Chapter Text
Somehow, Stanley Pines always knew that there was something different about him. Something that wasn't the lost twin and the machismo and the neverending con man gigs. There was just something about his own mere existence that set his teeth on edge at inopportune moments and made him want to lay face down on his mattress and not move for a very long time.
It's not that he didn't like his own body. It was just that sometimes he looked in the mirror and his hair seemed too short and his jaw seemed too sharp and the angles of his body sat just shy of the correct places. On days like that he layered up and refused to meet his own eyes in the mirror for fear of what he would see. It didn't really get better with age, but at least by then his body was betraying him in other ways and there were more important things to worry about.
Monsters in the woods tended to put things in perspective after all. He should just be thankful he still has a body.
It's not that he wanted to wear different clothes... well not always. It was just that he told himself he liked fine fabrics because for so long he had been living rough and on the run with no access to nice things. He resisted the urge to run his hands across the soft silks he passed in the big box stores on his way to the men's department and instead settled for high thread count sheets. It was nice, but it didn't stop the daydreams of sweeping majestically down hallways like some dramatic ghost.
He might lounge about the house in ratty boxers and an even rattier tank top but damnit, let a man have dreams. Even if they left some sort of nebulous ache where his heart should be that he steadfastly ignored because it was just an idle thought.
Right?
After the third or so time he woke up from an ill-remembered dream in a cold sweat, he started keeping a soft robe by his bed. The air against his bare legs and the rasp of his usual clothes made his mind scream in ways that he couldn't quite put into words. He'd get up and wrap himself in cozy knit warmth before stumbling down to the kitchen for a pot of tea, which he'd drink while purposefully not thinking about anything. Because if he didn't think about it he couldn't panic.
And some days, weeks, months, one time even years... he'd feel fine. He'd be content with his shape and his face and his old man body hair growing in increasingly strange places. But then someone at the grocery store would call him “Sir” or he'd catch his profile out of the corner of his eye at just the wrong angle, and it was back to square one of burying the feelings until they didn't exist.
He'd gotten a little too good about ignoring things over the years. So when the kiddos show up for the summer, he could just go about business as usual. No eye contact with mirrors on days he felt off, warm tea and robe on nights he couldn't sleep, and pass off the moments when his mind wandered too deep as the carelessness of old age.
Stan didn't count on the perceptiveness and tenacity of not-quite-teens and his own employees.
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He'd expected some strangeness right off the bat, the kids were Pines offspring after all. Bound to be a little out of the ordinary. Something in the blood his Ma had once said. Also his niece-in-law had been real cagey when discussing the summer plans. He could smell a con at ten paces and the conversation fucking reeked. His suspicion only increased when he got a letter mere days later with a bunch of instructions from the kids that directly contradicted their mother.
But he'd prepped the attic for his niblings (neutrally as requested by the note, despite insistence from their ma that “the two girls are so happy to see their Grunkle” and didn't that emphasis leave a bad taste in his mouth) and was met at the bus by... one overly bouncy chattery Mabel and an extremely uncomfortable-looking Dipper. If Stan was a stupid man he would have fallen for Mabel's distraction, but instead he waited for the bus to leave before dropping down in front of Dipper. He ignored the ominous creak in his kneecaps and the weight of Mabel hanging off one arm.
“Hey kiddo,” he said, tweaking the cap just a smidge. “I got the note saying you're going by Dipper for now, so no worries from this old man.” He paused and considered his next words carefully before deciding the gamble was worth it. “I might be old but I'm not an idiot, son. Did Mabel cut your hair on the way up?”
Mabel froze where she was clinging to Stan's arm. Dipper's eyes, focused on the ground just a second before, snapped up to meet Stan's. His mouth was open in a round “O” and his eyes sparkled with tears as he launched himself at his Grunkle. Stan let out an “oof” and let himself be knocked to the ground, his fez tumbling a few feet away.
“From that rather enthusiastic reaction I'm gonna guess I was right, kids.” He ruffled a head of hair with each hand before starting the struggle to sit up. “No worries, your secret is safe with me. I am a masterful keeper of other people's secrets.” He grinned as disarmingly as he could and the children thankfully did not ask what other secrets he kept.
That evening the kiddos were pretty tuckered out from their travels and turned in early. Stan was glad for it, it had been an emotional day for him as well. It was one thing to receive a nervous letter requesting a specific name and pronouns, quite another to see your grand-niblings visibly worried that you were gonna be some kind of intolerant fuckup. Maybe once upon a time, when the world was a less magical place and being different spelled a death sentence, he'd been a less informed person... but not now. He had enough regrets to fill multiple lifetimes, he didn't need to add Dipper to the list.
Stan rubbed at his eyes and flopped down into his favorite chair, warm robe wrapped around his body and a carton of ice-cream in one hand. He'd taken a single glance in the mirror and done a full body shudder before snatching his robe off the hook and thumping back downstairs. Sleep could wait, he had reading to do anyway.
For once it wasn't Journal #2 (which was safely in the basement away from curious children), but a notebook he'd bribed Soos into compiling. He didn't have internet at the shack and didn't want to be caught in the library in town so he couldn't very well do research and besides... he was very busy with important things. Like getting his damn brother back, and fleecing unsuspecting tourists. Yes, very important things.
But there was a small part of his brain that whispered that maybe he just was afraid of what he might find if he went looking hard enough, and if someone else did the research then maybe he could avoid his own thoughts. So he'd paid Soos to go “print out a bunch of stuff on this transgender thing the kids wrote me about, I don't wanna fuck something this important up” and off Soos went, though the considering tilt of his head and sudden glint of understanding in his eyes was a little unnerving.
Now Stan flipped through the book Soos had so helpfully put together. He'd expected maybe a couple articles stapled together but Soos had put it all in a binder and even made notes on some of it. When Stan asked him why he'd gone through all the effort, he'd just shrugged and mumbled something about liking organized research in high school. Well, Stan appreciated it, even if he wasn't going to admit that too loudly.
He'd skimmed most of it the week before the kids arrived, but had only read the bits that seemed most relevant. Honestly a lot of it went right over his head, but he really had to try, he owed Dipper that. Tonight he was going to read one article at a time, pen in hand, and try to make sense of everything.
Stan got about two articles in before he put the notebook down with a strangled “Fuck” and a queasy feeling in the pit of his stomach. He swallowed hard and mechanically put everything away before wrapping his robe tightly around himself and making his way to bed. He looked straight ahead, avoided reflective surfaces, and finally had a word to put to his own stupid feelings.