Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Arriving at Gravity Falls.”

Dipper Pines was jolted from his stupor by the voice over the intercom. A glance out the window showed the bus was passing over a bridge overlooking a magnificent waterfall—one of many interesting things that he would hopefully be investigating over the summer.

It had all started six months ago, halfway through senior year; rumors had begun to spread about the strange happenings in a small town in the middle of Oregon. Mythical creature sightings, including live garden gnomes that were apparently spotted in the woods and some sort of loch ness monster swimming in the lake. Naturally he couldn’t miss out on such an opportunity, and of course, his sister Mabel decided to tag along for the ride.

Currently Mabel was collecting her baggage—which was probably what he should be doing too. Right.

Mabel shot him a grin. “Ready to meet some unicorns?”

Dipper rolled his eyes and sighed. “For the last time, Mabel, there might be gnomes, but I doubt there’ll be something like unicorns. They’re just ancient, messed up interpretations of rhinos.”

“Say what you will, but I still think there’ll be unicorns.”

“Whatever.”

The bus came to a halt seconds later. Dipper shot to his feet, Mabel right behind him, and they disembarked on the side of a dusty road.

The bus pulled away. Without the sound of its rumbling engine, the woods were eerily quiet.

“So . . . into town?”

Dipper nodded. “Into town.”

One hour later, after checking into a hotel, they found themselves wandering around the quiet streets of Gravity Falls. There weren’t many people about—indeed, there weren’t many people dwelling in the town at all, but the few they did see were a bit . . . odd. A very large, very red-haired man, for example, had stomped into a bar, and a short and extremely ugly man had tried to interview a old man with an excessively long beard on what it was like to be the local kook.

Nothing less than what Dipper had expected.

“Should we start with interviewing people, or should we check out the woods?” he wondered.

“We should talk to people!” Mabel exclaimed. “We could make a few new friends.”

Dipper frowned. “I was kinda thinking of starting with the woods . . .”

But Mabel was already dashing off to the very obvious mall, punnily dubbed Gravity Malls.

This was going to be a long day.

As expected, there were more people in the mall than there were outdoors. However, Mabel’s idea of talking to people was different than what Dipper had in mind. She was here to make friends; Dipper was here for information.

While Mabel chatted enthusiastically with a small Asian girl, Dipper went after a woman at a vending stall called Meat Cute. Her name tag said “Melody”.

She looked up at his approach and smiled. “Hi, what can I get for you?”

He cleared his throat. “Um, actually, I was hoping you could answer some questions? I just got into town, you see, and I was wondering about a few things.”

“Oh, ask away, then. You sure you don’t want anything?”

Dipper pulled out his notebook and a pen. “Two corn dogs, please. I wanted to know if you’ve seen anything . . . weird around lately? Like, supernatural things.”

She looked unsurprised. “Of course. There are gnomes, which you’ve probably heard about, and some teenagers were attacked by ghosts at an abandoned convenience store a few years back. There are fairies, but I’d avoid them if I were you—they just throw up on everything.” She held out the corn dogs.

Dipper scribbled everything she’d said in the notebook before tucking it under his arm and taking them. He glanced over his shoulder to find that Mabel and the Asian girl had been joined by a large muscled girl with reddish hair. “Mabel!”

She looked over at him, then gestured to the two girls to follow her and bounced over. Dipper restrained a groan; he did not want to deal with this many new people at once.

“Hey Dipper! These are Candy—” She pointed at the small girl— “and Grenda.” The large one. “Candy, Grenda, this is Dipper, my brother.”

“Hello,” Candy greeted cheerfully, her voice tinted with a Korean accent.

Grenda was a little more outspoken. “HI, DIPPER!” Her voice was loud and booming, drawing a few gazes their way.

Dipper winced. “Nice to meet you too.” He turned back to the stall. Melody was looking between him and Mabel.

“So, are you two siblings?”

Mabel beamed. “Twins, actually! I’m Mabel.” She took a corn dog from Dipper.

Melody returned the smile. “I’m Melody. And . . .” She turned to Dipper. “You never introduced yourself. Dipper, right?”

He nodded and pretended not to be ashamed of his bad manners. “Yep. Anyway, how much for the corn dogs?”

“Five bucks.”

Dipper raised his eyebrows. “That’s kind of expensive . . .” He reached for his wallet.

Melody shrugged. “Small town, high prices.”

Dipper handed her the money, and she sorted it into the register. “So, any more questions you want to ask?”

Dipper nodded. “Where exactly can we find the gnomes?”

“In the woods, northwest. They’re a bit hard to find. Careful, though—there are all kinds of things out there, and the gnomes themselves aren’t always very nice.”

“All right, thanks.” He started turning. “Let’s go, Mabel.”

“Nice talking to you, Melody!”

They started off, Candy and Grenda falling into step beside them. And giving them weird looks. Dipper returned the sentiment. “What?”

“Well,” Candy pushed up her glasses, “the gnomes are very . . . difficult. I do not think you want to go looking for them.

Dipper scoffed. “We can handle a bit of ‘difficult’, right Mabel?” He took a bite from his corn dog.

She nodded, slightly distracted by a dress in a store window.

“Still,” Candy continued. “I’m not sure you are as prepared as you think you are.”

“. . . Okay?”

Grenda nodded. “At least take a leaf blower.”

“A leaf . . . why?”

They had left the mall by now and were crossing the parking lot.

“It’s one of their greatest weaknesses! We can use mine.”

Dipper nodded slowly. “Thanks? Wait, what do you mean by ‘we’?”

“You cannot expect us to let you go alone,” Candy said. “The forest is very dangerous, especially to people who are inexperienced.”

Mabel drew in a long, slow gasp. “I get to go monster hunting with my new friends! Today is gonna be awesome !”

Two hours later, shortly before sunset, it turned out the day had been decidedly not-awesome. The gnomes were even more vicious than originally thought, especially since they had wanted Mabel as their new queen . . . Ew. Just, ew.

But seeing the gnomes had been pretty awesome! True, bona fide evidence of the existence of the supernatural. Exactly what they’d come here for.

Currently they were on their way back to the hotel to clean up before getting a much-deserved and late dinner. And also to stop by Grenda’s house to put back her leaf blower.

They broke through the trees into a clearing illuminated by orange sunlight. To their left, an overgrown road back to town. To their right . . . a dilapidated old house with a large worn sign hanging above the door that said Murder Hut.

What could be creepier?

Mabel let out a little gasp. “What is this place?”

“The Murder Hut,” Grenda explained unhelpfully.

Dipper frowned. “So what, is it like a haunted house, or something?”

Candy shook her head. “No, it is . . .  Grenda knows better.”

“I do. It’s an old museum kinda thing—I think it was a tourist trap. There were exhibits, weird machines and stuffed creatures. The guy who ran the place went missing when my parents were kids. From what they told me, I don’t think the guy even knew how any of the machines wor—”

“Wait,” Dipper interrupted. “The guy went missing? Was it some kind of magical creature?”

Candy shrugged. “No one knows. He disappeared without a trace.”

For the moment, they decided against breaking into the old shack to see what was inside. They needed to rest and relax.

They showered to get rid of all the dust they’d collected before eating dinner at a diner with a rather suspicious name—”Greasy’s Diner”? It sounded disgusting—which had even more eccentric townsfolk. Their orders were taken by a red-headed woman maybe a few years older than them whose name tag identified her as Wendy. The food was surprisingly good in spite of the diner’s name, and once they had stuffed themselves they returned to the hotel.

Dipper plopped himself on his bed, hearing Mabel doing the same across the room. He spent a few moments just lying there, then rolled onto his stomach and pulled his notebook and pen from his vest. “All right,” he groaned. “What are we doing tomorrow?”

Mabel remained on her back, craning her neck to look at him. “Anything as long as it doesn’t involve gnomes or some other creature that wants to marry me.”

Dipper tapped his pen on his notebook. “I was thinking we could check out that old shack in the woods, the ‘Murder Hut’.”

“Oh, yeah!” Mabel sat up. “That could be fun. Who knows what kind of old stuff is in there?”

Dipper scribbled down a note. “Okay, then. It might be a good idea to take Grenda and Candy along—they know way more about this supernatural stuff than we do.”

Mabel grinned. “Took the words right outta my mouth.”

The next morning they met with Candy and Grenda for breakfast at Greasy’s Diner. Dipper had just opened his mouth to inform the two of his and Mabel’s plans for the morning when the waitress from yesterday—Wendy—approached their table.

“Hi, what can I get you guys?”

“Pancakes, please!” Mabel said.

“I’ll have pancakes too,” Dipper agreed.

“Aaaand, let me guess—” She turned to their two companions. “Coffee omelette for Candy, double order of pancakes for Grenda.”

“Yep!” they replied in unison.

“Ha, I knew it!” The waitress scribbled down their orders and turned back to the Pineses. “Hey, we didn’t get to talk yesterday—you looked exhausted —but I don’t think I’ve seen you around here before. Are you new?”

Mabel nodded. “We just got here yesterday. We’re—what was it, Dipper?”

“Investigating paranormal activity.”

“Yeah, that.”

“Well, you’re not the first. We’ve had a few other ‘paranormal investigators’ around lately, but they didn’t find anything. Didn’t look hard enough, if you ask me.” She switched her pen to her left hand with her notepad and held out her right. “I’m Wendy, nice to meet you.”

Dipper shook it and smiled. “Dipper Pines. And this is my sister, Mabel.” He gestured to Mabel, who grinned and waved.

“Huh. Are you guys siblings?”

“Twins,” Dipper answered shortly. Hadn’t Melody asked that question yesterday?

“Cool. I’ll be back with your orders sometime soon.” She sauntered off to the kitchen, red hair swishing behind her.

Dipper turned back to the table. “Anyway, Mabel and I were planning to take a look at the Murder Hut.”

Grenda shrugged. “Okay. Not like there’s much to see, anyway.”

Dipper and Mabel exchanged a glance. Seeing their confusion, Grenda continued.

“Most of the stuff in there disappeared about nine years ago. No one knows what happened to it.”

Dipper frowned. He pulled out a pen and started clicking it. “Okay . . . do you think there’s something supernatural going on there? First the owner disappears, then all the stuff. Maybe it’s cursed.”

Candy laughed. “Many people have gone inside, and no one has disappeared. Well, except Gourney, but I think he disappeared on the way, not when he was inside.”

Mabel and Dipper exchanged a glance, but decided not to comment.

“Well, do you want to come?” Dipper asked.

Grenda rubbed the back of her head. “My lizard has a vet appointment today, sorry. You should be safe there anyway.”

“I have nothing today,” Candy piped up. “I can come.”

Mabel smiled. “Perfect.”

“All right, Pancakes, pancakes, pancakes, and coffee omelet.” Wendy came down the aisle, miraculously balancing four plates of food. She slid them off onto the table and gave a small sigh of relief. “Didn’t spill them this time.”

Dipper raised his eyebrows. “Do you do that a lot?”

“Yep. It’s a wonder I haven’t been fired yet. Enjoy your meal!”

After breakfast, they headed off to the forest. They managed to find the road leading up to the Murder Hut and followed it, breaking a lot of foliage in the process, and half an hour later they arrived.

Action ti—

Gurl you got me ackin’ so cray cray, you tell me that you want me my baby!

Candy pulled her phone out of her pocket and looked at the screen. “Oh, it’s Grenda.” She pressed the answer button. “Hello.  . . . What happened? . . . Oh, I’m so sorry. I will be there soon. Goodbye.” She hung up and turned to them. “Grenda’s lizard died. I must comfort her in her time of need.”

Mabel’s face looked downtrodden. “Oh, poor Grenda . . . I’m coming too.”

Candy shook her head. “No. You continue with the mystery hunt. Come meet us at Grenda’s house after.”

Mabel sighed. “Okay . . . Bye.”

Candy was already pushing her way back through the bushes.

Dipper frowned. “This seems like an awful lot of fuss for a lizard.”

Mabel let out a scandalized gasp. “Dipper, how could you be so insensitive? She’s had this lizard for years !”

“Okay, okay, I’m sorry! Can we just—can we continue the investigation now?”

“Yeah, all right.”

The wooden steps creaked and groaned horribly under their weight. Dipper winced and gingerly made his way to the door. “It’s probably locked, so we might have to break in.” He tried the doorknob. It turned. “Huh, what do you know.” He pushed the door open. The hinges sounded worse than the steps.

Mabel darted in ahead of him. “Coool! It’s . . .”

Dipper stepped in after her and glanced around. “Empty. Like they said.”

They were standing in what had once been a gift shop. Most of the souvenirs were gone, replaced with layers of dust. A cash register sat on the counter with its drawer open and bare.

It was strangely quiet.

An old vending machine stood at the back of the room, only a single bag of expired chips left inside. Next to it was a door hung with a sign with Employees Only scrawled across it in large letters.

Dipper strode across the room and pushed it open. It made the same horrific squeaking noise the other door had, so he resigned himself to having to hear the noise with every door.

Mabel followed him through into what seemed to be a TV room slash dining room. There was a table and chairs on the left. A plate with the decomposed, fly-bitten remains of a very old meal was still there. An old television set was up against the wall on the right, and a large recliner sat across from it, next to a side table that looked suspiciously like a real dinosaur skull. Dust flew into the air with every step across the shag carpet. Mabel coughed behind him, and he pretended he didn’t need to do the same.

They stepped out of the room into a hallway. There were stairs leading up on the left, a hallway lined with doors on the right, and in front of them a door to the backyard. They peered out briefly.

All the rooms down the hall and upstairs were empty. The only interesting thing Dipper had noticed was the amount of triangles in the windows.

They clomped back down the creaky stairs after exploring the attic and, to the relief of their dust-filled lungs, exited through the back door.

He and Mabel stood there for a moment, taking in deep breaths of clear air.

Dipper straightened up, disappointed. “Well, looks like that was a huge waste of time.”

Mabel shrugged. “At least it was fun! Let’s explore the woods.” She bounced off to the edge of the clearing. With the nagging feeling that he was forgetting something, Dipper followed.

Mabel hummed a happy tune ahead of him. He peered up between the trees, hoping not to see any gnomes preparing to attack. He was looking up one particular tree when he noticed something . . . off about the texture. He stopped, glanced at Mabel, who was oblivious, and ran a finger across the bark.

It wasn’t bark.

“Mabel!”

She spun around and dashed over. “What is it? Gnomes? Please say no.”

Dipper grinned, unable to contain himself. “It’s not gnomes—check this out!” He knocked on the tree. It let out a resounding metallic clang.

Mabel raised her eyebrows. “A metal tree?”

“Yep. And if I’m right . . .” Dipper ran his hand along the “bark”. “Aha!” He dug his fingers into a crack and pulled the door open. There was a rusty box inside, covered in all manner of switches and buttons. Mabel poked one, and Dipper flipped a switch. There was a quiet scraping noise behind them.

They jumped, spinning around in preparation to fight whatever it was that had made that noise . . . and found a square hole in the ground.

Dipper approached cautiously and peered inside. It wasn’t actually that deep, but that wasn’t what drew his attention—there was a book.

What.

He grabbed it, shaking a spider web off his hand as he pulled it out. The cover was embossed with a gold six-fingered hand with a large black 3 on it. It was old and worn, and the cover made a small crackling noise as he peeled it open.

It’s hard to believe it’s been six years since I began researching the strange and wondrous secrets of Gravity Falls, Oregon.

The next few pages detailed a number of weird creatures, including the gnomes. Everything they needed to know . . .

What a find.

Later, when they had left the woods, it was remembered that Grenda’s lizard had died. Mabel dashed off with a, “See you later!” and Dipper made his way back to the hotel.

This journal proved that someone else had been here before, someone who had actually succeeded in doing what he was trying to accomplish. So much information, all in one book . . . amazing.

Dipper kicked off his shoes the moment he closed his room door behind him and scrambled onto his bed. With that, he began to read.

Mabel returned a couple hours later looking slightly saddened. “Grendo—that’s Grenda’s lizard— died of old age. Apparently it’s been coming on for a while now, but it’s still sad.”

Dipper couldn’t quite sympathize, but he closed the journal and offered condolences anyway. After all was said and done, he glanced at his watch. It read 12:42. “Hey, wanna go get lunch?”

Mabel sighed. “Sure.”

They headed out to the diner—Dipper swore they would try somewhere else for dinner—and ordered sandwiches. Wendy, who Dipper determined was about to get off her shift, looked them over.

“Any creatures in particular you’re looking for?” she asked.

“Recommendations would be good,” Dipper answered, pulling out his notebook.

“Well, my dad’s always going on about the Hide Behind. He’s a lumberjack, so he’s out in the forest a lot. Apparently the Hide Behind hides behind you and makes rattling noises, but when you turn around you can never spot it. Sound good?”

Dipper nodded, writing notes. “Yep. Should just take a few mirrors and we’ll have him—I think.”

Wendy smiled a lovely smile. “Great. I can’t wait till Dad stops going on about how many times it rattled . . .” She walked off to serve another customer then, and Mabel and Dipper left with their sandwiches.

Mabel swallowed a bite. “So, wanna check out the Hide Behind?”

“Of course! We’d better get some mirrors first, though.”

Two hours later, they were setting off into the trees with . . . a LOT of mirrors.

It took them fifteen minutes before they heard any sort of rattle, and then it turned out to be a couple branches.

Another fifteen minutes passed. Dipper sighed. “This is getting nowhere. How did we expect to find something that’s never been spotted?” They broke through the foliage and into a clearing.

Mabel gave a confused noise. “Why is there a church in the middle of the forest?”

It was a valid question—honestly, who put a church where only the occasional hiker went? “Might as well check it out.”

The floorboards of this building creaked even more terribly than those of the Murder Hut. One of them even cracked under Dipper’s weight. Oh dear. The interior was about what you would expect from an old abandoned church; dusty, decrepit, faded stained glass windows. There was a banjo leaning against the wall for some reason.

Mabel, who was ahead of Dipper, took a cautious step onto the altar. The wood crumbled under her foot, and she let out a squeak of fear. Dipper lurched forward and grabbed his sister’s arm just before she fell into the abyss. Speaking of . . .

From as about as far back as they could without breaking more of the altar, they peered into the hole Mabel had made. All that could be seen was blackness, though there was a vague hint of green when Dipper shone his flashlight down.

He straightened up. “Do you think the hole could be bigger? Say, big enough for a human to fit down?”

Mabel nodded. “Probably. You thinking what I’m thinking?”

“You bet!”

Apparently he had not been thinking what she had been thinking. Dipper’s idea was, “Go into town, get some rope and an ax, chop the floor, and climb into the hole.” Mabel’s idea had been, “Grab the banjo, smash the floor in, and climb down without any rope.”

They went with Dipper’s idea.

They headed back into town, dropped the mirror suit of at the hotel for later use, and started looking for a hardware store.

Dipper frowned. “I know I saw one somewhere . . .” He glanced around and spotted a plump Hispanic man outside a shop labeled Soos Mechanics.

“Hey, excuse me!” They jogged over.

The man looked up. “‘Sup?”

Well, that wasn’t quite the response he’d been expecting. “Could you tell us where the hardware store it?”

“Oh, sure.” He nodded. “It’s just around the corner on the right.”

“Okay, thanks!” Dipper was about to take off again, but Mabel didn’t quite seem ready to follow. She was talking to the guy.

“I’m Mabel! What’s your name?”

“I’m Soos, nice to meetcha! Is that your brother?” He gestured to Dipper.

“Yep, that’s Dipper. We’re twins.” Mabel smiled.

Soos grinned back, show off buck teeth. “That’s pretty cool—y’know, if I was a twin, and the older one, I’d always be telling my twin, ‘When I was your age . . .’ and saying what I did five minutes ago or two minutes ago or however long after me my twin was born.”

“Great idea! I should start doing that.”

“Mabel,” Dipper ground out, “we really should get going.”

“Oh, right. Bye Soos!” They started off.

“Bye Maple!”

“. . . Did he just call you ‘Maple’?”

She shrugged. “Easy mistake.”

It took a while to find the church again. When they did, it was an simple matter of smashing the floor to bits with their newly acquired ax and securing the rope to something that would hold them on the way down.

They stared into the widened hole. Dipper drew in a deep breath, then let it out. “Okay. Who’s going first?”

“I will!” Mabel volunteered cheerfully. She lowered herself into the hole without any further warning, clinging to the rope. Once she was about ten feet down, Dipper followed.

He was starting to get a horrible feeling about this, but it was too late to turn back now.

After a minute or two, he heard a small " oof" , and looked down. Below was the green they’d kind of been able to see from the top with his flashlight. It was grass, and not just grass, but many exotic, maybe even J urassic plants. Mabel was lying in the grass, staring up at him, and looking out of breath. There was a little bit of a fall between the end of the rope and the ground—she’d probably had the breath knocked out of her.

Ten seconds later he found himself in the same position as she. He took a moment to reorient himself and slowly got to his feet after Mabel.

They were in a large cavern, with all the plants he’d noticed before and some mining shafts in the wall.

“Wow,” Mabel breathed.

Dipper nodded. “Yeah . . . How long has this been here?” He walked up to a plant and picked off a large leaf before realizing it could be poisonous and dropping it. He looked up to see Mabel heading toward the mine shafts and hurried to catch up.

“So,” she said brightly, “which one should we go down?”

“Um . . .”

She closed her eyes and pointed at random before opening them again. “Middle it is.”

“Middle it is,” Dipper agreed.

They traveled down the shaft for a few minutes, glaring suspiciously at a few sets of human-looking bones, and soon emerged into another cavern . . . except this one was much more interesting.

While the previous cave had held all kinds of unheard of plants, this one had a lot of sticky honey-colored sap with perfectly preserved dinosaurs inside.

Best. Day. Ever.

They gaped up at the looming and some not-so-looming creatures, completely entranced. Dipper was broken from his by movement out of the corner of his eye. He turned to see the claw of one of the dinosaurs wiggling, trying to free itself from its cage.

“Mabel,” he said slowly. “I . . . I think they’re still alive.”

“Wow, reall—OH MY GOSH!”

Dipper jumped and spun to face whatever had caused his sister to shout. “What? What is—oh. Oh my gosh.”

There, encased in the sap in front of them was a man with a look of desperation on his face. For a moment Dipper thought he was staring at them, but then he realized the man wasn’t moving at all, or staring directly at them. He wore a worn-out jacket which Dipper assumed was red, though it was hard to see through the sap, which had also slicked down his brown mullet.

“We . . . we have to get him out! What do we have?” Mabel demanded.

“Well, we didn’t exactly bring the ax down with us.” Dipper hurried up to the sap and poked at it. “It’s melting—because the summer heat—we might be able to get him out without any tools, but we’d get pretty sticky.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Mabel snapped. She pulled out a hair tie, put her hair up, and popped her knuckles. “Let’s do this.”

Digging through the sap was grueling business. Dipper felt like a gross mess only halfway through, but he had to be thankful this man wasn’t buried as deeply as the dinosaurs.

After about ten minutes of scooping, pulling, and sometimes even pushing, they finally managed to pull the man out. He somehow stood steady for a moment, staring off nowhere in particular, then promptly collapsed. Both Pines twins jumped.

“He’s not dead, is he?” Mabel squeaked.

Dipper bent down shakily to check the pulse. He didn’t feel it for a moment, but after he managed to get his hand to stop trembling, he could feel it there. He plopped onto the floor with a sigh of relief. “He’s fine. Well, I don’t know if he’s fine fine, he’s been trapped in weird sap for who knows how long, but he’s not dead.”

Mabel stood only a moment longer before sitting next to him. “Great. Great!” She leaned on his shoulder. “When I said I was coming with you, I had no idea I was signing up for this.”

Dipper shook his head. “Me neither.”

They were silent for a moment. Then Mabel spoke again. "He looks kinda like Dad."

Dipper gave him a proper look over for the first time. Curled brown hair, square jaw kinda thickset . . . "Hey, you're right. That's funny."

The man gave a small groan and shifted slightly. Mabel and Dipper were immediately alert.

“Is he waking up?”

“Wait a sec, Mabes.” Dipper put a hand on the man’s shoulder. “Hey, are you oka—”

The man sat up abruptly. “That’s ten bucks, not 9.99!” He looked around. “. . . Wait, what? Where am I? What—? Oh.” He looked up at the dinosaurs. “Sap.”

“Um, yeah . . .”

The man seemed to notice them for the first time. “Oh, hey there.” He took in the sap-coated state of them, and then himself. “Did you get me out?”

They nodded wordlessly.

“Uh . . . thanks.” He avoided their eyes and stood up, almost falling over before he managed to balance against the sap. He pushed off the moment he realized what he was leaning on. “How long have I been down here?”

Dipper looked around at the various dinos. If they could be trapped here for years, theoretically it was possible that this man had been too. “What year is it?”

The man gave him a weird look. “What, you don’t know what the year is? It’s 1982.”

Mabel’s expression was pained. “It’s not 1982 anymore . . . it’s 2017.”

Chapter Text

There was silence after Mabel’s declaration.

The man gave a nervous laugh. “You’re joking. This is a joke, right?”

Mabel and Dipper exchanged a glance.

He slumped to sit on the floor with them. “Okay, you’re not joking. Okay. 2017.” He stared at a dinosaur for a moment, then abruptly jumped back to his feet and started pacing. “I’m not even in the same century! What the hell?” He aimed a kick at the sap next to him, submerging his foot, then fell over in his attempts to pull himself free. He lay there for a moment, staring up at the ceiling. “I’m in the future.”

Despite the severity of the situation, Mabel let out a little snort of laughter. “Yeah, that must be pretty awesome.”

“Don’t know about that yet.” He sat up and yanked his foot free. “Can we get out of here? I’m kinda tired of all this sap.”

Mabel nodded knowingly. “Oh yeah, completely understandable. You were stuck in that stuff for like . . . thirty-five-ish years.”

He groaned. “Please, don’t remind me.”

Dipper led the way out of the cavern and through the tunnel; the man took notice of the first human skeleton and began to studiously ignore the floor afterward. There was a bit of a dilemma when it came to getting above ground, what with the shortness of their rope, but after waiting around in a geyser for long enough they were shot into the air like a trio of bullets. The church was further destroyed by their landing, but Dipper didn’t think anyone would care too much.

“So,” Mabel said to the man, pushing herself off a broken bench. “I’m Mabel. What’s your name?”

“Uh, Stan. Stanford. Stanford Pines.”

Mabel let out a dramatic gasp, and Dipper’s mouth dropped open. “You’re a  Pines ?”

Stanford Pines scowled, hoisting himself out of the coffin he’d landed in. “Yeah, you got a problem.”

“We have the same last name!” Mabel exclaimed. “Maybe we’re related.”

Stanford frowned. “Come to think of it, you guys look kind of like . . .” He trailed off, then turned to Dipper, who was just getting up. “What did you say your name was?”

“I didn’t.” For the second time in two days. “It’s Dipper Pines.”

Stanford raised his eyebrows. “Huh. Weird name.”

“It’s a nickname.”

“Oh, that explains it. I thought your parents just had weird taste, or something.”

They left the church with aching limbs and splinters. This time they managed to remember the way from the church to the town, so they made it there no problem.

“You’re really sticky, aren’t you Stanford?” Mabel commented.

“Just call me Stan. And yes, I am really sticky—I need a shower. You’re pretty sticky too, ya know.” He gestured to her arms, which were covered in sap. More of it was on her face and in her hair; Dipper was in about the same state. Stan was much worse off than either of them, though, having been buried in the stuff for decades.

“We can go to our hotel and shower,” Dipper decided. “And I guess we should get you a change of clothes too. That can’t be comfortable. Anywhere.”

Things were quite normal when they reached town. People shopping, teenagers being rowdy, older townsfolk staring at them—wait, what was that all about?

An old couple pointed at Stan and whispered. The enormous red-haired man they’d seen the other day stopped in his tracks and just stood there. Maybe it was all the sap?

“Hey Stan,” Dipper muttered. “Who were you before you got stuck down there?”

“Uh . . . Well, I ran a little place off in the woods called the Murder Hut. Don’t really like the name that much, now that I think about it. Too cheesy.”

Dipper and Mabel exchanged a glance. Dipper frowned. “Do you mean that old shack to the northwest?”

“Yeah, probably. I bet it looks even worse than way back when . . .” He trailed off and didn’t start talking again.

Hm . . . Stan must’ve been pretty well known around town to elicit this kind of response. He  did  run the local tourist trap. Dipper pulled out his notepad and pen as they were passing Soos’s shop and wrote  STANFORD PINES  at the top of the first clean page in large letters. Under it he listed in bullet points,  Last name is “Pines”, Looks like Dad, Ran the Murder Hut,  and— “When did you get stuck in the sap?”

Stan sighed. “Mid 1982. What month is it now?”

“June.”

“I got stuck later this month. They didn’t change the calendar while I was gone, did they?”

“I don’t think so . . .” Dipper scribbled down this new information.

“We’re here!” Mabel announced.

Dipper looked up. “Since when were we going to the mall?”

Mabel gave him a weird look. “We’re here to get Stan clothes.”

“There were other clothing stores we passed along the way . . .” Dipper sighed. “Y’know what, never mind. We’re already here, might as well.”

Finding a clothing store was easy enough. Unfortunately, they had to guess Stan’s clothing sizes, since he didn’t remember his and there were no changing rooms. At one point, Stan checked a price tag, and—

“HOLY—  Ten bucks  for a ratty t-shirt?”

Dipper and Mabel stared, and she was the first to speak. “Uh . . . yeah?”

“That’s—” He sighed. “Right. Future”

After this incident, they purchased their stuff (the cashier seemed displeased with the stickiness of their money) and managed to get back to the hotel with less “is it just me or is that the Murder Hut guy” stares and more “why the heck is that man covered in sap” stares.

“I get to go first, right?” Stan asked once they had entered their room.

“Oh, totally,” Mabel agreed. “Being that sticky is only great when it has something to do with sugar.”

Stan gave her a weird look, then sighed, shook his head, and entered the bathroom. A minute later there was a cry of, “How does this shower work?”

Mabel laughed, and Dipper grinned. The moment the water was on, he whipped out his phone, regretting it a moment later when he remembered how sticky his hands were. He scrolled through his contacts anyway.

“Who are you calling?” Mabel asked.

“Dad,” was Dipper’s short reply. “I’m going to ask him is we have a relative called Stanford Pines.” He held if phone to his ear and waited. It was picked up almost immediately.

“ Dipper! How you doin’?”

“Pretty good, you?”

“ It’s a bit quiet without you two, but we’re doing fine. Is your sister there?”

“Hi!”

“She says hi. Anyway,” he rushed on before there was a reply, “I wanted to ask you if we’re related to someone called Stanford Pines?”

There was silence for a moment. “ . . . Ah. I haven’t heard from him in a while.”

Dipper grinned. “But we  are  related to one?”

“Yes, he would’ve been your great uncle—have you found him?”

“. . . Maybe.”

“If you’re unsure about it, the surest way to tell is his fingers.”

“His fingers?” He turned to Mabel, who looked confused.

“He has six on each hand.”

Dipper raised his eyebrows. “Okay, cool, we’ll get back to you on that, bye!” He quickly hung up. “All right,” he told Mabel. “The good news is, we’re related to Stanford Pines. The bad news is, I don’t think this is him. Dad says he’s supposed to have six fingers on each hand.”

“Huh. I don’t think Stan has that many fingers.”

Dipper nodded. “Yeah. Maybe he had them removed, or something.”

“Yeah, maybe . . .”

Once Stan emerged from the bathroom looking much cleaner and had plopped himself into a chair, Mabel hopped in, leaving Dipper alone with him. He decided to test his hypothesis.

“So, Stanford . . .”

Stan looked around quickly. “Huh? Oh, yeah. That’s me.”

Okay, that definitely wasn’t right.

“I thought I saw some scars on your hands earlier.” Come on . . .

Stan raised his eyebrows, then lifted his hands in front of him and turned them slowly. “Uhhh, nope. No scars here.”

Dipper winced. This wasn’t good—he was stuck alone in a room with a guy impersonating his great uncle. He could be dangerous . . . but it was still kinda strange how he looked so similar to Dad. Well, might as well dive in. “Oh, um, must’ve been my imagination. Anyway, I just got off the phone with my dad.”

Stan looked confused. “Yeah?”

“And apparently Mabel and I  are  related to a Stanford Pines. He would be our great uncle, in fact. However . . .” Stan was beginning to look nervous, so he trudged on. “. . . According to Dad, Stanford’s supposed to have six fingers. So who exactly are you supposed to be?” Dipper was pretty sure he had sounded awesome just then. He was like some kind of detective who had found the culprit. Or something like that.

Stan definitely wasn’t comfortable anymore—not that he’d looked comfortable in the first place, he just looked less so now. “Look,” he said. “There’s—there’s a lot going on you might not understand, okay? Just—” He ran a hand through his hair, and immediately had to pull it out to avoid getting tangled up. “I guess . . . You’re family, so you deserve to know.
He gave a heavy sigh. “I’ll . . . I’ll explain when Mabel gets out here.”

Dipper furrowed his brow—was this man who wasn’t Stanford really related to them?—but nodded. “Good.”

There was silence for a while, and then Stan seemed to find his voice again. “What are you two doing in this town anyway?”

Dipper contemplated answering, and in the end decided it couldn’t hurt. “We’re investigating the paranormal.” He glared at Stan suspiciously. “You’re not some kind of shapeshifter, are you?”

“What?”  Stan spluttered. “Of course I’m not a shapeshifter! What kind of question is that?”

“. . .  In this context, I think it’s a pretty good one.”

“Yeah, right.”

There was more silence, but it abruptly ended about fifteen minutes later (though it felt longer) when Mabel burst from the bathroom with a shout of, “I’m back!”

Stan shot to his feet, and Dipper quickly followed. Was he trying to escape? But no, Stan let out a sigh and sank back into his seat. Mabel gave both of them a weird look, and she and Dipper sat at the same time.

“So?” she said.

“He said he’d explain everything.”

She frowned. “Everything of what?”

Dipper sent Stan a glare. “That’s your cue. Spill the beans, Stan—if that is your real name.”

“All right, all right—and Stan  is  my real name, thank you very much.” He sighed. “I don’t actually know how to explain this . . . Are you two into weird sciencey things?”

“Dipper’s the nerdy one,” Mabel explained immediately. “If there’s lots of science, he’ll love it.”

Dipper opened his mouth to protest, then paused. “. . . True.”

“So would you believe me if I told you there’s a gigantic portal in the basement of the Murder Hut?”

Dipper and Mabel exchanged a glance, and he answered. “Probably not.”

“I know it sounds, crazy, I—” He ran a hand through his hair— “I didn’t believe it either at first.

A suspicion lurking in Dipper’s subconscious rose to the surface. “Who told you about the portal? Who built it?”

Stan released a breath. “My twin brother. Stanford Pines.”

When Dipper looked at his sister, she had a look of astonishment on her face. He probably did too, but he couldn’t help thinking it might be a lie, in spite of all the evidence that it wasn’t. “How can we be sure?”

“You can be sure because—” He paused. “I don’t know. I guess you’ll just have to take my word for it.”

Dipper pulled out his phone again. “Wait a second.”

While Dipper scrolled through his contacts list in search of his dad, again, Stan was looking at the cell phone with a look of utter befuddlement. Dipper realized he probably had no idea what it was, and Mabel took it upon herself to explain it to him.

“That’s a cell phone,” she said matter-of-factly. “You use them to call people.”

Stan continued to stare. “Where’s its cord?”

“Oh, it doesn’t have one. They’re also called mobile phones, ‘cause, y’know, they’re mobile.”

“Huh. So they’re like walkie-talkies?”

Mabel looked thoughtful. “I guess they are.”

“What other weird gadgets do you have now?”

Meanwhile, Dipper had found his dad’s number and was waiting impatiently for him to pick up. When at last he did, Dipper blurted out his question with no preamble. “Did Stanford have a twin?”

Dad sounded surprised.  “He did, but we don’t talk about him much. No one has any idea where he is, haven’t seen him in years. I never met him, actually. Have you found him too?”

“Just a sec.” Dipper covered the speaker and turned to where Mabel was now showing an absolutely fascinated Stan her tablet. “Hey, is Stan short for anything?”

“Yeah, Stanley.”

“Okay, thanks.” He uncovered his phone. “Was Stanford’s twin Stanley, by any chance?”

“. . . Yes. Dipper, what’s going on?”

Dipper glanced at Stan. “It’s complicated and you probably wouldn’t believe me so I’ll explain later, I’m just gonna hang up now, bye!”

“Mason Pines—”

He tapped the end call button with a loud breath. Dad was going to kill him later.

Stan was peering over Mabel’s shoulder now while she played Candy Crush, looking downright speechless. Dipper cleared his throat and he looked up, appearing a bit dazed.

“So Stan . . . would you mind showing us this portal?

“What—? Oh, of course.”

Mabel glanced up briefly, then went back to her game. “Can it wait till I’m finished? I’m halfway to beating my high score.

Dipper snatched the tablet away with a grin. “Sorry, Mabel, halfway isn’t good enough. Seriously, it would take you like, half an hour to beat that.”

She sighed. “All right portal it is.”

They dropped their clothes off at the laundromat, and then they were on their way.

“So, Stan . . .” Dipper started conversationally. “Why did you decide to call it the Murder Hut?”

Stan shrugged. “Because is sounded cool, I guess.”

Dipper frowned. “What, really? That’s all?” He paused. “Yeah, I get that.”

They entered the woods then and continued on more warily, on the lookout for stray gnomes. None were spotted, much to Mabel’s relief. Stan had no idea what they were looking out for.

They arrived at last at the Murder Hut. The hinges and floorboards sounded just as terrible as Dipper remembered.

Stan stared around with a possibly regretful look on his face. “This place really went to waste,” he muttered. “What happened to all the stuff?”

“No one knows,” Mabel said with a shrug. “Candy and Grenda told us it disappeared.” She grinned. “Kinda spooky, isn’t it?”

“Eh, it was probably just stolen. Stan, where’s the portal?”

“Killjoy,” Mabel muttered, but Dipper and Stan ignored her.

“Here.” Stan led them to the vending machine with the sad bag of chips inside it, punched in a code, and stood back while it opened. He grinned at their looks of amazement. “I know, pretty cool, right? I installed the vending machine myself.” He started down the stairs, and Dipper snapped his gaping mouth shut and pulled Mabel along.

They made their way down the steps to an elevator, where Stan put in another code with complicated characters (Dipper did his best to memorize them), and hesitated when the doors opened. “I’m not sure this is structurally sound . . .”

Mabel peered around Stan into the elevator. “Hm . . . Well, might as well try it.” She hopped inside and turned to face Dipper and Stan’s horrified faces. “Oh, come on! How else is Stan going to prove there’s a giant portal under here?”

Stan hesitated a moment longer before stepping in. Dipper looked even more horrified. “What? It’s not like I haven’t done more dangerous things before.

Dipper stood there for a while longer, Mabel and Stan staring at him cajolingly, and finally joined them when he determined that the elevator (probably) wasn’t going to drop them all to their deaths.

It creaked and groaned the whole way down, sending unpleasant chills up and down Dipper’s spine. At one point there was an unpleasant jolt, and he was sure they were going to crash abruptly to the ground. He was out as soon as the doors shuddered open. Stan and Mabel were right behind him, and they all took a moment to recover from their traumatizing journey before taking a look around.

The room they were in held a multitude of strange, non-functional machines which Dipper could only guess the purposes of. So where was the portal Stan was talking about? He pulled out his phone for light and took a better look; there was a door on the other side of the room next to a desk. He looked at Stan and gestured to the door. “Is the portal through there?”

Stan shrugged. “See for yourself.”

Dipper narrowed his eyes suspiciously, though he was pretty much convinced Stan was telling the truth. “Keep an eye on him, Mabel.” He marched over to the door, ignoring Mabel’s little, “Okie-dokie!” and, with some difficulty, pulled it open. He stared out into the darkness beyond; it was too dark to see the other side of the new room with just his phone. He took a couple steps in, stretching his arm as far as he could, and the light hit something metal and shiny. He let out a little gasp of surprise, then looked over his shoulder. “Come on, Mabel. And Stan,” he added after a moment of deliberation. His voice echoed through the cavern. It had to be enormous.

With Mabel and Stan now following him and his confidence boosted (a little) he strode farther in. The metal thing came into view—a wall? No, it was more like an upside down triangle . . . And there was a hole in the center . . . He moved his phone up, and up, and craned his neck to see the top. He could barely make it out in the gloom.

Stan had not been kidding when he called the portal gigantic.