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thespiritssaidso · 22 days

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The Psychic Went Down To Gravity Falls

Chapter one: Gus, Don’t Be Our Flight That Got Delayed

Summary: One strong storm is all it takes to keep Shawn and Gus from leaving the airport in Prineville, Oregon. Thankfully, Shawn knows just the place they can visit while they wait for it to pass.

Notes: it was only a matter of time before I wrote a crossover between Gravity Falls and Psych. especially with the recent surge in activity thanks to the Book of Bill.

Also the title is a play on words from ‘The Devil Went Down to Georgia’

And before you come at me about the airport, i haven’t been on a plane a couple years or so. I’m going off of memory right now. Please give me some slack.

—————

Autumn of 1984, Gravity Falls, Oregon

The bell attached to the door of the diner jingled, signaling another patron entering. Outside was windy, a cool breeze blowing through the town. But inside was cozy and sparse.

Henry leaned back just the booth across from Shawn. “Chocolate chip pancakes? Kid, you just devoured an entire plate of scrambled eggs and hash browns!”

“But Dad! I’m still hungry!” He wasn’t actually. But the waitress — Susan. He’d seen her name tag when they came in — had walked by, carrying a plate full of steaming hot delicious pancakes. And suddenly all Shawn could think about was sinking his teeth into the soft sweet cake.

Henry could only sigh. “Okay then. Close your eyes.”

“Dad, seriously?”

“Do you want those pancakes or not?”

Shawn groaned, and covered up his eyes. He hated this game. The first few times were fun, like a little challenge. But it immediately became boring after the fifth game when Henry docked points for calling a beanie a floppy hat.

“Now, what was the waitress’s name?”

That one was easy. “Susan.”

“Good. What color is her eyeshadow?”

“Her what?”

“The colorful makeup on her eyelids.”

It took him a bit of thinking, then- “Blue!”

“Not bad. How many people are here?”

This one was a little trickier. He pushed at his memory, pressing for a clearer picture of the diner just before he’d closed his eyes. A brunette with her hair in a side ponytail, an older couple wearing matching name tags labeled ‘Ma’ and ‘Pa’ (a little strange, but who was he to judge), some blond dude with a terrible mullet and sunglasses despite being indoors…

‘Come on, there’s one more guy, I know it!’ He kept pushing harder and harder until finally a crystal clear image of a man wearing a tan trench coat sitting at the bar who was turned halfway to listen in on Shawn and Henry’s conversation came up in his mind’s eye.

There. He had them all. So he began pointing them out to his dad, eyes still shut tight. “There’s a lady behind you with some weird side ponytail. That’s one. Mr. Pa and Mrs. Ma over there make three. Biker guy just went to the bathroom, so he’s number four.” He’d caught the sound of stomping biker boots walking by them and took a wild guess. “And then the weird guy sitting on the stool right next to us makes five.”

Slow clapping came from his right. Not the demeaning kind of clap, the impressed kind. “That’s quite the trick you’ve got there.”

Shawn looked to see who spoke and saw the man in the trench coat he’d mentioned just a few seconds ago.

“Sure does, he’s got that eidetic memory from me. And one day he’s going to take my place and become a police officer and put those skills to good use.”

The stranger raised his eyebrows and smiled, almost like he knew something they didn’t. “Sorry, I haven’t introduced myself. I’m Stanford Pines.” ‘Stanford’ held out a hand, which Henry took in his own and shook.

“Henry Spencer, and this is my son Shawn.”

Shawn looked at the hand shaking his father’s and couldn’t help but exclaim, “Woah! You’ve got six fingers!”

“Shawn-” Henry began to berate his son.

“No no, it’s okay. He’s curious, as most kids are. I’m just glad to see that this one isn’t ridiculing me for it.” He laughed to himself. “Well, I best be off. Research waits for no one.” And he was gone, just like that.

Without hesitation, Shawn turned back to Henry. “Can I have those pancakes now?”

———

Present

“Gusssss.”

“What, Shawn.”

“I’m bored.”

“That’s the fifth time you’ve said that!”

“I’m still bored.”

“I gave you a coloring book, use that.”

“All I have is a pencil. I can’t color in black and white, I need to use other colors! Like red, and green, and yellow.”

“Oh my god…”

Shawn twisted uncomfortably in his seat. Gus and him had been sitting at the gate for their plane approximately thirty minutes, but to Shawn it had felt like hours. He slowly slid down until his head was on the back of the shitty airport chair and his back was on the seat.

Outside through the big glass windows, the afternoon sun illuminated the planes taking off and landing. Its rays bounced off the shiny metal and glared brightly directly into Shawn’s eyes as he looked out. He didn’t feel like moving his head.

This had been their first layover of the trip, and hopefully the only one. Shawn didn’t know if he could take any more waiting.

The whole vacation so far had been boring. Gus had taken Shawn on a trip to visit his uncle Burton — although Gus would argue that he’d originally tried to dissuade Shawn from coming before eventually giving in to his pleas to go with Gus. They, for once, didn’t witness a murder. So that meant the whole three days were spent doing grownup stuff. Touring the local art museum, watching some boring movie at the theatre Uncle Burton wanted to see. Shawn was regretting coming with Gus.

Gus clicked his tongue at Shawn’s immaturity. “Sit up, you look ridiculous.”

Shawn did so. Not because Gus told him to, but because his position was starting to strain his neck. He was also starting to gather a few stares from the other people waiting, not that that really mattered to him.

Just when he thought he couldn’t wait any longer, a flight attendant grabbed a small intercom. As she spoke, her voice echoed through speakers just above their heads. “Attention all passengers of flight AA609 at gate B19: we’re sorry to inform that this flight has been permanently delayed due to severe weather occurring all over northern California. We apologize for this inconvenience and will be compensating anyone who missed this flight with a free overnight stay at our airport hotel while you wait for the next available flight tomorrow. We’ll also be offering maps of Prineville with popular tourist locations marked for you to visit during your extended stay.”

Shawn’s felt a small shock in his brain at the mention of the city name ‘Prineville’. He ignored the feeling and moaned in disappointment at the announcement — along with other passengers — and dramatically dragged his hands down his face as Gus stood up to grab the map the flight attendant had mentioned. Great. A whole nother day of not being at the psych office and solving murders.

“This is dumb.” Shawn immediately began to complain the moment Gus sat back down beside him. “Why can’t the airplane just go around the storm?”

Gus didn’t look up from the map. “That’s not how it works. And I know you know that.”

“Mnh, yeah.”

Gus tutted as he looked at the different areas marked on the map. “Doesn’t look like there’s much to do here in Prineville. Maybe we’d be better off just renting a car and risk driving back to Santa Barbara.”

There was that shock again. Like he knew the place or something. He could practically feel old memories resurfacing. As the cogs in his brain turned automatically, Shawn sat up. “Hold on, where’d you say we were?”

“Prineville Oregon airport-”

“Gus let me see that map.”

“Shawn- why do you need the map?”

He didn’t answer, instead looking intently at the small map of the city they’d found themselves in. Prineville, why did he feel like he knew this place…

Shawn scanned the map, looking for details that stuck out to him. Finally, his eyes wandered to the edge of the page and saw- “Yes! That’s why Prineville sounded familiar!”

Gus leaned over to see what his friend was seeing. “What? What is it?”

Shawn poked at a town just off the edge of the Prineville map, written in small italicized letters. “This is where I got my third job, after I got fired from my second job as a confectioner because I kept eating all the blue raspberry hard candy.” He missed that job. His tongue was stained blue for days after he’d left Prineville and moved on to the next town.

He continued. “Some old conman hired me as the cashier for his tourist trap.” A conman that kept lots of secrets, to be more specific. For instance: a hidden lab behind the vending machine, not to mention the many fake IDs he’d found while snooping through the tiny room in the back where the security camera monitor was kept. And that was just the tip of the iceberg. He’d found all this in the first week there. Shawn was fired, of course, but he kept coming in to work anyway. Stan never stopped him. Something about ‘liking his gumption’ or some other old-person saying.

Shawn remembered that town very well. He’d been poring over a larger map of the counties surrounding Prineville right after he’d been fired, trying to look for any cities that sounded fun. He didn’t have to look too long, as he almost immediately found a little town called Gravity Falls — a pretty goofy name, if Shawn was being honest — just next to Prineville. It was like destiny, at the moment. His eyes had been drawn to that fine print on the map like a magnet.

When he’d eventually made it there, his first stop was Greasy’s Diner to see if there was an opening for a server, or a cook. But he was turned down, Lazy Susan informing him that they weren’t currently looking for any new hires. Thankfully, a familiar face had overheard his conversation and introduced himself as Stanford Pines.

At least, he had only seemed familiar at first. He looked exactly like the man he’d met when he was six, except a lot older. The only difference was that the guy from all those years ago had six fingers, something that Shawn’s impeccable memory locked in on firmly. But this guy had the normal amount of five fingers. A twin, maybe? He had to be. But if that was true, then why was he going by the same name as his brother?

Shawn didn’t ask, simply listening to the man’s offer to give him a job as a cashier at his tourist trap: The Mystery Shack. If he got the job, he could do a lot more digging in the place it all started.

“Tourist trap?”

“Yeah, he’d filled it with the weirdest stuff. I think there was a stuffed beaver with a duck head stapled to its neck at one point.” As well as other, generally stranger things. Most notably the jar of fake eyeballs sitting permanently on the cashier countertop that always seemed to be looking at him.

“I’m pretty sure that violates at least three animal conservation laws.”

“Trust me, he had weirder stuff there.” Like a huge skull that probably belonged to a t-rex sitting dejectedly in the living room. “Anyways, we can go visit Gravity Falls while we wait! They might still have that arcade full of knockoff games. The old townspeople could still be there, or at least their kids.”

“Nuh uh, Shawn. The last time we went to a small town in the middle of nowhere, we almost got killed in a burning building! Not to mention I was probably the only black dude there. And the people were just freaky.”

“We also had delicious cinnamon pie, if memory serves me right.”

“That’s not the point. There is no way you’re going to convince me to visit some old town you used to work at.”

Shawn stayed silent for a second, then an idea popped into his head. He smiled mischievously at Gus. “What if I said Gravity Falls is best known for…” he paused dramatically. “…cryptids?”

Gus’ eyebrows slowly rose up in interest. “What kind of cryptids?”

“All kinds of ‘em! They’re all fake, especially the ones Stan has in his shop, but there’s tons of local legends! Like the Gobblewonker-”

Gus physically recoiled at the name. “The what?!”

“It’s their version of the Loch Ness monster. But you get the point. That’s just one of the creatures they’ve got! We can go and get first-hand stories from the people living there. Whaddya say?”

Gus went quiet, thinking to himself for a moment as he stared at the map. “Why’d you leave if this place was so cool?”

Shawn faltered. Why did he leave? Because he didn’t want to, is why. He came and stayed and didn’t feel like leaving. Ever. And that scared him. Shawn was always on his feet, moving around and traveling wherever the winds took him. This feeling, it wasn’t like anything he’d felt before. It was deep inside of him, keeping him there and making him feel safe. If he’d stayed any longer he’d probably have become rooted into that small town, never wanting to leave, never wanting to go home.

That first night away from Gravity Falls was almost torture. It was as if he’d somehow become addictedto living in the small town and was experiencing withdrawal. It had taken everything in him to not go rushing back.

Now that he thought about it, maybe he’d just been paranoid the whole time. It was his first year away from California, of course everything new was going to seem a little scary or strange. And besides, it had been at least 16 years (Jesus, well over a decade already? Shawn was getting old) since he left Gravity Falls. Maybe he was remembering it wrong, maybe it had just been a really nice — albeit kooky — town that he’d gotten bored of. Small relapses in his memory did in fact happen to him, as surprising as it may be. It just didn’t happen often. His mind was practically a steel trap, but even Shawn could admit that some steel traps had a flaw in them here or there. He hated it when a memory managed to find one of those little flaws.

Shawn just smiled at Gus. “I got bored. And Stan tried to get me to wear some weird man-bull costume and sit on a pedestal for tourists to look at.”

Gus scrunched his face. “That’s messed up. You sure you want to go back there?”

Did he? Sure he had fun there. Those tourists were ridiculously easy to prank and mess around with. The Mystery Shack was a testament to that. But there was something about that town that made him feel… different. Not necessarily bad different, but not a good different either.

He looked at the map once more and viewed the spots circled in red, then over to the edge where the name Gravity Falls was written. Shawn had made up his mind. “Yeah, it’ll be fun! Now that I’m not working there we could mess with the new employees. And I know the secret trick to getting free snacks from the vending machine.”

“You had me at free snacks.” Gus grabbed his phone from his pocket. “I’m calling us a cab to take us to the nearest car rental.”

Shawn pumped his fist in excitement. After years away from it, he was going back to Gravity Falls. And this time, Gus would be with him. What could go wrong?

—————

Notes: Disclaimer: Gravity Falls isn’t actually near Prineville. It’s not near anything, because it’s fictional. I looked at the made-up map from the show and compared it to a real one of Oregon. And then I picked a city that was closest to where Gravity Falls was. Which was Prineville.

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Chapter 2

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