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Stanley Pines does not need any more stress tonight.
Stan is sticking half out of the upstairs closet when he hears tiny feet on the stairs. Lightning rocks the trees around the mystery shack, and it makes the hairs on his arms stand on edge, just a bit. He urges himself to hurry up , because this was not a job that could be taken slowly—he sort of has his hands full, water bottles, weighted blankets, extra layers, and everything else too when he hears a small voice accompany the footsteps, a small voice and a sniffle, and he tenses up.
“Grunkle Stan?”
It’s Mabel’s voice, Mabel’s tiny hitched breath, the kind she got when she was about to cry, and he freezes, because he’s not about to deny her at a time like this. He was stupid to think they’d get through an entire summer without incident—not stupid, blindly hopeful, but after Weirdmageddon last summer, he didn’t suppose things could possibly get any worse.
Maybe this is a different kind of worse.
“What is it, sweetie?” Stan turns around cautiously--there’s a thermos warming through his shirt tucked under his right arm, and he wouldn’t want it to spill. He doesn’t put down anything he’s holding, but he does take a step closer, eyebrows furrowed in concern.
“I had a nightmare.” Mabel mutters, like she’s ashamed to say it, and that hurts Stan a bit more than he’d like to admit, because he’s been there.
“Yeah, seems like a good night for that.” Stan mutters under his breath as the thunder rolls once more. His eyes drift towards the vending machine, but then lock back onto Mabel, who’s looking at him in confusion, and confusion is not what he needs right now. “What...sort of nightmare?”
Mabel meets his eyes and cocks her head, one eyebrow raised, but she doesn’t answer his question, which is of course all the answer he needs. “Alright.” Stan mutters, and his eyes drift towards the vending machine a second time. He could send her back upstairs, ask her if Dipper’s around, call Wendy, anything, because what he can’t do is stay up here for too long. But there’s no way he’s letting himself leave her, not when she came to find him herself, so as much as he hates it, he realizes he’s gonna have to kill two birds with one stone.
“C’mon, you can come downstairs with Ford and I.”
“But,” Mabel protests, wiping tears from her swollen eyes, “You told us we weren’t allowed to come downstairs at night, when there’s lightning. Or any time!”
And Stan chuckles, because he did say that, didn’t he? But Stan can’t do anything more than chuckle, because now isn’t the time, and also because there is a surprising lack of laughter inside him right now. He simply hands Mabel the thermos and the pills, sighing. “Hold these, will ‘ya?” And Mabel looks a bit like she did something wrong, not entirely guilty but nervous, and Stan reassures her on the way down the stairs, ‘cause that’s his job.
“You’re alright, Mabel.” He mutters, and her giant eyes drift up to him like she didn’t realize he was capable of that, and there is so much he isn’t telling her. No more secrets, him and Ford--Ford and him--had said to the twins last summer, after the fact. And they’d tried to keep it, but some secrets demanded to be kept. Some things were his and Ford’s, and he didn’t want them to leak out to the rest of the world. Some things weren’t for the eyes and ears of children.
Teenagers, Dipper’s voice nagged at the back of his brain, but whatever.
“Ford?” Stan calls gently when he reaches the bottom of the stairs. His socks scuff a bit against the metal of the floor, and Mabel’s hair frizzes. The static in here always gets really intense during storms, but there isn’t entirely a better place to go. Ford doesn’t answer, and Stan wasn’t expecting him to, but he was hoping he would, hoping this whole thing would be blown over by the time he got back, hoping he could preserve Mabel’s childhood just a little longer.
“C’mon.” Stan mutters, barely over a breath, as he trods to find his brother. Ford is, of course, right where Stan left him, trembling under the desk, where they set up to sleep. Mabel makes a choked off noise, and when Stan turns she’s shaking her head, and her breaths are coming in hitches, and her eyes are filling with tears. Great. Just great.
“What’s wrong with him?” She asks, sounding terrified.
“Nothing, nothing--well, not nothing, just--it’s no big deal--well, it is, just---I’ve got this, Mabel.” He sounds a little pent-up, maybe too much for his own good, but hearing Mabel’s sniffles behind him and Ford’s ahead of him are starting to send his head into a tizzy, so he does the only thing he can and goes into fix-it mode, kneeling in front of Ford and wrapping the blanket over his arm around him. It’s weighted, so it’ll keep the storm out--they learned that out on the arctic, what seemed like years ago. Ford shudders, but breathes, and that’s all Stan wants, really--”Take it easy, Ford.” He mutters, brushing the curls out of his brother’s eyes where they’re stuck to his head with sweat, and he sighs.
Mabel is sharp--sharper than he realizes sometimes, because she gasps slightly, and when he turns to face her, when he thinks Ford is calm enough for him to allow that, there’s a glimmer in his eyes, like she’s realized something--her cheeks are streaked with tears, her eyes are swollen, her face is red, and she’s still half-crying, half-hyperventilating, but she’s nodding her way through it like she’s come to some great realization. “That’s why you’ve been sleeping down here!” She cries out suddenly, and it first Stan thinks it’s too alarmed for the fact that she’s obviously already thought it through, and then he realizes it’s not alarmed, it’s hurt.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” She kneels down next to him and nudges her shoulder into his side, the way Ford does when he’s needy, and now her eyes are pleading. “I could’ve handled it! I can handle it. I can handle it, Grunkle Stan!”
“I know. I know you can, sweetie.” He mutters, and this would be the perfect time for him to deflect, Ford’s business and all, but he can’t, because Ford had very clearly told him they should tell the kids, but--he didn’t, he couldn’t. Maybe it’s because this was theirs, maybe it’s because the kids were young-- they’d seen enough. Whatever the reason was, he hadn’t wanted to, but--Mabel’s right. She can handle this. Mabel had fought Bill Cipher head on when he couldn’t. Mabel had saved their lives, on more than one occasion. He was an idiot for thinking she couldn’t handle this.
(Maybe it was because if he thought the kids couldn’t handle it, it would trick him into thinking he had to).
“Alright.” He finally concedes, tucking his legs under him. He meets Mabel’s eyes, tucks a strand of her now-frizzy hair behind her ear. “Ford gets nightmares.” He says, very matter-of-factly, because there was no use beating around the bush now. “So we sleep down here, because we--because I didn’t want them to disturb you.”
“Because you didn’t want us to know.”
“Yes, okay. Because I didn’t want you to know.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know. I thought it would--scare you.”
“Scare me?”
“Scare both of--”
“Grunkle Stan, I fought the most famous demon in the multiverse head-on and you thought this would scare me?”
Ford is distressing again--a six fingered hand finds the hem of his shirt and tugs, and he turns, lifting Ford into his arms, where he buries his face against his shoulder and mumbles incoherently. Through it all, Mabel is sitting on her knees, her lips pursed, and she looks small, but she also looks strong. Strong in a different way than when she fights, strong in a realer way. Strong in a way he shouldn’t have denied.
“It was stupid of me.” He admits, and Ford chuckles dryly against his shoulder and mutters an affirmation, to which he swats his shoulder lightly.
“No, not stupid.” Mabel confirms, her head tilted. “I get that you wanted to protect me, Grunkle Stan. But ...I don’t need protecting from stuff like this, and neither does Dipper. We’re totally good.”
Stan nods, thoughtfully, and Ford shifts so he’s facing Mabel--he’s heavy, sure, but not as heavy as Stan is strong. He’s got them, all of them.
“You are good.” Ford affirms, resting his head back against Stan’s shoulder. “And I…..suppose I was complacent in keeping this a secret from you as well. I shouldn’t have been.” A six-fingered hand finds his own, and weaves through it, and Ford’s other hand reaches for Mabel’s, who takes it happily. Ford pulls her a little closer, wraps an arm around her, and then wraps the blanket around all three of them, just for good measure.
“Wow, this thing feels nice.” Mabel comments, and Ford nods.
“It’s weighted. It makes the static air affect me a little less.” And Mabel nods to that, thoughtfully. She’s taking this well--of course she’s taking this well. Why should he have expected anything less?
And it’s silent for a few minutes, before Mabel starts picking at the hem of her sweater, and then she speaks up. “I had a nightmare about Bill.” She spits into the open air, and then her shoulders relax, and she leans against Ford slightly, who wraps an arm around her. “I d-dreamed we were in the Fearamid again”--Ford chuckles--”Except you two weren’t there to save us.” Her voice went awfully soft. “Bill was gonna kill Dipper.”
“Well.” It’s Ford who speaks up, after just a minute of silence. “That didn’t happen. And we didn’t have to save you--you were doing amazing on your own.”
Mabel nods, and he can tell Ford’s words have some weight to them, probably a weight he wouldn’t have been able to apply. If Ford can reassure Mabel that what she’s seeing isn’t real, she probably has every right to believe him. And then Stan feels nothing but gladness, nothing but joy that he has his favorite grandniece and his brother right here. If nightmares were part of the package, it was still his birthday every day, right?
“Grunkle Stan?”
“Yeah, sweetie?”
“Can I sleep down here tonight?”
“Yes, of course.” There’s no hesitation in his voice, and Mabel takes the initiative to stand right away, moving to his other side. Stan knows that’s her way of forgiving him, and he smiles as Mabel curls up on his right, resting her head on his hip. She drapes one arm across him, where it meets Ford’s, who is doing much of the same, head of curly hair buried in his chest. Stan thinks he couldn’t be happier. He tucks the blanket in around both of them, and Ford falls asleep right away, but Mabel’s still shifting.
“Grunkle Stan?”
“Yes, sweetie?” He asks again.
“I...this isn’t the first time this summer I’ve had a Bill nightmare.”
He pauses slightly, unsure why he’s being told this, and now of all times, but Mabel isn’t done. “Dipper gets them a lot, too. Especially when we’re at home. I think the incident with the sock puppets really scared him.” She wrinkles her nose, but suddenly she’s smiling, and Stan sits a little easier. “Anyway, I was thinking. Could we come down here when we’re having nightmares? I like having you guys to talk too, ‘cause you understand this sorta stuff.” Her head goes back on his hip and she nudges Ford’s arm, wanting to hog as much of him as possible.
“I think we can arrange that, Sweetie.”
“Good. And that counts for you and Ford too, got it?”
Stan simply smiles and nods, and Mabel curls right back up. Stan places one kiss to her forehead and one to his brother’s, and he’s about to slip under it himself when Mabel rouses him with a “Love you, Grunkle Stan.”
In the morning, Dipper will wonder where his sister is, but it won’t matter much, because she’ll be able to tell him what he can do the next time puppets haunt his nightmares. Maybe Mabel Pines is a little older tonight, but that’s just concisive of the Pines child package. And with his family around, maybe it was like his birthday every day.
“Love ya’ too, Mabel.”