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It isn’t uncommon for young boy’s to have scars. He’d had his fair share as a child, Stanley an even larger one, and it wasn’t uncommon for the other boy’s that’d grown up on glassshard beach to also be littered with them.
So when Ford noticed the marks on his nephews arms he didn’t think too much of it. He had a plethora of other, far more pressing matters taking up space in his mind. That fact didn’t abate the nagging in his gut, but again he forced himself to look at the facts, Dipper was a young man with a curious mind in the middle of the woods.
Yes, the teen had told him about a few of the anomalies he’d come across this summer, but he was almost certain his nephew would have mentioned one had taken a swipe at him when retelling the encounter. For all he knew it was a loose branch that’d marked up the insides of his nephew's arm and for the time being he refused to entertain the thought of the wounds stemming from something or somebody else.
He had work to do. Although he could use some help, normally he’d be firm in his resolve that Dipper helping him dismantle the rest of the broken down pieces of the portals was too dangerous, but another part of him was itching for another chance to look at his nephew’s arms and figure out just what had left him with alternatingly jagged yet straight and even scrapes, followed by clusters and clusters of rectangular jabs.
He wonders if the wounds had bled. With the way the tissue of the scars were a bubblegum pink he could only assume they were particularly deep, and something that had occurred that very summer.
Ford just couldn’t imagine what could do that type of damage. It isn’t possible that it hadn’t been a painful experience, and if it had been he could only hope it had been quick. Maybe it really had been a stray branch and potentially a rock that’d grazed his skin during a tumble.
He didn’t know why he was so intrigued, then again, the family he never knew he had brought up a lot of new feelings. Especially Dipper. The fact that he was this concerned over a wound that had already healed didn’t make any sense. But maybe it did.
Feelings weren't bound by logic, a fact he didn’t particularly like but was forced to accept nonetheless. He cared for Dipper, he cared for Mabel, it’s only logical their well-being would be important to him. More than, and in fixing the rift they would be safe.
These thought’s apparently brought his body up to the shack and into the main part of the living area, Dipper looking up excitedly from his book. Gawking up at him expectantly and with something that Ford quickly realized was the slightest bit of welcome confusion.
It’s understandable, he does spend the most of his time in the basement, but Dipper’s hopeful look that reads as a child who never gets what they want getting what they want forms a pit of guilt in his stomach.
“Dipper if you wouldn’t mind I require some hel-”
The boy’s shoots up from his seat before he can even finish his sentence, looking more than ready to buzz out of his skin.
“Yes, yes I’d love to,” Love, his grand nephew would love to help him. The side of his lip quirks into a gentle, touched smile as the boy saddles up to his side, looking up expectantly. Ford’s a little surprised the boy hasn’t just run to the vending machine himself, but he appreciates the company, even if it’s just for a few seconds.
The pre-teen had seen the basement before, but he’s just as taken aback then as he is now. It’s endearing really. Absently he pat’s the boy’s hat, feeling a little odd as he does it, but Dipper obviously appreciates the gesture if the smile and blush on his cheeks mean anything.
He’d known his nephew had been smart, gifted really, but now as the boy dethreaded wires and worked on sorting and disassembling, it was almost as if the child was on another plane of reality. One they both sat on, working with ease without even the passing of words.
Dipper simply knew what to do, almost as if he knew what Ford wanted before Ford even realized he did. Fiddleford hadn’t even worked with him as seamlessly as this boy did. Then again they were blood, and he wouldn’t toot his own horn, more than he already was at least, figured it was possible this was something that’d the boy had inherited from him.
The boy being a twin himself attended to that as well. It’s astounding really, so much so there is something a little, or not so little, that selfishly wants to do something with that talent. Prevent it from being squandered and tampered out by the disbelieving world. As much as his instinct roars that his gloriously brilliant nephew would be a thrilling and promising apprentice. He still wouldn’t ask.
There was still some hesitation but he was sure in time, if he managed to get Dipper on another adventure, one where he could see the boy’s prowess in person. He'd know for sure. Ford's also sure Dipper would be enthusiastic and likely insistent on accompanying him on another adventure if he brought the idea up, even idly.
Dipper’s body turns, picking up a heavier piece, his arms facing up as he deposited the fractured metal into the scrap pile. It’s probably the only chance he’ll get to ask about the peculiar amalgamation without it sounding misplaced.
“Dipper my boy, I have been wondering. What did happen to your arms to cause such unique scars?” The serenity of the moment is lost at those words. It is abundantly clear with just the way his nephews body tenses and his shoulders hike up that it wasn’t a simple tumble in the woods that’d marred him.
The child straightens up a second later, a weary smile lighting his face that is obviously only there to try to trick him. But the boy is still all too transparent.
“Oh it was really stupid,” he lies with the same stutter he got when excited, and Ford realizes he's made a miscalculation. The boy admires him, that much is clear, but they still don’t know one another well enough to lay out their sins and their deepest secrets.
Awkwardly the boy wraps his free hand around the fixed wounds, his eyes shifting, showing the cogs in his head turning. Ford doesn’t expect an answer now, he probably doesn’t even deserve one. But the boy gives, knowing his brush off was seen through and Ford nearly stops him but Dipper plows through.
“Do you know who Bill is?”
The name alone sends shivers down his spine, mind denying the putrid thought that the dream demon had returned and physically hurt his family. His body locks up and his affirmative is a growl, more weary than ever it seems the boy accepts the answer and continues albeit with less emotion now. As if a switch had flipped and he’d numbed himself to the horror. It is a disgustingly grotesque sign of trauma in a child that fuels Ford's want-need to eviscerate that maddening triangle.
“He possessed me for a bit, ended up using a fork on my arm. He threw me down the stairs a few times, I saw him do it but I didn’t feel anything I didn’t imagine from seeing it myself,”
The boy’s thumb runs over the sensitive pulled over and slightly dipped flesh, a shriek held in the bottom of his throat as he’s suddenly swamped in a tight embrace. One that pins his body to his grunkle’s, his arms stuck to his sides.
There is a tremor to the older man that Mason feels rather than sees, and no matter how deeply Dipper had ingrained “Trust No One,” into his very being, he trusts Ford. So deeply and much that he melts into the hug, even with threats at large and chaos still threatening to sink them, he finally feels safe.
“I’m so sorry Dipper,” the six fingered man’s voice is choked and it is more painful than the wounds healing process. It’s ironic that he feels more worn out now than when he’d been recovering from his rendezvous with Bill.
“It’s not your fault,” the words are easy on Dipper’s tongue, they always are. He cannot blame Ford for this, there is no reason to. It’s always been his own fault, he shook that flaming hand and he was stained because of it. There is no reason for his grunkle to apologize, even if it was his laptop he was trying to get into.
Considering the absent nearly invisible shake of the man’s head at the assurance Mason knows Stanford doesn’t believe it. Maybe they had even more in common than Dipper originally thought. The pre-teen had hoped they had some things in common, he never could have imagined they’d share some negative aspects as well. Even though his own denial wouldn’t always count them as negative.
This is the time his curiosity has peaked yet there is something so serene about this moment, not even his thirst for answers can make him break it. In time he’ll ask how his uncle knows Bill, and what had happened to garner such a fearful and heartfelt reaction. But for now the boy in content to be held by his biggest hero, his normally spinning earth coming to a halt.
He’d hug him back if the man let him lift his arms up.
He’s sure Mabel’s doing it absently as she doodles with marker over his skin, but the girl does not draw any fantastical pictures on top of the clusters and lines when she gets to them. Rather she runs the felt tip of her pen lightly over each imperfection, her magenta marker making the scars as prominent as fresh welts.
Mason can’t stand to watch her go about this process and turns his head. The two of them were lounging on the floor of their room, Stan having grounded them for reasons unknown. Their grunkles had been arguing endlessly the night before and no matter how badly Mabel had hoped it meant they were getting ice cream puppies, they weren’t.
Another few minutes passed as Dipper dully watched the winds bristle the leaves on the outside trees. Each pass of the marker over his skin bringing back the memories of watching the fork delve in.
His next tumble down the stairs only driving the metal deeper, after his possession had ended and him and Mabel were on the way back home, Stan had actually needed to take him to the hospital when he noticed the open wounds on his arm when he’d tried buckling him in.
The tetanus shot had stung, and Dipper still wonders how Stan was able to make out where the actual injuries were under the dried blood, lint from his suit and the sock puppets sticking to his arm.
Now as he watches leaves pick themselves free from their branches he sees his body tumbling down each broken and worn step. His arm burns where it is not already numb, but he can’t tell Mabel to stop. It gets harder and harder to tell her no, and it’s never been easy to begin with.
“I’m hungry dip-dop,” they were allowed to go around the house just not outside, but with the odd air permeating the shack they’d decided to sequester themselves to their room. Something Dipper was alright with, even if it meant forgoing food. Sometimes, more often than he cared to admit, he wanted to forgo food anyway, feeling weighted. But if Mabel was hungry and she was telling him with her voice this unsure. It wasn’t a question of would he go with her, it was would he get up and go get her some.
“Okay,” the pen retracts from his arm, and with a groan his aching limbs rise from the floor, and Dipper leaves their safe haven while Mabel continues with her doodles except this time on her own skin.
He is met by no one when he heads down the steps and into the kitchen, so Dipper is in a state of relative peace as he picks up his defiled hand to latch onto the fridge’s handle when a sharp gasp startles him.
“Dipper!” There’s a familiar swish in the air as his great uncle rushes to his side, his six fingered grasp firmly yet carefully latching onto his wrist so he could assess the damage of his drawn on appendage. Dipper folds down the pit in his chest at the genuine concoction of emotion in his uncle's blue eyes. Feeling almost debauched under his gaze.
It takes another second for the man to let go, stammering when he realizes that his nephew's arm isn’t bleeding and that he was simply signed with Mabel’s recognizable chicken scratch.
“My apologies Dipper,”
His concern warms the frozen feeling in the boy’s chest, “It’s alright, I should have told Mabel to draw with a blue pen,” going back to the task at hand, Dipper is all to aware as he puts together some nachos for his sister to eat that his uncle had taken a seat and was none too secretly observing his arm with restrained malice.
There are questions that still need to be asked, but Dipper’s too tired for an answer and his stomach is threatening to growl. He appreciates his grunkle’s concern, even when the wounds are far from fresh, but there are deeper scars in Dipper’s mind that need healing.
But they won’t, not as they are picked at over and over again. Reopened anew with every new revelation and every new development.
His family for the time being comes first, and that mean’s their wounds do as well. Mason knows the smartest course of action as Mabel eats nachos and doodles on his leg that it’s time to tackle their Grunkle’s instead.
The fate of the universe depended on it.