Chapter Text
Stan Pines had no clue what he was doing. Of course, that was true of everything he had been doing for the last eight or so years, but when you repeatedly throw yourself into dangerous situations partially hoping you don’t make it out alive, you get pretty good at making it out alive. No, this was a whole new territory of stupid desicions, one that Stan had no experience in: children.
More specifically, the two children he had found, scared and crying behind a dumpster in some backwoods, middle of nowhere Mississippi town. Dipper and Mabel, they said their names were. They also said they were twins, which hit home in a way Stan didn’t particularly want to think about.
Now, Stan’s original plan had been to get a story out of the kids. Why they were on the streets, where their parents were, and the like. Afterwards, he would drop them at the first police station he saw (Hopefully doing so without getting himself arrested in the process) and be done with it.
Unfortunately, that was seeming not to be. The kids had latched themselves to him like a pair of barnacles, immediately trusting of him.
“I’m really sorry, kiddos,” Stan said. The three of them were sitting in the Stanleymobile, just a few blocks away from a local police station. “But I can’t take care of ya”
Mabel’s response was immediate “Then it’s a good thing we can take care of ourselves, right, Dip?” she playfully jabbed her brother with her elbow.
Dipper nodded “Yep.”
“You-you guys don’t wanna stick with me,” Stan tried “I’ve got no money-”
“That’s why pickpocketing was invented,” Dipper interrupted.
Stan blinked at the kid for a minute, then continued “No food-”
“Shoplifting!” Mabel added with a brace-filled grin.
Okay, these were some weird kids. Not just that they seemed fine with crime, but the fact they trusted him at all was significantly stranger than the alternative.
“-And there’s at least-” Stan paused to count on his fingers “-Like, four gangs that want me dead.” There was also Jimmy Snakes, who, though he might not want Stan dead, was certainly not somebody Stan wanted to encounter while in the company of two little kids.
“We’ll fight them!” Mabel said brightly.
“If worse comes to worse we can change your name and flee to Alaska,” Dipper added.
Okay, time for a new tactic. “How do you guys know I’m not, like, a kidnapper or something?”
“Kidnappers don’t ask questions like that,” Dipper said, clearly unimpressed with Stan’s attempts to get them to leave. Seriously, weren’t kids these days taught to avoid people like him?
“We just need a ride to Oregon,” Mabel said, giving Stan puppy-dog eyes “Please? I bet you wanna get out of here, too.”
Stan did, in fact, want to get out of here, but he wasn’t about to add kidnapping to his ever-growing criminal record. “How do I know you aren’t just trying to skip town on your parents?” he doubted it, but you can never be too careful.
The kids shared an indecipherable look. “Our parents live in California,” Dipper said, looking like he was trying not to look sad. Mabel just nodded sadly.
Well, this was certainly happening. Was he really going to do this? Yes. Stan sighed “Fine, you can stay.”
Both kids brightened immediately. “Yay!” Mabel cheered as she began climbing over the divider and into the front seat. “Shotgun!”
“Hey, no fair!” Dipper said, laughing. “I wanted shotgun!” he grabbed Mabel’s foot in a half-hearted attempt to stop her from getting to the front seat. Mabel kicked him off and landed next to Stan with a notably ungraceful plop.
She looked at Stan expectantly “Let’s go!”
Stan stuck the keys in the ignition, said his usual silent ‘please start’ prayer, and breathed an internal sigh of relief when the Stanleymobile to revved to life “Let’s go.”
Stan was not doing so good. (Even if you ignored the fact he hadn’t eaten anything in at least 48 hours.) His mind was a swirling mass of anxiety. (Or at least more so than usual) What was he thinking? He could barely take care of himself, much less two little kids. Children needed food, water, shelter, things Stan was barely providing for himself. Those kids would be better off somewhere else. But… what if they didn’t have somewhere else? The kids hadn’t said much about how they ended up out here. All they had were the clothes on their backs and their backpacks, not much different from Stan when he first ended up on the streets.
He really was doing this, wasn’t he?
“Hey Stan?”
Stan briefly glanced away from the road to see Mabel fiddling with the different buttons and knobs on the console. “How do you turn on the radio?”
Stan turned a knob and staticky country music began playing on the Stanleymobile’s mediocre-at-best speakers.
“Thanks!” Mabel beamed at him.
Stan let a tentative grin spread across his face. “‘Course, kiddo.”
The road to hell was paved with good intentions, or whatever.