, do I have to do this?”

His father has taken an unimpressed stance with his arms crossed over his chest as he watched his youngest fail to make a single shot. “Yes. Aim again.”

“Dad, I don’t want to do this.” He tries with a huff.

“Aim again, Stanley. That’s an order.”

Stan grits his teeth and tightens his hold on the gun if just so he doesn’t throw it like he wants to. Instead he lifts it back up once more and tries to aim to the right since his one hit was so far to the left. He pulls the trigger and this one hits two to the left, a little further down but still not the target. He takes another shot and hits that same post, the wood splintering and cracking from the second bullet.

His dad lets out a bland sort of noise and extends the box of bullets to Stan. “Reload and do it again.”

“What’s the point? Just add this as another thing I’m bad at!” he tries to shove the box back to his dad. He doesn’t want to be here, he doesn’t want to learn how to shoot. “I don’t like it and I’m not gonna get it so let’s just go home!” it feels like he keeps getting called on to give an answer he doesn’t have just so the rest of the class can snicker at him.

“Stanley, I gave you an order.” There’s a dangerous tone creeping into his father’s voice.

Stan’s face burns, heat digging into his cheeks and the back of his neck. “Why are you even doing this? Who cares if I know how to shoot? I’m not even allowed in the shop half the time so what does it matter if there’s a gun in there?”

There's a hesitation, an awkward stretch of silence where Stan is almost entirely sure he’s going to get his hide tanned, and then his father reaches a hand towards him and he clenches his eyes shut for the blow. Instead his father’s hand closes on Stan's shoulder. “Listen, Stanley. You're...hell, you're a screw-up.” He looks up but his dad is impossible to read, though he at least doesn’t seem angry. “Most of the time it seems like all you can do is lie and leech off those around you. The direction you're going, you're not going to make anything of yourself.”

The words are nothing new but they still dig in, little barbs that drag Stan's shoulders down. “Thanks, Dad.” He bites out as his only defense. He can't punch those words away, not like what people say about Ford. “I’m a good-for-nothing, I know.”

“Let me finish.” The hand on his shoulder cuffs him on the side of the head. “You're not good at much but you are good at fighting and I know you care about this family. No matter what, you’re still a Pines. That's what this gun is for: protecting our family. So that's why you have to learn this. So I can trust you to keep your mother and brother safe if I'm not around. You understand that?”

His gaze goes back down to the gun in his hand then to the splintered post then back to his father. The idea of actually shooting anyone twists his stomach but the knot eases just a bit if he adds his ma or Ford to the equation. “Dad, I can just use my boxing—”

His dad holds up a hand. “Sometimes you can’t fix things with a punch or a pretty word, Stanley. Sherman is out of the house and I’m getting older. Ford’s smart but he’s not a fighter.” he takes the gun from Stan’s hands, effortlessly popping the barrel out and slotting bullets into the chambers. He spins the barrel and puts it back in place with a snap of his wrist. It’s held out to Stan then, his father frowning. “Can I trust you to be a Pines man and protect them? Because if not then there’s no point in you coming back home with me.”

Stan stares at the gun for a long moment before nodding. “Okay. Yeah. You can trust me, Dad.” He takes the gun and takes aim once more. He’ll get some knuckledusters, like the gangsters in the movies. He’ll get better at lying. He knows he can protect everyone with that but if he has to, he can shoot. If his dad trusts him to be the protector, Stan can do that. He never wants a gun to be the answer but he’ll do it. For Ma, for Ford, for Dad.

BANG

Miss.

“Aim again.”

[donutpwns]

Little Brother Blues - Part 5

Part 4 - Part 6

His vision blurs again as he stares at the page in front of him and it takes him a moment to realize it's not just another part of the thing that just makes no sense to him. With a groan, he rubs at his eyes under the pair of glasses he'd finally given into wearing and blinked until the words became somewhat readable. He turns to the notebook where he had started keeping his makeshift cipher to help him translate, finger trailing over the symbols to find the match. Square with a squiggle, no not that one, the other square with a squiggle. Ugh.

Why couldn't Ford have written the damn thing in English? Or Spanish, Stan could read that as well as English. Hell, he'd have settled for Russian, he could at least stumble his way through that somewhat passably thanks to Yuri. But this weird alien, made up language? It's taken the better part of the last five years to get just a mostly helpful cipher figured out. There were usually some things that were wrong but Stan could usually figure it out. Mostly. Passably.

He chances a look at his watch and can't suppress another groan at the time it shows. Four hours until opening, five if Stan wanted to say screw it to the old people that came first thing. But they were the ones quickest to buy souvenirs for grandkids that didn't give a shit. Extra sleep versus money. As if that was really a choice at this point in his life. He could only steal so many parts and it wasn’t like he could steal Ford’s mortgage payments. Then again, maybe if he broke into the bank he could…no, too much attention.

He's so tired. Seasonal rush of tourists have been running him ragged; he really needed to get a way to run the forest tours while not on his feet. And then the portal had been keeping him up later and later. He'd hoped once he'd gotten the panels to work again he could flip the switch but the power wasn't communicating somewhere; he was lucky to get the portal to spark. He'd blown out the power three times in as many weeks trying to figure out where the disconnect was. Maybe it was time to steal a few more books on electrical engineering and skim them until they made sense? He needs to find a new supply of copper wiring too. Maybe the streetlights downtown had been repaired so he could steal them again.

A yawn effectively shuts down his thought process, brain function shutting down and rebooting. Holy Moses he is tired.

He gives a regretful look back to the portal that looms in the other room. He needs to get some sleep if he's going to be able to work. When he glances back at the book, the words start to blur again, ink running together when his eyes move over the page; he has a feeling that he's not gonna get much more work done tonight anyway. He looks back up at the portal again and for a second swears he sees it glowing again with an old silhouette in it. Sleep deprivation and guilt were never friends to him though they had always found kin in each other.

“Tomorrow, Sixer. I promise. I can feel it, I'm almost there.” He repeats the same line he's said almost every night for the last five years, puts the same confidence into his grin that he does when he tells the cops he had nothing to do with whatever they're asking. He closes the Journal, placing his hand over the one on the cover to see the extra finger stick out of an otherwise perfect match. “High six.” He mutters under his breath, trying to will himself to find comfort in the gesture. It never works but maybe someday it will.

Tomorrow he'll get it. It'll be fixed and Ford will be back and Stan can apologize properly. Tomorrow. Everything will make sense again after he gets some sleep.

“YOU REALLY BELIEVE THAT, HUH?”

Tap tap tap

Stan jolts awake, hands slapping down on the middle console and the door as he searches around. Mabel's face is pressed against the driver side window that's slightly cracked due to the heat. Right. He was picking the kids up from the lake. Stan shakes his head to get the remnants of the dream out of his mind and to get his brain back into the present before rolls the window down the rest of the way. She's got the boys behind her; all of them are red everywhere their skin shows. Probably should've given them sunscreen. Oh well.

He gives Dipper’s sun-reddened cheek a pinch when the boy steps up to the driver side door just to laugh when the boy swats him away. It brings a rush of fond memories to the surface; he almost swears he can smell salt mixed with the telltale scent of sun touched skin. “You kids are going to be peeling like little monsters in a few days.” he feels the need to point out as the three of them climb into the backseat.

Mabel’s amazed sounding “Cool!” mixes with Dipper’s disgusted groan and Stan shares a laugh with the girl. He can see Ford slumping against the door, a tired look on his face. Apparently Stan wasn't the only one that had needed a nap.

“Too much excitement for you, huh, Sixer?” he teases naturally though the bags under his brother’s eyes are a little concerning. Did he have those this morning? Stan can’t remember; he had been too focused on what he was going to say to McGucket to pay much attention to the kids.

This reminds him of what he’s learned. It eats time. The thing eats time. How the hell were they supposed to fix that? Stan didn't doubt that they could, he'd pulled Ford from another dimension for heaven's sake; there wasn’t much he couldn’t believe they could get done. But the how was a little mind boggling. Maybe the kids would have some ideas once they could sit down and think everything through together. They were both smarter than Stan, could probably see something he couldn't.

He'd never admit it to anyone, but he wishes he could talk to the older version of Ford about this. Heck, if the positions were reversed, Ford probably would've had a fix before nightfall on the first day. If he'd cared enough to do so. Probably would've done it just to prove he could. Been all smug about it and the kids would've thought he was so cool. Jackass.

The thoughts threaten to spiral him into a bad mood but he tries to shove it down. His issues with his brother are well documented at this point but they're a problem for another day. Stan's a big fan of why do today when it can be done tomorrow, or better yet when you can con someone else into doing it for you? Now, wouldn’t that be the greatest con, getting someone else to deal with his emotional baggage for him. Heh.

"We saw a chaimera, Grunkle Stan!” Mabel yells, hanging halfway over the passenger seat. She flails her arms as they pull out of the parking area to start the journey back to the Shack. “It was super cute! But then its mama came and we had to punch it!”

Stan laughs at that, “What did I tell you kids? Few things in this world can’t be solved with a good punch.” he angles the mirror so he can see them all and feels his good mood dip when he spots Ford asleep against the door. Running around for a few hours in the sun shouldn’t have him so tired. Hell, the past few days have just reminded him why their father had such a strict bedtime for them as kids. “What’s up with him?”

Mabel settles back into the seat and reaches under the passenger seat to grab her scrapbook she had apparently stashed there. Stan really needs to teach her how to pickpocket; girl was shockingly sneaky for a bundle of loud sparkles. “He fell asleep on the boat on the way back.”

Dipper nods. “I think his head hurts. He's been wincing and rubbing his temples when he thinks we're not looking.”

“Just like you do!” Mabel grins and moves her hand in a waving motion with her fingers spread. “Twins!” she began scribbling on a page of her scrapbook. “He punched a snake though so I think he's okay.”

Stan’s thoughts split into two directions at that. First that a snake was much less impressive than a dinosaur as far as punching reptiles was concerned. Second is worry because maybe he shouldn't be letting the kids go off on adventures that might be dangerous. He knows that they can handle themselves, of course, they're all very tough and smart, but he feels a resurgence of that old fear bubbling up inside him. The fear that kept him lying for the last thirty years but especially this summer. The fear that had him checking on the kids randomly at night sometimes to just ease his nerves that they were still there. The fear that had him angling the mirror to see Ford again, frowning at the wrinkle in his brow as his mini twin slept.

Ford is still asleep by the time they arrive back at the Shack as the sun is setting and barely makes a fuss when Stan picks him out of the seat. The kids run into the house ahead of them while Stan puts him in his room. While he’s there, maybe he checks his brother over for snake bites. And maybe after he’s relieved to see that his brother was bite free, he takes the time to take off his brother’s shoes and cover him with a blanket. Ford’s sleeping so he can never tell anyone and Stan will never admit to it.

The air in the hall is filled with the delicious scent of chocolate that Stan is more than happy to follow. It leads him to the kitchen. He can’t help a smile at the sight of Mabel standing on a chair in front of the stove, stirring a pot with an overly large spoon. Dipper is putting four coffee mugs of the table that already has the last bag of marshmallows in that Mabel hasn’t devoured yet on it. This is exactly what he had in mind when he said the kids were smarter than him.

Stan grabs one of the small jars of glitter from the cabinet and sets it next to the mug with the pink, glittery M painted on it. “Scooch over, sweetheart.” he bumps Mabel with his hip and takes the spoon from her. “Kid, drop a handful of those in my cup before your sister eats all of them.” he calls to Dipper, pointing to the bag.

“Ha, like that would stop me.” Mabel laughs as she jumps down from the chair and hurries over to the table.

The table is spattered with drops and drips of spilled chocolate by the time all their three cups have been filled, thanks mostly to Stan not having the best of aim. Oh well, he’d just ask Soos to clean the kitchen tomorrow; boy was always happy to do whatever Stan asked of him. Stan’s happy to see he got a good helping of the marshmallows before Mabel had attacked the bag. Her cup is to the brim of overflowing, though Dipper’s not much better, just less glitter. If there’s anything their family shared, it was a sweet tooth. That and horrifically bad vision, as the kids were no doubt going to learn in a few years.

Stan takes a long drink, savoring the thick, sweet taste. It was nice to just sit with the kids, a taste of normal in the mess that their lives had been. Man, maybe they should have a movie night soon. Some bad horror movies at 3 am sounded like a great idea. Ford liked even the bad movies; it was funny to see how amazed his brother was over even the worst effects. Sometimes Stan forgot how much things had changed since he was a kid.

“So I think we need to look through Journal 2 again and do a sweep of the forest, see if we can’t find the thing that bit Great Uncle Ford.” Dipper suggests after a few minutes. He shifts in his seat so he can, apparently, pull a map out of his pocket and unfold it on the table. He’s got various sections marked with red marker. “If we can’t find out what it was, maybe we can just find it again and capture it.”

Stan sighs and moves to pull out the page that McGucket had printed out for him. Well, the normalcy was nice while it lasted. Back to his full time job of trying to save Ford. “This is what it is. It eats time.”

Dipper snatches it instantly and maybe Stan has a little bit of pride in the way the boy lights up when it comes to learning something. He’s never really understood the appeal of studying or learning a bunch of stuff you were probably never going to use, but it was nice to see how happy it made people like Dipper or Soos. Then again, maybe if he’d actually paid attention in school it wouldn’t have taken him thirty years to fix the Portal.

Dipper’s nose wrinkles as he reads over the page. “It eats time?” there’s a pen in his hand though where it came from Stan has no idea. “Something in its venom…”

“Like a snake?” Mabel suggests while she shakes a good helping of glitter over her cup and stirring it with a spoon. “Don’t they make, like, anti-venom? Or maybe Blenjamin can help. We could, like, challenge him to deadly laser tag again. Get another time wish!” she mimes firing a gun, complete with laser sound effects. “Glarg-far or whatever! If it can do infinite pizza, it could probably do, like, re-old man-ening.”

“I feel like that would be a grievous abuse of our truce with him.” Dipper frowns.

Stan shrugs, “I’m always for grievously abusing something for personal gain. I ever tell you guys about the old lady that helped me smuggle rare kittens with a hyper cuteness gene? Convinced her we were legally getting them to a cat charity. Pretty solid scam for like six months until the cops raided her garage.” he lets out a fond sigh. He’d made a lot of money off that. But cat scams were always high risk; so many scratches. Now it was all about puppies.

Dipper rolls his eyes but Stan can see the smile on his face. “Still. I think Mabel might have a good idea with the anti-venom.”

“All my ideas are good!” she says with glitter smeared across both cheeks.

“Right. Sure.” another eye roll. “But yeah. Maybe if we catch the thing we could like...study it’s venom? See if there’s an antidote. Maybe Ford could help him.”

Mabel reaches over to pull the bag of marshmallows closer to herself. “Wouldn’t that mean letting him in one of the labs? I thought we were, you know, not letting him see that stuff cause of all the questions. You know with the whole being a crazy scientist and the stuff with the portal and how him and Stan are idiots.”

Stan lets out a mildly offended grunt but doesn’t really argue. At least she’s also calling Ford stupid.

“Maybe we should tell him about...what happened?” Dipper winces as he says it, plunking an extra marshmallow into his cup and giving it a stir. “I mean, keeping secrets doesn’t really seem to help us accomplish much. And it’s getting really hard to keep coming up with reasons why he can’t look at certain parts of the Journals. If he can go to the lab with me, maybe we could figure something out?”

Stan glares into his cup, poking a floating marshmallow down into the cocoa until the burning liquid stings his skin. “Listen, I’m not exactly his biggest fan, but the kid doesn’t deserve to know about what a mess our future is.” Stan doesn’t want to have that conversation, not again. And maybe he doesn’t want to lose Ford again any sooner than he has to.

“But maybe Ford will remember all this when he’s grown again and he won’t be as mad.” Mabel pipes up, cheerful as ever with a thick, glittery chocolate mustache. She grabs another handful of marshmallows from the bag and shoves them into her mouth. “An’ den you cah hug eh oht!” her cheeks puff out like a squirrel.

Stan shakes his head, “Pumpkin, there’s a bigger chance of me giving all my money to a ‘charitable cause’” he does the air quotations for emphasis, “than of Ford and me making up. I tried for thirty years to make things up to him; a week as a runt isn’t going to change that. Once he’s back to normal, he’ll remember how much he hates me and things will be status quo again.”

There’s the sound of rubber squeaking on the hardwood floor and then a second later, the back door is slamming in the doorframe. Stan is on his feet in a heartbeat and at the window with enough time to see Ford running towards the woods. He swears under his breath and chases after his brother. He nearly stumbles down the stairs that lead down from the back porch. “Stanford! Get back here!” he yells after him, grabbing the broken railing to catch himself. His chest constricts when Ford turns to glare at him; why could he still see so much of his adult face in that expression, even with all the baby fat? Stan tries to shove that down, crush it down to fuel for his grin. “Come on, Sixer, come back inside.”

“I heard what you were saying, Stanley!” Ford jabs a finger in the direction of the house. There’s a shake to his whole body as he steps back, moving into the darkness of the yard. “You said I hate you!”

Stan takes a step forward, moving slow like he would if it was an injured animal and not his own brother. “You just heard the wrong part. C’mon, get back inside.”

Ford shakes his head. “No, he said we...he said I didn’t--” he stamps his foot before meeting Stan’s eyes again. Stan is caught off guard by the heat in his stare. “What happened to the Stan o War? Why don’t we have it? Why aren’t we sailing, Stanley? Tell me!”

Frustration is building inside of him; this isn’t the time for this. “It--that’s complicated, Stanford. Trust me, it doesn’t matter, just--”

“It matters to me!” he slaps a hand to his chest, voice raising, taking another step back. “I want to know! I deserve to know! It was our dream and you won’t tell me what happened to it! You all keep lying to me! It’s not fair! What happened?!”

Stan can feel his eye twitching and a throbbing starting in his temple. “Ford, this isn’t the time to talk about this. Come back inside and we’ll--”

“Why? Why is this not the time?!” Ford’s voice raises to a full blown yell, his fists at his sides. “Tell me why you won’t tell me!”

“Because I said so and I'm the adult, Stanford!” he starts marching towards him, longer strides getting him closer faster than Ford can stumble backwards. “Now stop being childish and get back inside!”

“Just because you look like Dad doesn't mean you have to act like him!” the words are a slap; Ford instantly covers his mouth with both hands like he had just swore as Stan freezes in his place. “I--I didn’t mean that. I mean, I just...I deserve to know. I just want to know why.”

A bitter bark of a laugh escapes Stan before he can even process it. The words echo in his head, catching on the walls to ignite a spark that lights the fuel he’d shoved down. “You want to know what happened?” he sweeps his hands out in front of him, gesturing to the space that was still between them. “I cut the rope and let it drift out to sea!”

Ford had destroyed their dream when he’d replaced it with one that was entirely his own, but Stan had physically destroyed it. That was what he was good at. He’d driven to the beach and cut the rope with the salt air stinging his eyes because like hell would he let Ford have it. Ford hadn’t wanted their stupid childish dream, hadn’t wanted Stan, so he wasn’t going to get the satisfaction of being the one to bid the boat a goodbye. He’d have burned it if he’d had the gas and matches.

Ford’s arms go slack at his sides, all the anger and indignation melting away into a stunned expression. “You...you cut the rope?” his voice shakes with the kind of emotion only a kid can show; like a nerve rubbed raw and left exposed to the world. “Why? Why would you do that?!” his voice catches on a hitched breath. “Why?”

The fire begins to die as quick as it flared, leaving Stan with the old feeling of being empty and cold. “Because things don’t work out, Sixer. It’s…” he runs a hand through his hair and looks away. “Because it’s not us against the world. Because life isn’t what we planned it to be. It’s not what either of us wanted, but it’s the way life is.”

“You said I hated you.” Ford shakes his head and when Stan looks at him again, he can see the wet streaks catching the light on his cheeks. “Do you hate me?”

“What? God, Ford, no.” he moves in front of his brother, dropping to one knee to grab his shoulders. “Sixer, I could never hate you.” Not this Ford, and not the older one either, really. Everything he’s ever done has been for their family. So much work, so many sleepless nights and fighting to get Ford back. It didn’t go the way he wanted, no part of Stan’s life did but especially where his brother was concerned. But he didn’t hate him. Could never hate him. And as pathetic as it was, Stan knows that if Ford were to ask for his help again, just like thirty years ago, Stan would come running. “Never.”

Ford drops his chin to his chest and his shoulders are shaking under Stan’s hands. “But I can hate you. That’s who I become. He was right.”

Pines men don't cry. He hears the words of their father in his head but he still has enough shame from Ford's comparison to keep them from falling from his tongue. He doesn't want to be that man; he is okay being lots of different people, many of them ones he could never be proud of, but not him. He never wants to be him. Instead, Stan gives his shoulders a squeeze, feeling uneasy with the use of the pronoun game. “Who was right, Ford?” he gives him a little shake in hopes of getting his brother to look at him. “Sixer, who have you been talking to?”

“I’m going to fix this. I’m not going to let myself be that. I'm not going to let me ruin everything.” Ford looks up with a determined look on his face. Stan nearly falls back when he lunges forward, his arms wrapped tight around Stan’s neck for a moment. “I'm going to make it alright again, Lee. I promise.” Before Stan has a chance to react, though, he’s pulling back and taking off towards the woods again.

“Sixer! Wait!” Stan tries to snatch him but he’s too quick. “Stanford! Stanford come back!” by the time he’s back on his feet, Ford has broken through the treeline. In the dark, there’s no sight of him once Stan reaches the trees. He cups his hands around his mouth. “Stanford! Stanford!”

His voice echoes through the trees but the only response he gets is the sounds of animals scattering. For the fourth time in his life, his brother has disappeared.

[donutpwns]

Don’t Sweat the Details

based of @ancientouroboros ‘s amazing art which is here

His knuckles burn even beneath the bandages as they hit the canvas of the punching bag. Well, it was more duct tape then canvas at this point, but Stan never sweated the small details. Like the strain of his arms as he hits the bag again and again, the way his back flares with pain as if to remind him that he might be too old for this sort of work out, or how his hair sticks to his temples as actual sweat pours down his face. He ignores all of those aside from the burn of his knuckles, using it to drive him to land just a few more blows.

Ford got a solid blow on him, caught him off guard in the basement. Stan had been fool enough to let his emotions get him off guard. Learned that lesson thirty-six years ago but leave it to Ford to throw what balance he had off within two minutes of seeing him. Never again. Who cared if Ford was all buff and a nerdy sci-fi action hero now? Stan was still the tough one.

He nods and lets out a huff of breath before slamming a left hook into the bag. The tough one. Right hook. The one that saved the kids from a flying lizard. Left hook. The one that had saved his ungrateful ass of a twin. Try to land another blow, I dare you. Left, left, right.

The bag tears with an audible RIP that sends grains of sand spilling all over the ground and nearly Stan as his momentum carries him forward. He stumbles and manages to catch himself by grabbing the top of the bag. He slumps forward, staring at the sand on the ground, his chest burning while he tries to catch his breath. His back is a second away from locking up, his knees threatening to give out. Maybe he is too old for this.

Then his cheek burns with the echo of a punch and he finds himself going to get the duct tape. Just another hour. It’s fine. He’s had worse than a little soreness.

[donutpwns]

Maybel - Animals

It's the cutest thing she's ever seen and she needs it. Its ears are all floppy and its fur is brown and it's got a white spot in the middle of its forehead. She loves it. It's going to be her new best friend; bro-bro will understand. She just has to get to it.

She gets as far as off the blanket and into the grass before her plan is ruined by someone picking her up. She gives a kick as the person holding her lets out a, “Woah there, kid, where do you think you're going?”

“Grunka Tan!” she whines, squirming to escape but only managing to flip herself upside down in his hands. Grunkle Stan was strong; she could usually wiggle out of her mommy and daddy's arms if she tried hard enough. She points at her new best friend that he is being mean by keeping her from. “Puppy!”

She can hear her mommy laughing over where she's sitting on the blanket. Bro-bro is napping in her lap and Mabel really wants to wake him up so they can plot an escape together. The puppy can be both their best friend!

Instead though she's hefted onto Grunkle Stan’s shoulder as he sits back down; she kicks again to no avail. Usually she likes her grunkle; he smells like under the couch and gives her all kinds of ice cream and candy and thinks the way she talks is funny. But right now he is a meanie face! “Grunka Tan, lemme goooo. Wanna see the puppyyyyy!”

“She's going through an animal phase.” Mommy says, rubbing a thumb over bro-bro’s cheek. “Her room looks like a disaster area of stuffed puppies and kitties and whatever else she sets her eyes on in the store.” She smiles up at Mabel and Mabel grins right back because she loves her mommy. “She's a handful; hard to believe they're twins.”

Grunkle Stan laughs which makes her bounce a bit and Mabel can't help a giggle at that. He gives her back a pat, “Kid's got personality, that's all. Ain't that right, pumpkin?” he pulls her from his shoulder into his lap and she giggles more when his fingers dig into her side.

“Perso-ality!” she repeats, trying to push away his hand from her side. He stops with the tickles she she slumps in his lap, seeing if she can reach her foot over to touch bro-bro’s with it.

“Shermie says she's just like your brother was at that age.” Her mommy says it with a smile but Mabel feels her grunkle suck his tummy in a bit, his hands squeezing his knees on either side of her too. Her mommy gasps and covers her mouth. “I'm sorry, I know you don't usually like to talk about—”

“It's fine.” He says it the same way her daddy says it when she and bro-bro catch him saying bad words on the phone. Mabel doesn't like it. “She's a much better kid than St—than he ever was.” his hand rubs at her hair; normally Mabel would get mad cause her hair was in pretty pigtails but she can tell grunkle is sad.

Mabel stands up out of Stan's lap, taking a moment to brush off her dress before running over to her Pretty Princess backpack where it was next to Bro-bro’s Professor Science one. She runs back over to where her grunkle is sitting and turns it over, dumping several handfuls of crayons all over the blanket and her drawing pad. She wanted to bring her glitter pens but mommy said she couldn't. She picks up the drawing pad and a handful of crayons before returning to her uncle's lap, settling back against his big tummy to get comfortable.

Taking a worn down pink crayon into her fist, she starts drawing. “Grunka Tan, do you like animals?” She asks as the most perfect pink piggy starts taking up the page. “I like piggies and kitties and puppies! Bro-bro likes war-wolfs.” bro-bro was weird but she still liked him.

“Werewolves, sweetie.” her mommy says, smiling again and adjusting bro-bro where he was napping. “Mason really likes monsters these days. I blame you for letting him watch that scary movie last summer.” She points a finger at Stan and that's Mommy's ‘better watch out’ look she gives when she catches Mabel and bro-bro climbing on the counters.

Grunkle Stan laughs though and Mabel liked that a lot better than the stiff way he was before. “I warned ya not to let me babysit.”

Mabel likes when Stan babysits; it feels like he's always gone forever then he shows up with stickers and toys that look like him and big bags of candy. Mommy and Daddy will let him watch them and, even though Mabel loves their normal sitter Haley, Stan is the best. They get to stay up late watching movies and eating treats. Once Stan fell asleep before them so they drew on his face. That had been fun.

“Thas what I said! War-wolfs!” she says with a huff, coloring in her piggy. She flips to a new page and looks up at Stan. “Do you like animals or monsers, Grunka Tan?”

Stan rubs at his chin for a moment then shrugs. “Whichever makes me more money, I guess.” he grins big so Mabel grins right back. “I do have a goat though, for what that counts for.”

Mabel can feel her eyes go wide. “Really?” Like the ones at the petting zoo? Mabel liked to feed them hay and once got to ride one until her daddy took her off for ‘terrorizing the other kids’ or something like that. She bounces in Stan's lap and immediately switches to a purple crayon to start drawing a goat. “I wanna see the goat!” it could be her best friend! “Can we go to Grunka Tan’s and see the goat?”

Stan tenses again but it's only for a second. She feels his hand on her hair again. “Maybe when you're older, sweetheart.”

“That sounds like a great idea. When they're older.” her mommy chuckles.

[donutpwns]

Little Brother Blue - Part 6

Part 5 -- Part 7

The field stretches as far as Ford can see though it seems to be empty aside from the swing set, the boat, and this giant machine that looks very far away. Ford doesn't like looking at it, feels something twist and churn in his stomach whenever he lets his eyes linger on it. He makes his way to the Stan o War instead. It's so broken; it'll take them forever to fix it. Oh well, it'll be worth it.

“NEVER UNDERSTOOD THE APPEAL TO THIS THING.” his new/old friend says, appearing on top of the cracked head of it.

“It's the greatest thing in the world.” Ford explains as he finds a section with a hole in the hull the right size to use as a foothold so he can climb up it. It takes a few tries but eventually he hauls himself up. “Stanley and I are gonna sail the world one day on it.” he stamps his foot a few times when he boards it, testing the wood. When they first found the boat, Stanley had fractured his wrist when he fell through a section of wood that was more rot than anything and Ford didn't want to repeat that.

Bill laughs at that and his laugh makes Ford’s gut twist the same way the machine in the distance does. “WOW, YOU REALLY DID LIKE HIM, DIDN'T YOU? THAT'S AS CUTE AS IT IS SAD.”

Ford frowns, “Stanley’s my best friend.” he moves around the top of the boat, running a hand along the railing. Something in him aches as he looks over their treasure, like he's got a bruise forming in his gut. He doesn't like it. “You said you were my best friend but that's Stanley.”

Once more he can't see it but he can feel Bill grinning at him and it makes the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. He jumps as a cold feeling starts traveling up from his feet to his legs and when he looks down, he can see rising black water. It clings to his skin when he tries to climb up on the railing to escape it but it keeps going. Once it covers the railing, Ford feels it disappear, replaced by flat, solid ground beneath his sneakers. He looks to Bill but the triangle is gone along with the rest of the boat.

The water stops at his hips, enveloping him in a cold darkness so thick he can't see his shorts through it. He cups his hands to scoop some up, watching in amazement as the water obscures his palms before trickling between his fingers.

“Remember our plans to sail around the world on a boat?” a deep voice speaks from behind him and Ford turns to see the machine he'd avoided looking at before, the face of it showing a flickering picture like a movie projection. In it he can see two men; it takes him a second to recognize Stanley and then it was easy to see himself in the other man. They're younger than Old Stanley but still older than Ford can remember being.

Wow, they were really dirty. And they looked so tired.

“Take this book, get on a boat, and sail as far away as you can. To the edge of the earth!” he's turning his back on Stan; the older him doesn't see the way Stan's face shifts from a smile to a glare in a heartbeat. “Bury it where no one can find it!” Ford tries to move closer to the machine but his steps feel slow and heavy. It feels like the water is holding him in place.

“That's it? You finally want to see me after ten years and it's to tell me to get as far away from you as possible?!” Stan's angry and Ford feels it like a lash to his chest.

The older Ford never replies as the movie changes and there's Old Stanley, looking proud with his arms thrown wide. “Finally! After all these long years of waiting, you're actually here! Brother!”

His smile is destroyed when another man—him, Ford realizes with horror— slams a fist against his cheek. “You really think I'm going to thank you after what you did thirty years ago?!”

The water is rising, the cold reaching his stomach that he sucks in on instinct and he lifts his arms to keep them out of the water.

The screen goes blank, leaving just the faintly glowing machine. Ten years, thirty years? Ford can feel something forming in his gut, a solid stone that burns hotter with each passing second. Something inside him knows this, has seen this before, and doesn't want to see it again.

“You left me behind, you jerk! It was supposed to be us forever! You ruined my life!” he can hear Old Stanley's voice but there's no picture on the screen this time. Ford turns in the water but there's only the rising water as far as he can see.

“You ruined your own life!” his older voice yells.

Ford smells burning meat as Old Stanley's voice screams in agony. He looks around again but there's still nothing; just the water and the machine. He has to lift his chin and go on his toes to keep his face above the surface. The burning stone in his gut grows, sinking heavy enough to make Ford feel queasy as that horrid smell continues to fill the air. “Stanley!” he yells, upset at the way his voice shakes. He wants his brother. This is just a dream, a bad dream. He just needs to wake up. “Stanley!”

“HE'S NOT COMING THIS TIME, SIXER. WHY WOULD HE AFTER EVERYTHING YOU'VE DONE?” Ford sucks in a breath as the water swallows him, clenching his eyes shut. The ground disappears beneath his feet and he tries to kick up. All around him an echoing laugh sounds though it's not distorted by the water. “ALWAYS THE DRAMA QUEEN, SIXER.” Ford forces his eyes open and there's Bill, glowing in the darkness of the water. He can still feel that invisible smile, mocking and distant at the same time. “BUT YOU CAN STILL FIX THINGS.”

The center of Bill lights up just like the machine had, showing the vending machine in the Shack's gift shop with specific buttons pressed. Then it was a long corridor and doors then, floating in the middle, a weird snowglobe looking object filled with dark swirling energy.

The stone in his gut grows sharp at the sight of it and he sucks in a gasp without thinking. The cold dives inside him, coiling in his insides, choking him though he can still breath. He tries to shove Bill away and is left feeling his palms burn where they’d touched the triangle. He looks at them then around as the world they're in starts to flicker, weird symbols cutting through the darkness of the water. “You're lying.” He wills it to be true, to erase the sounds of Stanley’s scream from his memory. To erase the fighting he's heard.

“ASK ABOUT THE BOAT, SIXER.” His form begins to flicker like the rest of the world, flashing in and out of view. “THEN ONCE YOU BELIEVE ME, BRING THE RIFT DEEP INTO THE WOODS AND I CAN FIX THINGS. I'LL GIVE YOUR DREAM BACK TO YOU.”

Ford awakes with a stir to the feeling of being carried and the now familiar musty smell of his brother. He considers wriggling out of his hold, a protest about not being a child on his tongue, but instead he just lets his head rest on Stanley’s shoulder. Stanley didn't hate him; they were best friends no matter what. He smiles sleepily as he's put in his bed and feels Stan checking his arms and legs with light hands as if not to wake him. Ford makes sure to keep his eyes closed during the check because he knows Stan will get embarrassed if he's caught being nice. It makes him think of all the times he'd had a fever as a kid and woken up to Stan feeling his forehead or putting a glass of water next to the bed, having given Ford the bottom bunk until he got better.

Bill was a liar; there's no way him and Stan would ever break apart. They were a team. Kings of Glass Shard Beach. Kings of Gravity Falls. They were Pines. They were brothers but they were best friends. His ma told him to look out for Stanley, to be the responsible big brother as Shermie would tease, but Ford had known that Stanley didn’t need anyone to look out for him.

ASK ABOUT THE BOAT, SIXER.

Stanley said that was complicated, that it just didn't work out. Ford didn't like that answer but Stanley wouldn’t lie to him. Well, not big lies, just little ones like seeing a monster that wasn't there or about not eating Ford's last bag of jellybeans or claiming he didn't need his glasses. They were an unbreakable team, just like Dipper and Mabel. Ford trusts his brother above everything and everyone.

I'LL GIVE YOUR DREAM BACK TO YOU

The hallway smells like amazing chocolate when he steps out of the room; he really wants to go to the source of it where he can hear his family laughing. But instead he makes his way to the gift shop. He's just going to check to see if the rift thing was actually there and then he'd tell his family about the dream. If it wasn’t just a bad dream, then he’d tell them all about it. He knows Bill was lying about Stanley, it was just a bad dream, he just has to…check. His curiosity is too strong and there's a wriggling feeling that if he told them, they wouldn't let him check. Like with the journals.

Or with the boat.

Ford punches the buttons in by memory and has to suppress a squeal when the machine moves with a click. Secret passageway! So cool! Also means that part of the dream was correct… He opens it just enough to slip in and begins making his way down the stairs. Maybe it’s just one of the things that he remembers without knowing how! Yeah, that’s it.

At the bottom of a long, long elevator shaft he finds a small room that opens up into a massive one that's littered with broken panels and shredded cables. The feeling from the dream, the twisting churn of his stomach hits him again. He touches his hand to the side of a console, brushing his fingers over where the cold metal is raised to form a symbol that he recognizes at the same time he knows he's never seen it before. His nose stings as he looks at it and has to clamp his hands over his ears, the sound of Stan screaming filing his head, an apology caught in his throat.

“A bad dream, a bad dream.” He mutters to himself, willing himself to believe it. He forces himself away from the console and the smell of burnt meat. He just wanted to find the rift. If he can find it then he'll tell everyone about the dream. If it’s not there then he doesn’t need to say anything. It’ll all just be a bad dream that doesn’t matter and they’ll go back to trying to make Ford grow up again.

He does find it though, hidden in a cabinet and wrapped in a cloth. He unwraps it to stare at the swirling magic inside. It looks like a galaxy is trapped within the cracked glass, like if you looked close enough you'd find the planets hidden within it. Ford can feel power radiating from it, can feel something great and terrible inside it. A part of him wants to smash it while another wants to lock it away forever. Quickly he rewraps it and slips it into his pocket before he does something he’ll regret. Okay, so not just a bad dream but he has proof that something is happening. They can't refuse to tell him stuff if he has evidence.

The smell has died down a bit by the time he is outside the kitchen but there's still the warm smell of chocolate that has his mouth watering and his stomach grumbling. He's thinking about having a big cup of the hot chocolate when he hears Stan speak, the words freezing him right outside the kitchen. “Listen, I’m not exactly his biggest fan, but the kid doesn’t deserve to know about what a mess our future is.”

“But maybe Ford will remember all this when he’s grown again and he won’t be as mad.” That's Mabel, smacking her lips with a satisfied sigh. There’s the sound of wrinkling plastic and then, “An’ den you cah hug eh oht!”

What was Ford supposed to be mad about?

“You finally want to see me again after ten years and it's to tell me to get as far away from you as possible?”

Stan's voice sounds so bitter when he responds, “Kid, there’s a bigger chance of me giving all my money to a ‘charitable cause’ than of Ford and me making up. I tried for thirty years to make things up to him; a week as a runt isn’t going to change that. Once he’s back to normal, he’ll remember how much he hates me and things will be status quo again.”

The cold, black water is coiling inside him again, crawling back up his throat to choke him. He hated Stan? What Bill said was true. They weren't a team. Is that why Bill said Stan wouldn’t come save him? What had Ford done? Ford can't imagine what Stan could so to make Ford hate him; they'd never fought to the point that Ford wanted Stan to go away. Maybe they sometimes slept in different rooms but it was never for more than a night or two.

I'LL GIVE YOUR DREAM BACK TO YOU

He touches the rift in his pocket and makes his decision. It twists his insides to think about it but Bill had told him the truth. Bill knew what had happened between them. If he knew how to fix it then…Bill knew who he was, what he was. Maybe he really knew how to fix things. He nods. Stan would do the same for him, he’s sure. His sneakers squeak against the floor as he runs towards the backdoor. He's going to fix it.

He can hear Old Stanley yelling, “Stanford! Get back here!” he looks out of breath, gripping the railing when Ford turns to glare at him. Stan grins like nothing is wrong. “Come on, Sixer, come back inside.”

“I heard what you were saying, Stanley!” Ford jabs a finger in the direction of the house and he hates the way his hand is shaking. He stumbles back towards the trees. “You said I hate you!”

You said I ruined your life. You said it was supposed to be us forever but it’s not.

Stan takes a step forward, moving slow like he was afraid of spooking Ford or something. “You just heard the wrong part. C’mon, get back inside.”

Ford shakes his head. Stan's lying again, how had Ford not seen it before? He was so stupid. “No, he said we...he said I didn’t—” he stamps his foot before meeting Stan’s eyes again. He remembers what Bill told him to ask, the question that has burned him since he learned he was seeing his own future. “What happened to the Stan o War? Why don’t we have it? Why aren’t we sailing, Stanley? Tell me!”

Ford can see Stan’s cheek twitching and his voice stumbles, “It—that’s complicated, Stanford. Trust me, it doesn’t matter, just—”

“It matters to me!” he slaps his hand to his chest, voice raising, taking another step back. His eyes burn and his vision starts to blur. “I want to know! I deserve to know! It was our dream and you won’t tell me what happened to it! You all keep lying to me! It’s not fair! What happened?!”

Tell me he was lying. Tell me I'm wrong. Tell me this is all a mistake. He silently begs Stanley to make this all go away. To give him some proof that he was wrong, that maybe he did mishear. A good reason why they couldn’t sail away from everything, why they were here instead. He needs it.

Stan is looking angrier with each question. “Ford, this isn’t the time to talk about this. Come back inside and we’ll—”

He’s still dodging the question! “Why? Why is this not the time?!” Ford’s actually yelling now, thrusting his fists at his sides. He deserves to know; it's not right. The boat was just as much his as Stanley's. It belonged to him as much as Stanley; he didn’t have a right to take away even the knowledge of it. “Tell me why you won’t tell me!”

“Because I said so and I'm the adult, Stanford!” he starts marching towards him, longer strides getting him closer faster than Ford can stumble backwards; Ford nearly trips as he tries and fails to keep the distance. He doesn’t like this; he doesn’t like any of this. “Now stop being childish and get back inside!”

“Just because you look like Dad doesn't mean you have to act like him!” as soon as he says it, he regrets it, slapping his hands over his mouth.

He can hear the muffled sound of crying inside their cardboard fort, can hear Stan's choked “Don't tell Dad" while clutching a pair of broken glasses to his chest. Can hear the crack of their dad’s belt because Ford didn't have to tell, he already knew.

“I—I didn’t mean that. I mean, I just...I deserve to know. I just want to know why.” He didn't mean it. Stanley could never—

A bark of a laugh startles him, sending him back a few extra steps. The look on Stan's face is no longer angry but it still scares Ford. It's worse than angry, it's vindictive. “You want to know what happened?” he sweeps his hands out in front of him, gesturing to the space that was still between them. “I cut the rope and let it drift out to sea!”

Ford hears the blood rush in his ears and everything spins for a moment like he's standing at the edge of a cliff overlooking a massive drop. His arms go slack at his sides as he feels everything drain away. “You...you cut the rope?” he can hear the way his voice cracks and shakes, his throat tight. The knots they’d spent hours and hours practicing so the boat would never come loose, never drift away while they weren’t there once they could get it in the water. All for nothing if Stan took a knife to the rope. “Why? Why would you do that?!” his voice catches on a hitched breath and his vision swims with hot tears. “Why?” it doesn’t make sense. None of this makes sense!

The look is gone and now Stan looks sad now. “Because things don’t work out, Sixer. It’s…” he runs a hand through his gray hair and looks away; he looks so old all of a sudden and it makes Ford so much sadder. “Because it’s not us against the world. Because life isn’t what we planned it to be. It’s not what either of us wanted, but it’s the way life is.”

No, that's not what you're supposed say. You’re supposed to fix this.

“You said I hated you.” he shakes his head and hates the feeling of the tears escaping. Pines men weren't supposed to cry. A horrible idea occurs to him and he looks up at his brother in fear. “Do you hate me?” he can’t imagine anything worse. What would he do without Stanley? What were they if they weren’t a team?

“What? God, Ford, no.” Stan moves forward and Ford can't bring himself to move, not even as Stan grabs his shoulders. “Sixer, I could never hate you. Never.”

Ford drops his chin to his chest. He actually doesn't want to believe him. He wants Stan to hate him because that might be better. Maybe it's not just his fault. If they hate each other then they could forgive each other. They could both be sorry and then neither of them had to be. But he does believe him. “But I can hate you.” He doesn't want to be that kind of person. He never wants to be someone that could hate Stan. He never wants to go ten years, thirty years, whatever without Stanley as his best friend. “That’s who I become. He was right.”

Stan gives his shoulders a squeeze, sounding apprehensive, “Who was right, Ford?” he shakes Ford by the shoulders slightly. “Sixer, who have you been talking to?”

He's not going to let this happen. “I’m going to fix this.” He promises, clenching his fists. “I’m not going to let myself be that. I'm not going to let me ruin everything.” Ford looks up at his brother and pushes forward to hug him around the neck. He can feel Stan almost fall over as he squeezes him. “I'm going to make it alright again, Lee. I promise.” then he lets go and takes off back towards the trees, ignoring Stan's shouts for him.

It's dark but he never feels lost as he runs through the trees. He can feel eyes on him from the trees but he ignores them. He's run through these woods a thousand times, he's sure. He runs with a hand on the rift in his pocket, feeling it's power radiating through the cloth. He doesn't know what it does or what Bill wants with it, but he'd find out. Bill gave him a weird feeling but he hadn't lied to him. If he could fix things, if they could stop him from becoming someone that could hate Stanley, that Stanley could give up on...He never wants to grow up if that's what he becomes.

“FINALLY.” He hears the voice when he stops for breath, hands on his knees and chest heaving slightly. Out of the trees steps an odd looking man covered in tattoos. His eyes are what catch Ford's attention, however. The right is faded but both glow yellow with slits for pupils; his face splits into a painful looking smile when he meets Ford's eyes. “WAS ALMOST WORRIED YOU DID SOMETHING STUPID LIKE TALK TO THE OTHERS. BUT YOU HAVE YET TO SERIOUSLY DISAPPOINT ME, FORDSY.”

Ford takes a few steps back, angling himself so the rift is away from Bill. He narrows his eyes at him. “You said you'd give me my dream back. What did you mean by that?”

Bill laughs that creepy, twisting laugh and leans back against a tree. “A PROJECT WE WERE WORKING ON TOGETHER BEFORE. A WAY TO GET US BOTH WHAT WE WANT. YOU WERE GOING TO BE THE MAN THAT CHANGED THE WORLD FOREVER. STANFORD PINES, A NAME NEVER MOCKED NOR FORGOTTEN.”

Unable to help it, Ford looks at his own hand, silently counting his fingers as they curl into a fist. Never mocked? Never forgotten? That sounded...nice. Being around Dipper and Mabel showed him how nice it was to have more friends, to have people that didn't care about his fingers. His ma always said they made him special but he'd never felt anything but shame for them. If he changed the world though then no one would ever care about his hands.

“What about you?” he peers up from his hand, frowning. “What do you want?”

The smile grows impossibly further. “I WANT TO HELP YOU. I WANT TO SHAPE THE WORLD INTO A PLACE WHERE FREAKS NEVER SEEM OUT OF PLACE.”

Never out of place. He looks at his fingers again, stretching them and curling them back in. He looks over the tattoos covering Bill’s head and face, at the pale color of his right eye.

“I don't want to grow up. Not if I become...someone like that.” Ford swallows and pulls out the rift, slowly unwrapping it. He looks into the swirling depth of it. “I just want a little more time with Stanley.”

Bill nods and holds out a hand. “YOU HAVE MY WORD, SIXER. JUST GIVE ME THE RIFT.”

Ford finds himself wishing he had the others with him as he puts the rift in Bill's hand. They'll understand later, he tells himself. They wanted him to be friends with Stanley and this would guarantee they would be for much longer.

He tucks his hands behind his back and tries to ignore the way his whole world seems to spin as Bill slams the rift on the ground.

The last thing he hears is that crazy laugh that fills the very air as he's consumed by cold, black water.

[donutpwns]

Little Brother Blues - Part 4

Part 3 - Part 5

He's been getting a lot of headaches lately, ever since the day with the gnomes. He's not sure why, but they always hit him once they leave the Shack. Maybe he caught something from the gnomes? Like a magic bug or a beard infection or something. It's always this dull throb that gets worse the longer they're out, the kind that makes him just want to curl up in a dark room and take a nap while his ma or Stanley reads to him, but Ford doesn't want to tell anyone. He likes going on adventures with Mabel and Dipper; what if they stopped just because of a headache? They already treat him like a little kid sometimes, not letting him go out on his own or read certain parts of the Journals. Stanley is lying to him about stuff and whenever he calls him on it, it’s always ‘grownup stuff’. He’d hate to see what they’d do if he was actually sick; they’d probably lock him in a room until he was big again. He might not be as tough as his brother but he was tough enough to deal with this. It’s just a headache and no headache is going to keep him from an adventure.

Today they were going to an island in the middle of the lake to see a monster that was also a robot, apparently built by a mad scientist. Old Stanley didn't come with them, which was a bummer, but Ford tries not to be too disappointed. Just last night they'd played checkers and then all of them had watched movies in the living room together. Movies were so much cooler now than when he was a kid; Ford swore Hollywood had actual magic, though the kids just said it was special effects. Old Stanley was trying at least, but he still has a job and stuff so Ford tries not to get sad when he can't play with them. Grown up stuff, even if Ford hated that term. Ford could understand that, at least as long as he got to spend some time with his brother.

Besides, Ford likes being around Dipper and Mabel too; it's like being with Stan only double. Two friends instead of one. It's nice, though Stan is still his favorite. Mabel is so friendly and upbeat and Dipper might be smarter than even Ford, and Ford was smarter than a lot of grownups according to his teachers. They don’t let him look at certain parts of the Journals, they say there are parts that aren’t safe to read and they learned that the hard way, which Ford finds annoying but he still likes spending time with them so he doesn’t push it. For now. He wishes they could've been around when he was a kid with Stanley. It would've been nice, all four of them on adventures together all the time.

The boat they've rented is small, doesn't hold a candle to the Stan O War in Ford’s always humble opinion, but it's decent enough he supposes. It's got a gas motor on it that Ford is itching to take apart; he'd always wanted to build a motor for their boat but the parts were so expensive. He really needs to ask Stan more about their boat and why they didn't get a new one after whatever happened to the old one. It's hard to picture a future without sailing, even if he's in it currently. There's gotta be a good reason, has to be, he just can't think of it. Which is weird because Ford can think of lots of things usually. He does become the greatest scientist ever according to Dipper after all. You have to be smart to do that.

The boat gets them to the island in the middle of the lake in no time thanks to the motor. Mabel is over the side in an instant but Ford stays a few extra moments to help Dipper pull the boat up on land and tie it to a nearby tree. “This is a figure eight knot, it's really secure.” he says as he goes through the practiced motions. After Stanley and him started on their boat, Ford had read every book about sailing that he could get his hands on. He'd made both of them practice tying knots for hours; they'd be out of luck if the Stan O War got untied and drifted away, after all. Ford was always better at tying the knots thanks to a bonus in his dexterity, but Stan was better at getting the knots undone. Though sometimes he did that by just breaking the knots so that was kinda cheating but it worked in a pinch. That's why they were the perfect team.

“Guys! C'mon, the cave isn't gonna wait all day for us!” Mabel is already several yards ahead, hanging from a low branch on a tree. She does that to Stan’s arm a lot, just dangling.

“Where's it gonna go?” Dipper asks with a laugh as he gives Ford’s knot a test tug. He nods, apparently satisfied with it which just adds about five layers of pride to Ford’s good mood, before gesturing for them to follow after his sister. The island is dreary, the trees blocking out a lot of the sunlight and making the ground several degrees cooler. There’s also fog that seems ever present. Ford wonders what the science behind that is; maybe the temperature drop clashing with the heat and the water? Hm. He really needed to read some updated science books.

They come to the entrance to a cave that, once inside, he can see is connected to the water from another entrance that’s blocked by one of the most amazing things Ford has ever seen. If he was itching to take apart the motor of the boat, then he was way beyond that once he sets his eyes on the giant robot monster. It looked better than anything he'd ever seen in a movie, even the new movies that had to be made with magic, or the comics he and Stan would buy once a month. The skin was ripped in places, showing solid metal plating, and wires were poking out of where the metal itself had been torn back. Ford can feel excitement like electricity buzzing under his skin as he takes Mabel’s hand after she's climbed up onto the head. She hefts him up like it's nothing and there it is. The pilot seat. The wooden chair is slightly less impressive but he is in no way less excited.

“Do you think it'll still run?” he asks as he jumps down into the seat before letting himself plop down into it. Regrets that pretty much instantly as it seems the wooden chair was not made for comfort and it feels like he'd gotten a swift boot to his behind. He shakes his head, regrets that too for the way it makes the dull throb in his skull rev to life for a moment. No time for pained butts or heads, though. He reaches for one of the many levers and gives it a pull. He puffs out his cheeks when nothing happens. Maybe there's a start button somewhere?

Dipper jumps in with him while Mabel ducks out of view. “I think the crash wrecked it pretty bad. Soos said he wanted to scavenge parts from it but he was, uh…”

“I think he said he was ‘Like totally scarred for life, little doods'.” Mabel yells from outside the cockpit, her voice going deep and with a weird accent that Ford recognizes as an impression of the odd hamster man that works for him and Stanley. Ford is pretty sure he's some sort of monster/human hybrid but the twins insist that Ford's already ran tests to disprove that. Maybe he's slacking in the science in the future. Nah, can’t be. But still, there’s something up with that guy. Things to find out later.

Ford’s disappointed that they can't drive the thing but it's still impressive to see. He wishes he could've borrowed some tools from the hamster man, would've loved to see what they could've scavenged themselves. Maybe before he got turned back into an adult again he could build the boat motor he'd wanted to for the Stan O War. Then maybe he and Stanley could go sailing with the kids later. He thinks they’d all like that. Mabel said she was friends with a merman; they could track him down. He and Dipper could study monsters and Stan could hunt for treasure and fight anything that tried to attack them. Maybe when Ford was big again, he could fight too. He hopes he can.

When he gets out of the cockpit, lending a hand to pull Dipper out, Mabel is nowhere in sight but there’s the sound of metal hitting metal. They both slide down the side she'd disappeared around; Ford snorts a laugh at the high pitched sound Dipper makes when a length of pipe nearly smacks him in the face as it flies out of a rather massive hole in the side of the robo-creature.

Dipper’s face goes red and Ford quickly covers his mouth to stifle his laughter. He adjusts his glasses, moving to look inside the hole that they hadn’t seen from the other side; he has to duck as a handful of shredded wires are tossed at his face. “Watch it, Mabel!” she’s got her sleeves shoved up to her elbows as she digs through the innards, tossing stuff over her shoulder without looking back. He wants to lecture, he is technically the adult here, but instead he climbs in next to her. Well, he wanted to take it apart anyway. He can be the adult another time. “What’re you looking for?”

Mabel sticks her tongue out in concentration as she digs through what looks like a mountain of cables; Ford hopes there’s no power left in them. “Can’t you smell it?” she asks, incredulous, as if Ford is missing something incredibly obvious.

Ford frowns and sniffs the air. It smells like a car engine, like oil and copper and grease. Smells hot and—wait. He leans closer to the section that Mabel is digging in and takes a deep breath through his nose. He can smell the sweet berry shampoo that his niece uses but, beyond that and the smell of the machine, there’s something else. A different kind of sweetness than her hair with a bite of spice to it. Ford’s never smelled anything like it before. “What is that?”

“Did you guys find something?” Dipper calls and when Ford looks back, he’s moving his hand over the ragged sides of the creature with a face Ford has learned to recognize as his thinking face. It’s the same face he wears when they’re looking through the Journals or he’s reading one of those mystery books he likes to read before bed.

Mabel tugs on Ford’s arm to get his attention; she gestures to a sheet of metal that’s been warped, looking like it’s been bent open and closed repeatedly. He takes her cue and gets his fingers in the crack alongside hers so they can pull together. “It smells like the tea,” she grunts as the metal starts bending, “that Mom always gets from Moondoes.”

Dipper makes a confused sound. “Chai tea?”

“Yeah!” Mabel cries out, victorious as the metal fully bends back. Ford suspects it was weakened from having been bent so many times before. The sweet, spicy smell is much stronger now. Mabel gasps when they peer inside. “Oh my god! It’s so cute!” she whisper-yells, as if to avoid waking the beast the rests inside.

Ford’s not sure about the cute part, but it is amazing. The body is covered in milky brown fur, like coffee with too much creamer in it, and small groupings of dark brown leaves that spread to the right of the double heads that are all curled up as the thing sleeps. The right head is purring, its rounded lion cub ears twitching every now and then. To the left, the head of a goat stretches from the body, little stubs of horns on top of its head; it oddly looks like a baby version of the goat that hangs around the Shack. Ford’s eyes trace the creature’s back to where a tail extends, covered in scales and curled into a spiral that ends in a snake’s head that is resting on itself.

Ford’s breath catches in his chest, excitement threatening to burst his heart. “It’s a chimera!” he hisses in the same yelling whisper that Mabel had used.

“A chimera?!” Dipper squeaks and wedges his way in with them and stands on the other side of Mabel; it’s a tight fit, shoulder to shoulder, but Ford is so beyond caring.

A chimera! A living, breathing, real chimera! Not a monster in one of Ford’s books or one of Stan’s made up creations, but a real, actual monster. This was so much cooler than a bunch of marriage starved gnomes or a buried zombie hand (though those were super cool). Ford scrambles to grab the notebook tucked in the back of Dipper’s shorts. He has to write this down!

“No.” Mabel whispers, shifting so she can stretch a hand towards the creature. “A chaimera.”

“Chaimera. That’s perfect!” Ford doesn’t know what Chai is or what kind of tea it makes, but if that’s what it smells like then it’s a great name. Everyone knew what a chimera is; what fun would it be to tell the world about something it already knew? Ford writes the name at the top of the paper then rapidly starts sketching the thing.

Mabel squeaks happily when her hand touches the lion head, the chaimera making a quiet ‘mrrrp’ sound before purring louder as she scratches behind its ear. “Dipper, it makes the kitty start up sound!”

“It’s very small; must be a baby.” Dipper pulls a small camera out of his bag and starts snapping pictures. “I wonder how it got in here. The side looks like it was torn open but this one is too small to do that.”

The smell is getting stronger, overpowering the smell of the machine the longer they stay. Ford is able to get the sketch finished and has added a few shorthand notes when his eyes start to sting. He rubs at them under his glasses, “Mabel, maybe stop petting it. I think it’s putting off more of that smell.” The smell certainly isn’t helping his headache which seems to be building back to life the more he inhales it.

“But he loves me!” she protests, her upper half of her body mostly inside the little compartment. “Maybe he was abandoned. Ooh, can we take him home? I can be his new mommy! Waddles would love a brother!”

Ford wants to argue further, both about the smell and the fact that the thing would likely eat the fat pig Mabel loves so much, but that’s when he feels a puff of hot, moist air on the back of his head, ruffling his hair. He turns and feels his breath catch once more, though less out of excitement this time. He drops his pen and instantly grabs Dipper’s arm. His nephew turns and Ford is pretty sure they swallow in unison.

It’s big, much bigger than any lion Ford has ever seen in a book. The lion head is huffing harder than the goat; it doesn’t have a big mane but its fangs are large and glistening. The edges of both mouths have brown froth that’s only a few shades lighter than the fur. Each breath is like a blast of spices and sweetness to the face that has Ford’s eyes watering.

“Uh, Mabel?” Dipper squeaks and both he and Ford grab ahold of the back of her sweater to pull her out. “I think it already has a mommy.”

“What? What are you—oh?” Mabel instantly grabs each of their hands as soon as she is facing the adult chaimera. She swallows before grinning a big, metal-filled smile. “Maybe it’s a friendly monster? Hey! You have the cutest little baby ever! Can we be friends?”

The answer to that, apparently, is a giant roar that has all three of them stumbling back.

Why hadn’t they brought Stan? Ohh this was a bad idea; they were going to be in so much trouble. Ford has so many regrets. He moves to tuck the notebook down the front of his sweater. “If I die, please let them publish all my works.” He whispers to himself, trying to remember the last time he went to Temple. His ma would be so disappointed in him if he died without having recently gone.

Dipper and Mabel lock up beside him; Ford looks over when Mabel drops Ford’s hand. “Now!” Dipper yells; Mabel drops his hand too, both her hands disappearing into her sleeves for a second then she’s throwing something from both hands towards each head.

“Eat sparkles, you magnificent creature with adorable babies!” she screams; it’s glitter, she just threw glitter at a monster. Ford is stunned. More so because it seems to work; the lion head roars angrily while the goat head screams, both sets of heads squeezing their eyes shut as it stumbles back.

“Left/right hook!” they yell together, each slamming a fist into one of the heads.

His niece and nephew are so cool.

They scramble to get out of the beast and run for the exit. Ford screams when the snake tail, neck flared out, lashes for them as they run past the thing. Acting on instinct, he mirrors his niblings and slams his fist into it as the run past.

“Guys, I just punched a snake!” he yells after them once they’re out of the cave. Behind them, the ground itself seems to shake with the force of the beast’s roar. Terror bubbles up in the form of laughter. Oh god, where’s the boat?

“Pines Pawnch!” Mabel yells, jumping over a log.

Dipper reaches the boat first and is getting the knot untied when Mabel jumps into it, running to be ready to start the motor. Ford braces against the back of the boat; he waits for the knot to be undone to start pushing it back into the water with Dipper’s help. Water fills his shoes, soaks his socks, and wets the edges his borrowed shorts, but the boat is in the water before Dipper and him heft themselves into the boat.

Ford helps Dipper start paddling with the oars while Mabel pulls the cable to start the motor. One pull, nothing. A roar shakes the leaves on the trees. Second pull, nothing. The chaimera bursts through the treeline and skids to a stop at the waterline. It starts to step into the water as Mabel pulls for a third time; Ford feels something unclench inside him as the motor lets out its own roar and sends up a spray of cold water. The boat gives a lurch that nearly sends him from his seat; Dipper’s hand slaps against his chest to keep him from falling, though his oar does fall from his hand and hits the water with a splash. Ford watches where it floats as they quickly widen the distance between both it and the chaimera and thinks that Stan might be mad that he has to pay for that now.

“That was so cool!” Mabel yells and Ford is getting better, he doesn’t yelp and barely flinches when she tackles both him and Dipper with a hug, sending all three of them to the floor and rocking the boat bad enough for water to splash in. “Attack glitter twin punch was a success! And Ford punched a snake! And I got to pet a tea cat-goat!”

Ford sits up best he can with Mabel mostly on top of him and shoves his glasses back up his nose. “Technically it was a lion, not a cat.” He corrects but he still grins at her.

Dipper shoves her off but Ford can see he’s grinning too. “Wait till Soos hears about this! I wonder if that thing was there when we came to the island last time? Ooh, maybe McGucket has seen it before? Great Uncle Ford, can I see your notes? I want to add to them. Mabel, can you take the boat around the island a few times? Maybe we can spot it safely from a distance.” Dipper is talking a mile a minute and, once Ford has given him the notebook, starts writing just as fast as he talks. “I wonder if Stan knows anything about this.

Ford settles next to Dipper, adding in his own observations while they slowly circle the island. The chaimera can be seen on the shore, its snake tail lashing whenever it catches sight of them, but doesn’t seem like it is going to make the journey out that far to get to them. It's warm in the sun, comfortable especially with the way the boat rocks gently while the other kids talk excitedly to one another and at him. He wishes he could tell his Stanley all about this, not Old Stanley but the one that was his age; he probably wouldn't believe him, but he'd at least listen.

He likes his niece and nephew a lot, more so with every new thing they see and do together. He hopes they visit every summer, that Stanley and him get to spend as much time as possible with them. Maybe Mabel has scrapbooks with pictures of previous summers he could look at later. Other monsters they’ve discovered, other adventures. It wasn’t sailing the world on the adventure of a lifetime, but it wasn’t bad. Might even be a little better, all things considered.

The thoughts bring a smile to his face as he lets his eyes close, the rocking of the boat and the warmth of the sun making him feel extra sleepy. His head hurts less as he relaxes in his seat. He just needs to relax a little; the other kids will wake him up once they get to shore and Stanley comes to pick them up. Just a quick nap, that's all he needs. He’s been so tired lately; all of a sudden it feels like he hasn’t slept in a thousand years. He can feel the world fading away around him, the voices of his family fading to a muffled peace. Just a quick nap.

Then, with the feeling of tall grass all around him, he hears a voice.

“WELL WELL WELL WELL. LOOK WHAT WE'VE GOT HERE.”

Ford turns and sees a figure floating above him. It’s a…glowing triangle with one eye? It looks vaguely familiar but Ford can’t place where he’s seen it before. He looks around; he’s in a wide open field, grass that goes up to his hips. His smile returns when he sees their old swing set in the distance and then—oh! It’s the Stan O War! All the colors are muted and both look more rundown then he remembers them, but it’s still a comfort that they’re here. He looks back up at the triangle. “Who are you?”

The triangle has no mouth, but Ford can feel it smile back at him. It feels like seeing an old friend again, but Ford has never had an old friend before. He’s met this thing before, he’s sure, but doesn’t know where or when. A pair of thin black arms and legs extends from the thing, the right hand holding a cane that it leans on despite still floating in the air. Like Stanley when he greets a group of tourists. “I’M YOUR BEST FRIEND, KID.” It speaks, its voice echoing all around them, familiar and alien at the same time. “THE NAME’S BILL CIPHER.” It sticks out a hand.

Ford nods; he knows that name. He smiles and takes the offered hand. “Stanford Pines.”

[donutpwns]

Little Brother Blues - Part 1

\o/ - Part 2

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It's hard having Ford back; harder than Stan had been expecting. Sure, he'd figured there'd be some pain, maybe some fighting because of what happened thirty years ago, but he thought Ford would at least be grateful and that would be a foundation for them to pick up from. Stan had spent 30 years regretting that night and working with a determination to make it up to his brother, but none of that seemed to matter. Ford still hated him and, after having a home for so long, Stan would be out on his ass again at the end of the summer.

It wouldn't be as bad this time, he told himself. He's already started collecting the various stashes of money he has hidden about the house and buried in the yard. He has enough squirreled away to take care of himself for a while. He'd have more if the Shack hadn't been destroyed so many times but eh, small price to pay for the kids. Hell, maybe he'll open up another museum here in town just to piss his brother off. It makes him grin to think of tourists stopping by while Ford is trying to do his stupid nerd stuff and having to tell them that the Mystery Shack has moved.

He's thinking about how mad that would make his brother while he counts the money in the register. It's been a slow day; Stan really needs to come up with some new attractions. There's still money to be made by the end of the summer, after all. Maybe he could try passing Gompers off as a demon again? Mabel could make a costume probably better them he could; threading a needle was a pain with his eyesight. Hm. Might be time to go to the dump for supplies and inspiration.

He's debating the merits, and morality, of taking the kids to the city dump to scavenge when they burst through the front door. They look panicked but that's sort of the norm for them these days. He bets himself that they're involved with something to do with the gnomes again; the little bastards have been getting into his trash more than the boy band that lived in the woods.

“Grunkle Stan!” Dipper runs inside while Mabel stays in the doorway, continuously looking back and forth from the outside to in and bouncing on her heels. Stan shoves the register drawer closed just as the kid reaches the counter. “Something bad happened!”

“How bad? Finally found something Ford couldn't handle, huh?” the kids had been out helping his brother with something or another, a secondary defense to the weird barrier around the Shack. Which, speaking of, where was Ford? Stan has to squash a rising panic that something happened to Ford because if something had then he deserved it because he's a self-important ass and instead embraces anger at the idea that Ford put the kids in danger. “Where’s Stanford?” If he put them in danger, Stan's going to rescind the permission for the kids to spend time with him so fast.

“He's outside but that’s the problem, he’s—"

Stan is already out the door before Dipper can finish, because okay, maybe he's a little worried about his brother being hurt. Shut up, no one can prove anything. Mabel runs ahead of him and he follows her around to the porch where his old couch sits, upon which there's a pile that vaguely resembles Ford's stupid trench coat. Like he was some kinda cool sci-fi hero. Stan hated it. And then Stan sees a muss of brown hair poking out from under it and the whole thing moves with a groan.

The jacket falls into his lap as he sits up and rubs at his eyes. His sweater is comically oversized on him, the sleeves hanging past his hands. But Stan doesn't need to see them to know what they look like. He knows the face that is squinting up at him—what happened to his glasses?—by the freckles that still stand out and the familiar messy hair.

“So, uh, this is a new one.” he says and looks back at where the kids are standing a few feet back. Mabel looks torn on being excited or terrified while Dipper has landed firmly on the latter. Kid is twitching up a storm. Stan works to keep his tone even and composed because honestly weirder things have happened to him this summer. This is probably around the fighting dinosaurs level of weirdness in his life. “Anyone wanna tell me why Ford is a runt again?”

“We were looking at the size crystals cause we thought maybe we could make the barrier bigger but then—” Dipper starts but Mabel cuts him off,

“There was this HUGE monster and Grunkle Ford was all ‘watch out kids, this is a thing and blargh!’ and he shot it with his gun but it was all ‘eh whatever’ and then it bit him and we threw rocks at it until it went away!” Mabel is bouncing again, miming throwing something and then an explosion which she makes the noise for. Stan is pretty sure it’s only to enhance the story and in other circumstances would be very proud of her. “And then—”

“Then Ford said he was fine and passed out. Mabel ran back to get the golf cart so we could bring him home—”

Mabel wrinkles her nose, “He’s so heavy.”

“but by the time she got back he was…like this.” Dipper lamely gestures towards the couch.

There's a thump and when Stan turns his attention back to the kid that was his twin, Ford has apparently fallen off the couch. The stupid trench coat is on the ground, leaving the boy in the sweater that hangs to his knees when he pulls himself to his feet. He moves to put the couch between them, gripping the arm of it white knuckle tight. “I-I don't know wh-who you are or how you know m-my name,” his voice is more squeaky than Dipper's and laced with a barely restrained fear, “but I'll have you know that my b-brother will beat the heck outta you if you mess with me!”

Stan wants to laugh, wants to groan. This is just…stupid. “You got no clue where you are, huh?” he shakes his head and looks back at the kids. “Where are his glasses? And his pants?” good thing that sweater was so big. Stan spares a glance at his brother’s bare feet, twelve toes standing out clear as day.

Both of them point towards where the golf cart is parked haphazardly a few feet from the porch and Stan has to seriously fight an eye roll at the tracks they left in the yard. He’d get that cleaned up before the next tour. Dipper runs to get the glasses, which Stan snatches from him before he can run over to where Ford is starting to try to sneak away and failing as he knocks into the side of the house.

Stan might hate his brother, but he doesn’t hate this version of him. He’ll give Ford all kinds of hell once this was fixed, about putting the kids in danger and being stupid and this is why he didn’t want him around the kids, but if this version of him didn’t know what was going on then he didn’t deserve any of that. So Stan moves to kneel in front of the kid and holds out the glasses like a peace offering. Ford’s eyes have probably changed a lot in fifty or so years since he was a kid but it had to be better than nothing, right? Stan’s not sure, he knows nothing about glasses other than he needs them.

Ford hated not having his glasses as a kid, hated not being able to see. He’d always raise a stink when Stan or a bully would take them from him. He takes them, though he doesn’t pull his hands out of the sleeves to do so, making the act clumsy. He fumbles a bit as he puts them on; they’re much too big and slide down his nose so he has to tilt his head back a bit to keep them in place. The lenses glow a dull blue, a line like a scanner moving across Ford’s eyes, then the glow fades and after a few blinks, Ford is no longer squinting.

“Can you see now?” Stan’s not sure what that was, but the not squinting is a good thing, right?

Ford nods slowly, keeping one hand on the side of his head to keep his glasses in place. Then he tilts his head with a frown. “You look like my dad. Only really old.” His mouth twitches when Mabel lets out a loud snort behind Stan but then he’s frowning again and squaring his shoulders.

Stan rubs his eyes under his glasses. He hates kids, especially ones related to him. “You like stu—science fiction stuff, right? Well, this is some crazy sci-fi stuff.” He pulls his hand away to flash his best, most charming grin and moves his hands in a ‘ta-da’ motion. “It’s me, your favorite brother! Stanley!”

Ford, if at all possible, looks less impressed than he has since he came back through the portal. “I’m not stupid. Stanley’s my twin.” He grumbles and tries to cross his arms only to scramble to shove the glasses back up his face. His cheeks go red while he tries to straighten himself. “Stanley is the coolest ever and he’s super tough and you’re a weird old man that looks like my dad.”

Mabel and Dipper are on either side of him in a blink; Stan nearly falls over as they slam into him. They’re both gripping one of his arms. “No! It’s true! You’re our Great Uncle Ford and this is Stan! This is like, magic stuff!” Dipper is the first to speak. “You’re like, the greatest scientist that’s ever existed and you’re super smart and cool and you’re the best!”

“Typically you’re both stupid old, but you got bit by a dumb forest creature so now you’re an adorable kid like us!” Mabel appears to have settled on being excited about the turn of events, given she’s grinning ear to ear now. “Hey, hey! Does this mean he’s still our uncle?” she gasps and shakes Stan’s arm. “Oh my gosh! Are we older than him? Are we the big kids?! Can we boss him around?!”

Ford takes a step back, forehead wrinkling and clearly uncomfortable with the attention. Did Ford hate being the center of attention when they were kids? Stan doesn’t remember. He elbows both kids and gives his shrunken twin a tired look. “Listen, you just gotta believe us. We gotta work together, kid.”

Ford looks between all of them for a moment before shaking his head. “Prove it!” he yells and puts his hands on his hips, head tilted back far enough to keep the oversized glasses on. “If you are Stanley, which I’m pretty sure you’re not, then you can prove it. Do something only Stanley would do.”

Stan’s first thought is to punch him because his first thought is usually punching Ford these days, but punching a child is, as the kids have informed him, highly illegal. And not the usual kind of illegal that Stan can deal with but the kind that will make the kids not talk to him and possibly call their parents. He looks over his brother, in the oversized sweater that hangs past his hands. Why hasn’t he shoved the sleeves up yet? That doesn’t—

Oh. Right. That makes sense.

Stan holds up a hand, palm to his brother, and with a little bit of nerves climbing up his throat asks, “High Six?” it’s stupid; the last time he said the words was when Ford was staring down at him and a duffle bag with everything he would have to his name sat next to his feet. He’s over that, he doesn’t care, shut up, but it still twists something tight in his gut.

Ford’s face shifts though, annoyance and haughtiness melting off. He still looks nervous though, but he does move. His hands are shaking when he moves to finally push his right sleeve up past his hand. “High six.” He slaps his palm to Stan’s. A small smile crosses his face and Stan feels the twisting in his gut start to loosen up a bit. Then Ford is coughing and shoving both of his hands behind his back. “Okay. So, maybe you’re my brother. Even though you’re super old.”

Stan huffs and pushes himself to his feet despite the way his back protests. He also chooses to ignore the way Mabel is clinging to his arm, causing him to lean to the side when she lifts her feet off the ground. “Alright, let’s get this taken care of. Dipper—”

Dipper jumps next to him, “I’ll go look in the Journals to see if Great Uncle Ford wrote about it! He seemed to recognize it when it attacked.” He makes a mock salute up at Stan before darting inside the house.

Stan frowns. He was going to ask Dipper to look after Ford while Stan looked through the books, but he supposes that Dipper might be better suited for it. Kid was a great deal smarter than Stan anyway. “Right. Okay. So, Mabel, can you—”

“Make Tiny Ford some clothes that’ll fit? Great idea, Grunkle Stan! I’m on it!” she drops off his arm and practically tackles Ford. She hugs him tight and lifts him off the ground; Stan is impressed by how far back she can bend her back. She rubs her cheek against his before putting him back on the ground. Ford looks extremely uncomfortable with the whole thing. “Okay, so I think you’re the same size as Dipper! This will be fun! You’re gonna be so stylin’! Do you still like sweaters? Of course you do, everyone does, sweaters are peak fashion!” and she’s off.

Well. That works too. Well, not like Ford could keep walking around in an oversized sweater, so it made sense. Stan hopes they’ll get things sorted out before multiple clothes are needed but telling Mabel not to make sweater was like telling Dipper not to sweat. Stan’s got a feeling he’ll be spending money on this whole ordeal by the end of it. Yep, it’s decided, he’s not leaving Ford a dime at the end of the summer.

A hand tugs on the end of his sleeve; Ford is staring up at him with those giant oversized glasses. “Old Stanley? That kid said I was a scientist?” his eyes are all wide and sparkling with what looks to be joy.  “Does that mean we do science on the sea?”

Stan raises a brow, “The sea?” he reeeeeally didn’t like where this was going.

Ford nods excitedly, smile spreading into a grin. “Yeah! On the Stan O’ War! Do I have a lab on it? I always wanted to put one in there but we never really had a chance to talk about it and it’s gonna take a while to fix up the boat anyway. But if I’m scientist that means I’ve got a lab, right? Like full of beakers and test tubes and monster parts! Ooh, do you beat up monsters and then I study them and we pay for it with all the treasure?” he’s starting to bounce like Mabel does when she gets too excited, both hands coming to grip Stan’s sleeve and his glasses sliding down his face. “Where is the Stan O War? I can’t wait to see what it looks like done! Did we paint it cool colors? Where is it docked? Is the ocean near here? Is this the house where we take breaks from or does it belong to those kids? Are we really their uncles? Where’s Shermie?”

Stan could barely keep up with Ford’s questions and the way he was rapid firing them and on instinct he covers his brother’s mouth with his hand. Ford’s mouth keeps moving for a few seconds, voice muffled, before he seems to realize what was happening. Stan jerks his hand back when he feels a wet tongue against his palm. “Hot Belgian waffles, Sixer. Calm down.” He wipes his hand on his pants. He looks around for any excuse to not deal with all of the that that Ford just asked. Nope, not in any hurry to unpack fifty years’ worth of emotional baggage for the second time in a month. Or ever again if he could avoid it. Yeah, never sounded great. “Let’s get you some pants before we get into all of that.”

Ford nods and moves inside with him. He gasps once they’re in the living room and runs over to the giant skull that Stan uses as an end table. “Holy Moses! Look at the size of it, Stanley! Did you kill it? Did we find it at sea? This is so cool!” he shoves the glasses up his nose and gets on his knees to look in its eye holes. “Do I have notes about it? It doesn’t look like a water creature. Do we still have the rest of it? Stanley, you gotta show me the rest of it! Please?”

Stan slumps back against the wall and tries very hard to not just slide to the floor. This…was going to be difficult.

t

[donutpwns]

Little Brother Blues - Part 2

Part 1 - Part 3

Two days pass relatively quickly and Ford comes to a few conclusions about his future.

The first is that the Shack is nice. He's sad that they don't have the Stan O War; Old Stanley says it just didn't work out but won't explain how. Grown up stuff, he says, and Ford hates that Stanley can say that now. But the Shack is nice. He likes the attractions, even if most of them are fake. He wants to draw them, wants to draw new ones too but he doesn't know where to start with that. Stanley was always good at making up monsters; Ford pretended to be mad about it sometimes but really it was just fun. And Stan made money with them, which was super neat. Maybe they could buy a boat! It wouldn't be as cool as building one, but they could still go on a sea adventure together. That would be fun; he needs to ask Old Stanley about that later.

Old Stanley was weird but Ford still liked him a lot. He looks like their dad but he smiles way more, except sometimes when he looks at Ford and just stops smiling. That hurts but Ford would probably be sad too if Stanley forgot everything they ever did together so he doesn't get mad about it. He wants to be big again so they can be best friends again, like they're supposed to be. Old Stanley also has to work and tells people what to do all day and it's so boring. He never wants to play with him, even when he's not working and sitting in his chair in front of a huge TV. It's been two whole days and Stan still hasn't played with him once, not even checkers and Stanley loves checkers because Ford pretends not to notice when he flips pieces over to be kings even though he didn't cross the board. He wants Ford to be big again too. It's very boring.

His niece and nephew aren't boring though. He learns that they're two years older than him but they're not like the big kids back home. Mabel is really nice, even if she hugs and yells too much, and he really likes the sweaters she makes for him. It's been forever since he had new clothes or even clothes just for him. Usually he and Stanley just share hand-me-downs. Heh, guess Stanley’s too big to share now. His shorts and sneakers are from Dipper though so still hand-me-down but at least he doesn't have to share. Dipper is really cool and knows a lot about real monsters. He even has these books that talk about all the monsters in the town. They look through them to try to find out why Ford got turned into a kid again but he keeps getting distracted by other cool things in the books.

Like the gnomes. He found the page on the gnomes and has to see them in person. Getting older can wait because gnomes. Mabel calls them bearded jerks because they apparently tried to marry her, which is gross, but agrees that they can go on an adventure to see them. He thinks she likes adventures just as much as Dipper does.

“What about Old Stanley?” he asks while they load up backpacks with snacks and cans of Pitt Soda. He doesn't want to go on his first real adventure without Stanley, even if he was old. It just doesn't feel right. They probably had lots of cool adventures together but Ford doesn't remember them so they don't count. They were supposed to be the greatest adventurers of all time; the New Jersey Kings. He can't go without Stanley now.

“Grunkle Stan doesn't usually adventure with us unless we know it might try to kill us.” Dipper is packing extra notebooks which Ford thinks is a great idea. Dipper is really smart. “Like with the dinosaurs or the zombies.”

A gasp escapes him and he can feel energy bubbling up inside him. “You guys have seen dinosaurs?! And zombies?! That’s so cool! Can we go see those later?” he shoves his glasses back up his nose when they slip down; they fit a lot better after the kids shrank them with a magic flashlight but still slide down his nose when he gets too excited.

Mabel grins wide as anyone he's ever seen. “Yeah, but the coolest part was Grunkle Stan! He beat up a dinosaur,” she punches the air, “and a bunch of zombies for us! And then we made the zombies head explode by singing!” she makes an explosion sound with her mouth, throwing her hands out and falling back against Dipper.

Stanley is the coolest ever, no matter how old he was. Ford is gonna make him tell him all about it later because he has a right to know about how awesome Stanley is. “I want Old Stanley to come.” He decides with a nod and turns to the door. Finding gnomes with Stanley! What could be better? When Stanley was his age, he'd never have believed it. Stanley didn't believe in monsters but Ford is happy to know he did now. They studied them together! Oh, he hoped he'd been cool too when they fought the zombies.

Stanley’s in the museum, right inside the doorway that connects to the gift shop; Ford doesn't notice that a group of tourists are in front of his until he's already called out to him. In an instant, a dozen pairs of eyes are on him and he's shoving his hands behind his back. His face feels way too hot. Right, Old Stanley did tours because he worked.

Old Stanley laughs and that thankfully gets the attention off of him. “Sorry about that, folks! My nephew is a little excitable. The gift shop is right this way; make sure to grab a bumper sticker! Free with every shirt you buy if you donate five extra bucks!” he ushers them through the doorway to the gift shop, many of them talking about what a deal that was. The bumper stickers were only three dollars on their own though, Ford is pretty sure. Also he's not Stanley's nephew; Old Stanley lies a lot. Stan lied a lot when they were kids too but it feels like a bigger thing when a grown up does it.

He stiffens when Old Stanley turns to him, his smile disappearing with a sigh. Ford wants to squirm but makes sure to straighten his back. You gotta stand up tall, that's what their dad and boxing coach said, when you want something. And he wants Stanley to come with them really, really bad.

“You guys find anything in the books, Sixer?” Stanley asks while shutting the door that connects the museum to the shop. The sounds of the tourists chattering is quieter through the door and muffled enough to ease some of the tension out of his shoulders. Ford really doesn’t like crowds; that part of the Shack wasn’t very cool.

“Gn-gnomes!” he stammers out then winces. Okay, bad start. He clears his throat and shakes his head before looking up at Stanley with determination. New Jersey Kings! First adventure! You can do this, Stanford. “There are gnomes in the forest, Stanley! I wanna see them so we're going on an adventure to find them. And then we’ll look more into why I’m a kid again but first gnomes!”

Stan looks unimpressed as he flips his eye patch up. Ford thinks the eye patch is neat but he doesn't understand why Stan wears it. “What's there to find? They live in a clearing like thirty minutes from here.” He jerks his thumb towards the back of the house. “They go through our trash a couple times a month. Once they stole one of my attractions and I had to chase them back.”

Ford puffs out his cheeks in frustration; why does Stan have to make it seem like it’s not a big thing? Maybe he’s used to it, but Ford has never seen a gnome before. Well, not that he can remember, at least. But still! Magic should never not be special. “That means you can show us how to get there!” he grins and bounces in place. “You can show us and I can see a gnome!”

“I’m working, Ford.” Stan frowns down at him and Ford stares back. He wins the staring contest; Stan looks back towards the gift shop and crosses his arm. “Why do you even want to see one so bad? Isn’t all the info you would want to know in that stupid book?”

Ford huffs because the book is not stupid. Stan is being extra grumpy today. “I don’t want to just read about something cool, Stanley! I want to see it!” he clenches his fists and pushes up onto his tiptoes, “Remember when we camped out on the beach all weekend in the Stan O War because we thought there was a sea monster coming up and stealing our snacks?” Ford knew it was actually Stan eating them all when he wasn’t looking, but that hadn’t been the point. It was about the adventure. “We stayed up all night trying to catch it!” Stan had stolen a pocket knife from their Dad’s shop and they’d carved their names on the inside of the hull. They’d both gotten the belt for that but it had been worth it.

Stan actually laughs at that and shakes his head, which makes Ford grin even harder. He rubs at his forehead, “Ma was livid about that. She sprayed us with the hose so we wouldn’t track sand inside.” This time when he looks at Ford, the smile stays in place though he still looks a little skeptical. “Wouldn’t you rather have an adventure to fix yourself?”

“We can do that later! I want to have some fun first!” he reaches up so he can grab Stan’s arm; he has to dig his heels in and tug extra hard but Stan does take a step forward. “Old me has got to have all kinds of fun with you guys, it’s my turn now! C’mon! We can see the gnomes and then I promise I’ll work extra super hard to find out what bit me!” he wraps his arms around Stan’s arm when he tries to pull away; he yelps when he’s lifted off the ground. Holy Moses, Stanley was strong. “Pleeeeeease, Old Stanley! I’ll double pinky swear to work on it!”

“And here I thought the kids got it from me.” Stanley mutters before putting Ford back on the ground. He kneels so they’re on the same eye level, which Ford greatly prefers. He doesn’t like Stanley being taller; Ford is supposed to be the big brother, after all. “Okay, okay. You can go with the kids to see the gnomes but then—“

“You gotta come too!” Ford holds up his right hand and sticks out the last two fingers. “All of us! Kings of Gravity Falls! And Queen too, I guess, since Mabel is a girl. We’re all gonna go together!”

Stan sighs but he still hooks his pinky around Ford’s two. They shake their hands up and down twice and give an extra hard squeeze. “Double swear. We see the gnomes and then we focus on getting you fixed. Got it, Sixer?”

Ford nods and feels like a hundred bucks when Stan musses up his hair like he’s seen him do to Dipper before. This was going to be the best ever!

 -----------------------

So this wasn’t exactly the best ever.

The ropes around his wrists chafe really badly and it’s worse every time he tugs on them. He keeps bumping into Dipper’s back as they’re marched through underground tunnels. Normally he’d find the large expansive network of tunnels, and the cool glowing mushrooms, very fascinating but the sharp spear that keeps poking him in the back anytime he stops to try to get a good look at them is kinda soiling the whole thing. Man, Mabel was right, gnomes were bearded jerks.

The tunnels are bigger than Ford would’ve expected for gnomes, though the ceiling is low enough that Stan has to hunch where he’s walking ahead of Dipper. Ford winces at the thought of the lecture he was probably going to get if they made it out of this. Stanley seems like he lectures now when he’s not being fun. Man, this whole thing was a bit of a bust.

They’re lead to a giant central chamber with a tall ceiling from which what looks like hundreds of glowing orbs are hanging from. There’s enough passageways lining the walls to make Ford think they could get lost forever in them. He should’ve brought some of Mabel’s yarn; it could’ve been like the story of the Minotaur and the Labyrinth! Though it might be difficult to leave a trail of yarn with his hands tied up. Hm. He’s going to have to brainstorm that later. See what Dipper thought of it.

There are two thrones set up side by side against the far wall. A gnome with a brown beard that looks a lot less bushy than the others he’s seen is sitting on the left one while the other sits empty aside from a pillow with a tiara on it. There’s a picture of a girl with long blonde hair and more makeup than even his Ma wears hanging on the wall right above the empty throne. The gnome that had been sitting in the other throne seems to notice they're all staring at it because he looks back at it and quickly throws a blanket over it.

“Pacifica.” Mabel says it the same way Stanley used to say Crampelter. She’s at the front of the group and has even more rope around her wrists than any of the rest of them. Also one of the gnomes put a flower crown on her head so that’s weird. They also smashed the leaf blower she’d brought with her when they captured them.

“Heh, pay no attention to that! We weren't thinking about making her our new queen after you broke our hearts or anything!” he laughs nervously, moving to stand between Mabel and the now covered painting. He clasps his hands in front of him and makes gross gaga eyes at her. “We still only have eyes for you, Mabel! And we’re so happy you decided to finally accept our proposal and become our queen!”

Mabel’s response to that, because she is awesome, is to kick the gnome right in the face. “Stop kidnapping girls, Jeff! It’s creepy!” she kicks another gnome that tries to jab her with a stick. “Also, I thought you guys lived in the forest?”

“We live lots places! You don’t know!” Jeff brushes himself off. “And maybe we thought our new queen would like this better than the forest. We’re working on our pitch!” he hops back onto the throne. “Oh well, that doesn’t matter, because you’re here!”

Dipper and Mabel groan at the same time. “No girl is going to be happy if you kidnap them!” Dipper scowls and moves to stand next to his sister. “Geez, why do all the creeps like you, Mabel?”

“Because I’m adorable and awesome and the best anyone could ever have and I also have a pig.” Mabel says it so matter-of-fact that Ford’s not sure anyone can dispute it. “And I’m not going to marry you and your giant colony of jerks, Jeff!”

Jeff waves his hand like he’s trying to wave away the statement. “You’ll learn to love us! And, hey, we’ll let you keep your family! That was the deal breaker before, right?” he reaches into his beard and pulls out a rose that looks like it’s been stepped on. “C’mon, just say yes!”

Mabel tries to kick him again but the gnome manages to jump back against the back of the throne before her foot connects. “The deal breaker is that I hate you!”

“No marriage is perfect!” he screams when she jumps up onto the throne to kick him.

Stan lets out a loud yell that has everyone looking at him; Ford’s eyes widen when Stan pulls his hands out from behind his back, length of rope held in his right hand.  The rope wasn’t even broken! How in the world—Stanley whirls, grabbing a spear that was being jabbed at him right below the point and jerking. The gnome holding it manages to hold its grip, though it probably regrets that when Stan swings the spear and gnome both to slam into another one that was running towards them. That one drops the spear and Stan picks it up.

“Dipper! Catch!” Stan yells and Dipper, somehow, manages to turn and actually catch the spear. He fumbles it but it doesn’t drop; it’s small enough for him to slip it down and start rubbing the point against the ropes around his wrists. Oh! That’s so smart! “Mabel—”

“On it, Grunkle Stan!” on it for Mabel was apparently chasing Jeff and kicking him repeatedly.

Unable to do much, Ford ends up just trying to dodge spears while he watches his family fights a quickly growing group of gnomes. Dipper has his hands free before too long and quickly moves over to get Mabel free; once she’s got her hands she is taking a page out of Stan’s book and punching. Jeff tries to jump on her only to scream when he gets an eyeful of what looks like glitter and fall to the ground.

Four stack on top of each other and try to attack Stan; they topple with a single left hook. Wow, Stan really learned a lot from their boxing lessons. Ford’s starting to regret not paying more attention. Maybe their dad was right about knowing how to fight being important.

“Catch, Great Uncle Ford!” Dipper calls and Ford turns in time to get smacked in the face with the spear; it clatters to the ground and nearly knocks his glasses off too. He tries to squat to grab them but another gnome is running at him so he screams and runs away instead. He hears Dipper yell “Sorry!” but is much too busy trying not to die by gnome to respond.

Crap crap crap crap!

This wasn’t supposed to happen! Ford just wanted to see some gnomes, not fight them! Oh crud! He needs to get behind Stanley, Stanley is good at fighting! Yeah, Stan will keep him safe and then they can escape. Oh, he was going to get Stan so many bags of toffee peanuts for this.

That’s when he sees Stan grappling with what looks like a person made of gnomes, standing a little taller than Stan himself, with four more gnomes stacked up behind him. Something electric shoots through his gut at the sight of it; how can they attack someone from behind like that?

He runs forwards before he can really think about it, ducking his head so the back of it and his shoulders take the majority of the hit as he bowls into the stack behind Stan. It’s enough to collapse them before they could hit Stanley. Stanley lets out another yell and turns to slam the gnome-person into the ground, where it shatters and all the gnomes scatter back.

Stanley’s hair is sticking to his temples with sweat and his chest is heaving but his eyes are about as wide as his grin that Ford has to mirror. Ford wonders if this is how Stan feels whenever he punches bullies and if so, he suddenly understands why he likes punching things so much. He wonders if they ever learned to fight together when they got bigger; he hopes they did.

“They’re forming Gnome-tron!” Mabel yelps as her and Dipper reach where Ford and Stan are standing. She’s also got hair sticking to her face, cheeks even more flushed than normal. Dipper is panting with a hand on his knee while the other points to where all the gnomes are starting to pile together. The pile starts taking the shape of the gnome-person Stanley had been fighting but much, much bigger.

“Hot Belgian waffles.” Stanley says it under his breath and then all of a sudden Ford is off the ground.

He grunts as his stomach hits Stan’s shoulder, quickly sucking back in the breath that was knocked out of him. He kicks his legs; why hadn’t he caught the stupid spear to untie his hands?! Dipper is tossed on Stan’s other shoulder and they share a brief moment of solidarity at how much this sucks. Stanley locks an arm around his back to keep him in place while they run. Mabel runs behind Stanley while he takes off down a tunnel. Ford wants to be offended as she keeps up with Stanley but it’s really hard to once he sees a hand made of gnomes reaching for them down the tunnel.

Dipper laughs from his place on Stan’s other shoulder and cups his hands around his mouth. “Forget that you’re underground? Stupid gnomes!”

“Yeah, bearded jerks!” Mabel throws another handful of glitter over her shoulder.

“Kids, escape, then taunt the enemy! Basic rules of capture!” Stanley yells as he takes a sharp left turn.

Ford tries to take in as much as he can while being jostled by the running and while his heart is pounding in his throat. The mushrooms glow without any other light source, there’s different colored moss littering the ground. He recognizes a few things, like specific groupings of mushrooms or a scratching of different names x Queen in the walls, that he saw when they were being led in. Did Stan remember the way they were led in?

Ford was never happier to see the sun than when they burst through the branches and such that were covering the entrance to the tunnels. Stan drops Dipper who scurries over to where their backpacks were left. He takes his and tosses both Mabel’s and Ford’s to his sister. Ford kicks his feet again but Stan just tightens his hold so he doesn’t fall off.

By the time they reach the treeline within sight of the Shack, Stan is drenched in sweat and coughing from how bad he’s panting. He does finally drop Ford though; as soon as Ford is off his shoulder, Stan his hands on his knees much like Dipper next to him. Mabel stretches to be able to pat both of them of the back at the same time.

They pant for several minutes, trying to catch their breath and waiting to see if the gnomes chased them all the way back. The only sound is their labored breathing and the sounds of Mabel untying the ropes still binding Ford’s wrists. He rubs at the red, raw skin. Slowly their breathing evens out and there doesn’t be any sign of the gnomes.

He doesn’t know why it happens, maybe it’s all the energy still buzzing in his chest, but laughter bubbles up from inside him. He grips his stomach, unable to stop the peals of laughter that tumble out. It seems to be contagious; Stan start’s chuckling next to him and then the twins are covering their mouths while they giggle. Ford doesn’t even mind when Mabel tugs him into a tight hug, her face sweaty and hot when she presses their cheeks together. He even manages to get an arm around her to hug her back.

Stanley wipes his eye under his glasses, chest still shaking with laughter that won’t stop. “Holy cow that was a stupid idea. I say we have a treat after all that, yeah?” he moves his hands to muss up Mabel’s hair and shove Dipper’s hat down over his eyes. “You kids are gonna be the death of me.” His hand moves to muss up Ford’s hair next, “All three of you. C’mon. That’s enough for a day right.”

Mabel grins and sticks her hands under her hair to lift it off the back of her neck while she follows Stan towards the door. “We should probably let Pacifica know to look out for gnomes that want to kidnap her.”

Dipper nods next to her. “Last thing we want is to have to rescue her.”

Ford moves to follow but freezes in place; the hairs on the back of his neck are standing on end as the feeling of being watched hits him. He frowns and looks back towards the trees. He could’ve sworn he just heard someone else laugh. He looks over the trees, trying to spot any gnomes that might’ve followed them.

Dipper yells from the porch, “Great Uncle Ford! C’mon! Grunkle Stan’s busting open the ice cream freezer!”

A grin takes over Ford’s face and he takes off towards the porch. Oh well, it was probably nothing.

[donutpwns]

Forduary - College

“It's a hard choice to make by any stretch.” Ford says without looking up from the pile of brochures that cover the surface of the desk. He glances over at the trashcan where another brochure has been wadded up but has unfurled enough to show the words West Coast. It's an old pain that he's 99.9% over but the sight of it still stings. So he pulls his eyes away to instead look at where his nephew is seated on the edge of his bed with three more of the little booklets in his hands. “Where do you want to go?”

Dipper groans and presses the glossy paper to his face. “I don't knooooow.” he shakes his head, shifting to lean his elbows on his knees. “New Tech has one of the best video departments in the country, but Wyvern University actually has an accredited paranormal studies class. And then there's still a few good ones closer to home where it'd be easier to visit Mom and Dad.” he wrinkles his nose which causes his glasses to slip down. “Fighting Bill was easier than picking a college.”

Ford laughs, happy that enough time has passed that they can all joke about Bill. He's also happy that Dipper has so many options to choose from. Secretly he wishes his nephew would choose a more scientific route to major in, but the boy has developed a passion for making videos about the paranormal. He has a talent for it as well, at least from what Ford could gleam from his YouTube channel. Mabel had even given them a flash drive full of episodes so they could watch when the Stan O War II was unable to get reliable internet; Ford was rather fond of the small series of episodes they'd made the six weeks the kids had spent on the boat with them last summer. And truth be told, there was something poetic to his would-be protégé becoming a journalist.

He looks back on the ones on the desk and spots a few that have glitter on them. “What's your sister have to say about any of these?” he knew his niece was planning to go to college and the two still didn't like to be too far from each other for too long. How Ford had ever thought it would be a good idea so many years ago he'd never know.

“She thinks I should go to New Tech. There's an art school about fifteen minutes away that she's got her eye on. Really big on experimental fashion. So we wouldn't be far apart. Could see each other every week if we wanted.” when Ford looks back, Dipper's got a fond smile on his face. “Which I guess means the choice has been made.”

Ford is happy his niblings have each other; college was a hard beast to face alone. If Ford hadn't met Fiddleford, he's not sure if he would've made it on determination alone. He knows now that he needs someone to make sure he eats or sleeps with some regularity, as much as he still argues the contrary with Stan while they're at sea. Mabel will keep Dipper from getting too absorbed in his work and he'll keep her on task when she gets too distracted. They both have lives and friends outside of each other, would be terribly unhealthy if they didn't, but it was hard to find a better friend than a twin.

“There's a port not too far from there, less than an hour’s drive. Much less if I let Mabel drive.” Dipper speaks and they share a wince. Letting Stan teach her how to drive had been one of the worst decisions Ford had ever let happen. “You guys could visit us pretty easy.”

It's touching that his nephew would consider that. There had hardly been a school break or holiday that they hadn't seen their niblings, either in California or back in Gravity Falls. There were a few times when they had to go spend the holidays with their mother's side of the family, or Sherman claimed grandpa rights which apparently overruled twin rights. Ford knew those visits would grow sparser as the kids got older; it was to be expected as they took on more work towards their futures.

It's bittersweet, watching them grow up. He’d missed nearly thirteen years of it and the last four has flown by quicker than he would've thought possible. He understands Mabel's old desire to bubble time more and more with each year. He looks again at all the brochures that litter the desk, all the potential branching paths in his nephew's future, and feels something hot swell in his chest. “I'm very proud of you, Mason." He smiles at his nephew.

Dipper's face goes beet red and he tries to hide it behind the brochure for New Tech. “It's not like I've gotten in to any of these schools yet. There's no—I mean, thank you but you don't have to say—ughhhh!”

“I'm proud of you for lots of reasons, my boy.” He has to laugh again and he stands so he can muss up his nephew's hair. The boy is almost too big for such a gesture but Ford figures he's got twelve years’ worth of overdue affection to spend. There’s the sound of tires squealing on the pavement outside followed by the slamming of car doors. Ford gestures towards the door that leads to the hallway. “Sounds like the Alphas are back.”

Dipper makes a face that wants to be a grimace but it's lost on a smile. He snatches the hat that Wendy gave him so long ago off his bed and uses it to smush his hair back down. “How much you wanna bet they're going to try to show us pictures of baby Stanley again?”

“I don't bet on the inevitable, Dipper. Well, unless Stan is there to rig the outcome differently.” But betting against Stan and Mabel showing off the newest baby photos Soos had sent was more foolish than thinking Bill was a friend. Stan was too proud and Mabel loved babies too much. “I will put a bag of jellybeans on Stan cracking first though.”

Dipper matches his grin. “You're on.”

used0F��U�(

[donutpwns]

Stanuary - Trouble

“Dad’s going to be mad.” Ford says with a long-suffering sigh.

Stan has to squint as his brother leans in and winces at the pressure of the wet towel to his tender nose. He swats Ford’s hands away from his face, taking the towel himself when he feels the thick wetness slipping down over his upper lip. “Dad’s always mad at me.” He responds and hates how his voice sounds thick and nasally as he pinches his nose close in an attempt to staunch the blood flow. He tries to lean away when Ford reaches for his face again, “Would you stop that?”

“Just hold still, you knucklehead!” Ford hisses and gives him a rather weak punch to the arm. “I want to make sure nothing’s broken this time!” he glares until Stan reluctantly lets him resume his poking and prodding.

They already wrapped Stan’s knuckles with the last of the tape from their boxing duffle bag and his ribs were already starting to change colors. Stan thought it was funny that you could make out the outline of Crampelter’s boot on his stomach; Ford didn’t. The worst damage, though, was to Stan’s face. Ford had to be convinced to not get ice for the shiner Stan was already sporting, mostly because Stan didn’t want to let anyone else see him like this just yet. His bottom lip was shredded on the inside from where a punch had scraped the skin against his braces; Stan had a much better understanding why his coach stressed that he wear his mouth guard now. Then there’s his nose which still hasn’t stopped bleeding yet. And of course, there was the pair of glasses with their cracked lenses that were weighing heavy in his pocket.

Stan flashes a grin when Ford finally steps back and moves to sit on the swing next to him. “So, what’s the news, Dr. Poindexter? Am I gonna live?” the look he gets from his brother makes all the pain super worth it.

Ford rolls his eyes, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees. “Yes, but whether that’s fortunate or not has yet to be determined. You seem to be suffering from a terrible case of being an ass. Only time will tell if the damage is permanent.” He frowns and stares at the sand beneath his sneakers. “…we can trade glasses again. Tell him it was my glasses that got broke?”

Stan shakes his head, not really looking at his brother but instead all the blood covering the towel. The bleeding finally seems to be slowing. “He won’t believe that again. ‘specially with the way I’m looking right now.”

Ford’s got that look that says he’s building up steam, “But it’s not your fault! Crampelter’s the one that started it and his beef was with me—”

“Relax, Sixer. It’s fine.” It’s not that Stan doesn’t appreciate what his brother is doing, but there’s no point. Stan’s known since their dad’s ultimatum, that if he broke one more pair of glasses he wouldn’t get any more, that it was only a matter of time. He got a bonus pair thanks to the fact that Ford and him could trade and the last fight had gotten both of them roughed up but that goodwill was all used up. “Besides, ain’t like I really need them all that bad.”

Ford gives him the most unamused look ever and it actually kinda sends a chill down his spine. “Stan, you’re eyes are just as bad as mine. Maybe worse because how often you don’t wear your glasses.”

“Nah, I just wear them so you don’t feel bad, looking so much like a nerd all the time.” It’s a lie and not even one of Stan’s better ones, but the last thing he wants is Ford feeling bad about this. Stan likes punching people that mess with his twin, he’s good at it. Protecting Ford was a job Stan was happy to do for the rest of his life. Plus he can take a punch way better than Ford ever could. “Really, the sacrifices I make for you. But, hey, that’s part of being the Alpha Twin.”

Ford groans and drops his head. “Please not with this Alpha Twin nonsense again. You’re not even a half inch taller! And I’m technically older!” he argues, which Stan takes as a victory cause it means he’s distracted him from the talk about the glasses. “You’re the baby of the family, Stanley.”

“Just ‘cause I’m the cute one. In every other way, you’re the baby, Stanford.” He pushes himself off the swing and holds out a hand to pull Ford up. Once his brother is standing, he slings an arm over his shoulder and tries to pull him into a headlock with plans of a major noogie in his twin’s future. The plans get derailed though when Ford jerks an elbow into the mess of bruises that is Stan’s ribs. “Oof!”

“Sorry.” Ford says it without an ounce of remorse, the jerk. He gives Stan another punch to the shoulder, “C’mon. I’ll buy you a soda before we face Dad, baby brother. Maybe if we’re lucky, you’ll be ungrounded by the time we’re sixteen.”

Stan stuck his hands in his pockets as they start walking back towards their house, curling his fingers around the broken frames. He does hope he won’t be in too much trouble, outside of losing his glasses. He doesn’t want to miss the weekends working on the Stan o’ War. They were already behind on the schedule that Ford had put together on how to get the old girl sea worthy. Maybe he can volunteer to work more shifts at the shop to ease the anger.

He leans over to bump his shoulder against Ford’s while they walk. “You don’t have to face him with me, you know. You don’t want to get lectured about why you aren’t using your boxing lessons again, do you?” that was the one fight Stan couldn’t fight for him, no matter how many times he’d tried.

Ford snorts and bumps him right back. “Don’t be stupid, Lee. Wherever we go, we go together, remember?”

[donutpwns]

Stanuary - Youth

Stan often thought about firing the kid, or wondering if hiring him on a whim in the first place had been a bad idea. Well, it had been Stan's idea so it was probably bad but there was levels to that. Like the difference between having to repaint his car after a bad joke bad or having to make a new fake identity and run from the cops bad. Levels.

It's not that the kid was a bad worker or anything. For as weird and excitable as he was, the kid did work hard. If he didn't know how to fix something, he more or less figured it out. Sometimes there were more fires than would've been preferred but Stan could trust it would be done. In the three years the boy had been working for him, Stan would swear the kid had more or less taught himself everything about being a handyman, from fixing the wiring in the Shack to rebuilding the golf cart at least twice. Stan was impressed. Maybe a smidge proud.

And that basically boiled down to the problem; Stan was getting attached to the kid. Hell, he was banned from airplanes for him, and wouldn't that be fun to explain to Ford when he got back? Stan likes having the kid around, even if he stares at Stan with stars in his eyes as if Stan was the greatest person he's ever known. Maybe that plays into it, maybe Stan likes the idea of a smart kid like that looking at him like that. But when Stan gets attached to something or someone, things never work out. It’s just a matter of time before the other shoe drops and Stan's left feeling worse for caring in the first place. Like every time he takes the time to go visit his great-niece and nephew. It's fun to play with the kids but then eventually he has to go home.

Stan expects the Soos shoe to drop when the kid goes to college, but there’s a sinking feeling when he sees the boy out the window one day in the early afternoon. Typically Soos shows up after school on weekdays, the bus dropping him off down the road so his grandmother doesn't have to make the trip here and back more than once a day until the kid gets a license. Stan normally lets him do his homework while manning the register, saving all the repairs until after the kid's school work was done. Purely to make sure the kid doesn't fail at school because of the work or anything that would make him have to quit sooner, of course.

But it's only a little past noon; way too early for Soos to be trudging up. Also, Soos doesn't trudge, he runs up all excited and jabbering about what happened at school or what new book on electrical engineering he'd found or the new cartoon show from Japan he'd been watching. As if Stan cares about the kid's day to day. Today there's a definite trudge to his steps though.

Still, Stan plasters a grin on his face as the door opens, pretending his focus is solely on the shelf of shoddily painted souvenir eyeballs he had been restocking. “Look who's here early. Trying to get some overtime? Cause there's some laws about how much you're allowed to work, kid.” Stan’s pretty sure at least; he never actually checked.

“Good one, dude. But I thought that when there's no cops around, everything is legal. Right, Mr. Pines?” his voice is quiet as he moves to put his backpack under the counter where it usually goes and there's that smidge of pride again.

Stan turns with a laugh, “I'll be damned, you are lear—" he freezes. Soos ducks his head and tugs his hat down but Stan still catches a look at the big, purplish bruise that surrounds his right eye. “That's one hell of a shiner, kid. Other guy looking worse?”

Soos laughs nervously and rubs at the back of his neck. “Nah, dude. Err, Mr. Pines.” He taps his fingers against the counter. “M-my school has a no fighting policy so we both got sent home.” that was odd. It wasn't like Soos to get into fights. “My grandma's still at work and I didn't wanna miss work. I can get started on fixing the tv once I'm done with my homework.”

That was ridiculous. Kid gets into a fight and still comes to work? Then again, how many times had Stan went to work on the Stan o’ War with black eyes or busted lips? Though the idea that the Shack meant as much to Soos as that stupid boat had meant to him was ludicrous. Stan scoffs and puts another bag of eyeballs on the shelf. “Fight? What could you possibly get in a fight over?” he's irritated when the thought that Soos might be getting bullied crosses his mind. He thinks about a little boy with hands hidden behind his back and eyes on his shoes. Only this time Stan can't exactly punch the bully. Well, not without having to talk with the cops and he's pretty sure even those incompetent buffoons wouldn't let him get away with that.

“He uh was saying some stuff about the Sh—y’know, it's not important. Just stupid high school stuff.” Stan looks back at the kid who now has his nose buried in a textbook, already starting on his homework. His knuckles are bruised, his right hand beginning to swell a bit. He's also holding his pencil weird, gripping it more with his fingers than with his thumb. Without realizing what he’s doing, Stan moves across the shop and grabs the kid’s wrist to hold his hand up. Soos goes all red in the face. “M-Mr. Pines? What's up, dawg?”

Stan grunts, frowning at the way Soos’ thumb is curling weird. “Make a fist. C'mon, show me a good fist.” his frown deepens when the kid obeys, curling his fingers over his thumb. Ah. That explained it. Kid doesn't know how to make a fist. “No, no. Thumb goes on the outside. Like this.” He lets go of Soos so he can hold up his own fist. “You put it inside and you're just asking for a broken thumb.”

And there goes that starry eyed look again that makes the back of his neck hot. But Soos mimics his first, thumb over his fingers. “Wow, Mr. Pines. That does feel better. Do you know how to fight?”

That makes Stan grin, real and genuine, and he thumbs his nose. “I mighta boxed a bit when I was a kid.” part of him wants to show Soos the picture of him and Ford in the boxing ring but that would open more questions than he was ready to answer. So instead Stan takes a loose boxing stance and makes a few jabs at the air. “Right jab, right, feint, and then bam! Left hook! They never see it coming.”

Soos’ eyes are wide and amazed, fists shoved under his chin. He smiles wide with his cheeks going red. “That's so cool, Mr. Pines! Bet you never lost a fight like I did, dude!”

Stan considers a moment, looking at the kid's black eye and bruised knuckles. Hm. “Well. It won't do if an employee of the Mystery Shack is losing fights. What would people say?” he crosses his arms with a nod. “Yep, it's settled. I'm going to teach you how to box. How about it kid?”

Maybe Stan feels a bit more than a smidge of pride at the enthusiastic way the kid agrees. He's a good kid. While Stan has him, might as well teach him a thing or two.

[donutpwns]

Forduary - Paranoia

It was good to be back in Gravity Falls. Ford loved the sea, loved sailing it with his brother in the adventure of a lifetime and was looking forward to returning to their boat at the end of the summer, but Gravity Falls still felt like home. There was good memories and bad ones all over but he still loved the crazy town. Stanley did too; Ford suspected he missed being Mr. Mystery sometimes. He was sure Soos would be all too happy to let the original give a couple of tours while they were back.

The house had been modified since they'd signed the deed over to Soos. Stan's room was left untouched for the most part, sans what his brother had taken with him when they left, and the attic was likewise left bare for the twins. The room that had once been a lab before Stan had cleared it out for a museum of what turned out to be murderous wax figures had been converted into a bedroom for Soos’ grandmother. The room Ford had slept in last summer was now a bedroom as well, shared by Soos and his girlfriend. The couch had been moved into the basement room that had been a shrine to Bill, the various monitors replaced with a large TV, the tapestries with shelves upon shelves of those video discs that Ford couldn't remember the name of. It had been dubbed a “man cave” by the girlfriend.

Thankfully Ford's basement lab was more or less in one piece. Apparently Soos had scavenged a few things for his own projects but Ford was able to work around that. Stan had put a bed down there a long time ago, so that's where Ford would be sleeping for the next few months. He was excited to work in a stationary lab for a bit; he'd brought so many samples from the Stan O War II to study here. And Dipper was here to help him. As wonderful an assistant as Stan was, he didn't really share the level of joy at scientific discovery that his nephew did.

Speaking of his nephew, Ford hasn't seen the boy or his sister since the bus had dropped them off this morning. There'd been hugs and then everyone had been off to unpack. Ford feels a twinge in his gut and decides that seeing the kids is his number one priority at the moment.

Stan is in the gift shop when Ford steps out of the elevator and pushes the vending machine shut. Soos closed the Shack for the day so thankfully it's void of the obnoxious tourists that flock to hear outrageous stories. Stan’s looking at all the prices but keeps glaring at where the “no" has been crossed out on the “no refunds" sign. That will probably be an argument by the end of the week.

“Are the kids upstairs?” he asks instead of choosing to deal with his brother's money grubbing ways. He's learned to find such things like that or Stanley's insanely sticky fingers endearing over the last year. It was a survival requirement at this point.

Mention of the kids brings his twin out of his grump at least temporarily. He nods and jerks a thumb towards the stairs. “Dipper went out to visit Wendy, but Mabel just ran back upstairs with an armload of stuff from the kitchen. Wanna go make sure she's not eating pure sugar on our first day back? I'm too tired for that today.”

Ford hums and makes his way towards the stairs, bumping his shoulder to his brother's as he passes, just hard enough to make Stan stumble a step and shove him back with a gruff laugh that brings a grin to Ford's face. The opportunities to bug Stanley will be greatly reduced than when they're on the boat so Ford must take advantage of every small opportunity.

He expects to find Mabel seated among her multitude of stuffed animals, likely working on her new scrapbook while eating handfuls of sugar. What he finds instead is her pouring salt in a circle around her bed; Dipper's bed appears to have already been circled. There's also a...bag of oranges hanging in the window? Ford is confused. More so when he hears a crunch beneath his boot when he steps through the doorway, looking down to see yet more salt. “Um, sweetheart?”

Mabel lets out a startled little yelp and drops the salt container, sending more of it spilling across the floorboards. She scrambles to pick it up and hugs it to her chest, though she does smile wide for him. “Hey, Grunkle Ford! Wassup? Miss your favorite niece in the whole wide world? Understandable cause I'm great!”

“Of course I missed you, Mabel.” affection comes easy with Mabel, possibly because she just exudes it in waves. Ford's considered studying her to see if she was putting off some sort of aura or pheromone to make her so lovable but apparently running tests on family members is something “only a mad scientist would do" according to Stanley. The killjoy. He points to the salt in his great-niece’s hands. “What are you up to?”

Her cheeks go a bit rosier than normal and she moves the container behind her back, her bottom lip sticking out in a pout. She stares at the ground, moving her shoe to straighten a part of the salt line that was a little wonky. “Dipper thinks I'm being silly. But I'm not. Well, not about this.” She huffs and Ford has to stop himself from chuckling.

He moves to sit on the edge of Dipper’s bed, careful not to disturb the salt around it. Clearly it was important to the girl. “I can see that. Why don't you explain to me what you're doing? Maybe I can help Dipper understand how not silly it is?” he offers while patting the mattress next to him.

Her face shifts instantly back to the joy that he loves to see there and she nods. She runs over to where her suitcase is laying open in the corner of the room. After a bit of digging through what appears to be a small mountain of fabric, she lets out a victorious sound and runs over to where Ford is sitting, wielding a small book in her hands. He scoots a bit so she can seat herself next to him.

The book, once she has it propped open in her lap, seems to be a guide of some sorts. It's not a handwritten one like the journals he and Dipper have, but a printed, store bought one. She turns to a page marked with a bookmark that looks like a cat biting the paper and points to a section highlighted in bright pink. “Salt is supposed to protect against evil. If you make a circle then evil can't get in.”

Ford feels a small tug on his heart even while his brain corrects her. Salt is helpful against some entities, mostly slug and snail based ones. But the idea that Mabel thought she needed to protect her and her brother against evil...it clenches Ford's heart in a cold, steel trap. “Sweetheart, that's very nice that you're trying to protect your brother, but you know the barrier is still up, right?” that had been the first thing Ford had checked once he'd gotten back, his own fears bubbling up.

Mabel seems to shrink next to him which is the complete opposite effect he was wanting. She pulls her feet up on the bed and starts to tug the collar of her sweater over the bottom half of her face. “I know. I know there's the barrier and you've got your nerdy sci-fi gun and Grunkle Stan is really good at fighting and Dipper is really smart at coming up with plans and he said salt doesn't usually work but it's what the book said and I just wanna help keep everyone safe.” She rambles while continuing to disappear into her sweater. Ford has to press a hand to her shoulder to stop her from fully going to what he had been told was called Sweater Town. She slumps against his side. “Bill hurt everyone because of me last time so I wanna help.”

Ford feels another jab to his heart, another stab of regret because it was his fault Bill was a problem in the first place. If he hadn't fallen for Bill's tricks in the first place…but Mabel didn't need his self-pity. “You're a very good person, Mabel.” he smiles softly, ruffling her hair affectionately while hugging her to his side. He nudges her until she looks up at him; another stab when he sees how red her eyes are. Still he smiles at her; Stanley taught him how important it is to smile for others. “What do you say you and I go make a big helping of Mabel Juice and then I can show you how to make a smoke bomb? Then you can use one with your grappling hook to escape with the family if anything happens.” a smoke bomb was safer than a crossbow, right? Eh, Stan would be fine with it. Probably.

Mabel's eyes go big and she practically explodes out of Sweater Town, Ford swears he hears a popping sound when she does. “Can it be a glitter bomb? That's like a smoke bomb with pizzazz!” she grabs Ford's hand and begins tugging. “And it would go with my attack glitter!”

“We can certainly try.” he laughs, letting himself be pulled up. Well, that was easier than he thought. He spares a glance at the window, one last question coming to mind. “Uh, Mabel, about the oranges…?”

She looks over and shrugs. “The book said garlic but that smells worse than Dipper's socks so I figured oranges would work instead.”

Ford chooses not to point out the flaws in that. If it makes her feel better, so be it. He'll make sure to put some wards under the window later, just to be safe. The last thing he needs is something happening to his family.

[donutpwns]

Stanuary - Safe

http://archiveofourown.org/works/13227144/chapters/30822987

[donutpwns]

Forduary - Childhood

Ford misses being a kid sometimes; what person didn’t as life went on? He worked not to let nostalgia blind him too much, of course. He knows his childhood wasn't all sunshine and roses. He remembers the bullies, the beatings and the taunts, the burning shame he felt for the longest time due to the number of fingers he had been born with. He remembers the pressure of his father’s expectations for his grades, for his boxing, for his life. He remembers thinking that his ma, for as much as he knew she loved him, always secretly liked Stan more than him. But Ford hadn’t minded so much, because he’d liked Stan more than anyone in their family for their entire childhood. Stan wasn’t just his brother, wasn’t just his twin, he was his best friend. And that’s what he missed, really. Having a best friend like that. They’d fought as kids, of course. No brothers in existence had been able to resist pushing buttons. Sometimes Stan would hit too hard or Ford would joke too mean. Sometimes they’d scream and break each other’s toys and say all the mean things the kids at school would say. Sometimes they’d take turns sleeping on the floor of Shermie’s room to avoid each other. Stan would hang up sheets along the bottom bunk to make a Fort Stanley for himself, not a Fort Stan for them to share. Ford would sit and read in the shop all day, knowing Stan couldn’t stand being in there for too long before yelling and getting kicked out by their father. But it was an inevitably that they would make up. They weren’t just brothers; after all, they were best friends, the only friend the other had in the world. Usually they’d just start playing a new game like nothing had happened. If the fight was particularly bad and Ford felt particularly guilty, he would leave a bag of toffee peanuts on Stan’s bed or maybe Stan would leave a drawing of a new monster in one of Ford’s books. An apology without words. Good enough for two little boys that just wanted to play and be friends again. Ford thinks about those little boys sometimes, with their peeling sunburns and delusions that their broken down boat could ever survive the sea. He thinks about games played in the sand where they followed monster tracks that they both pretended Stan hadn’t made while Ford had been distracted. He thinks about crying because some bully had called him a freak and Stan running to punch them. He thinks about hitting Stan’s smaller hand with his while echoing his call for a high six. He thinks about how badly he misses that while sitting alone in his dorm, while struggling to solve the mysteries of the town he’s made his home, while waiting for Cipher’s bounty hunters to leave the abandoned sector he’s hiding in. Then he thinks about a broken machine and the anger comes back. The betrayal of not just his brother, but his best friend. He thinks about the college he’ll never attend because Stanley was selfish and stupid. Because he didn’t understand. He thinks about the home he’d lost after Stan pushed him, because he didn’t see how important Ford’s work was. Because he didn't understand. He thinks about the grief of all the lives his brother cost him and he mourns himself. But still he thinks about those little boys. He thinks about yelling at Fiddleford for eating the unopened bag of toffee peanuts that had sat in his desk drawer for months after he bought it without thinking in college. He thinks about every time he had opened a book with a vague hope in the back of his mind that there would be a lopsided drawing on notebook paper hidden inside. He thinks about finally asking their mother to stop telling him that Stanley had called because it made the thoughts come more often and more painfully. He thinks about the photo that he’s held onto across states, across dimensions, of those stupid little boys that always smelled of salt no matter how much they showered. He thinks of Fort Stan when he builds a makeshift shelter from the liquid metal rain of dimension 623¿. Nothing feels as big or as safe as those cardboard boxes and sofa cushions had. He doesn’t miss Stan, he tells himself. He misses being a clueless kid with a best friend. Fiddleford was a good friend, the best and only he’d ever had outside of Stan in their home dimension. They played games of graph paper and dice together in their dorm; they talked about science and the future. Fiddleford talked about the girlfriend that he loved in college, then the wife and son that he missed in Gravity Falls. He talked gibberish after seeing a glimpse of what Bill had in store for their world. Then he talked about nothing, at least not to Ford. Ford never learned how to apologize to someone. If it was his dad, he just had to stare at his shoes and say the words punctuated with the title sir. His ma just needed a kiss on the cheek and a promise to do better next time. But Stan had never needed words. Just a bag of his favorite snack and maybe a punch to the arm and it was like it never happened. It had been easy. He thinks about those little boys while he takes the portal apart beneath the feet of his family. He thinks about the framed picture of them that sat in the control room, hidden behind cracked glass and a photo of the new Pines twins. There are several bags of toffee peanuts in the kitchen cabinets; it would be so easy to take one and leave it in Stan’s chair. Would that still work? Did that count anymore? How much of the little boy that had made monster tracks in the sand was left? How much of the boy that had followed them was left? He’s still angry, still bitter; he’s not ready to forgive Stan, not yet. But he thinks about it. More often now that he sees his brother every day and they live in the same house for the first time in forty years. He thinks about it when he misses those little boys, when he misses being one of them.

He thinks about the feeling of someone slapping his hand while they cheered their last name and his heart aches. When it felt like they were going to rule the world together. He misses having a best friend in a brother. Having someone that would have your back no matter what because they were family, because they were your best friend. Most of all he misses the ease that forgiveness came with back then. Just a bag of snacks, just a drawing in a book, just an arm slung over the shoulders and a ‘what’s the plan for today’ like nothing had been wrong in the first place. Just two boys on a boat that they’d found and claimed like their own personal slice of the world. Who knew what the future held with a certainty that there was no need to question, no need to doubt. It was all theirs for the taking and they’d take it together. He misses being a kid sometimes.