Work Text:
“Grauntie Mabel!” Stanford shouts, but the screaming of sirens drowns him out as the men in black drag his great aunt to the police car. She fights them, because Grauntie Mabel would never go down without a fight, but she’s got one huge beefy dude on either side, and her thrashing doesn’t do much. One of the government guys shoves aside her many sparkly bangles to slap handcuffs on her wrists.
“Ford, honey, it’s okay,” Grauntie Mabel calls, voice calm even as she struggles. “I got this!”
“I don’t think the Power of Mabel is gonna fix this!” Ford insists. His heart is absolutely hammering in his chest, guilt churning in the pit of his stomach. Oh, he really shouldn’t have tried calling those government guys about his journal!
The journal in question feels like it weighs a million pounds where it’s tucked safely into his backpack. Ford watches Grauntie Mabel get crammed into the backseat of an unmarked government van and only has one thought: keep the journal, and his family, safe.
“You kids stay put,” one of the government guys orders. “I gotta have one of the guys bring the car around so we can take you to children’s services.”
“Fat chance!” Stanley yells. Five sweaty fingers lace between Ford’s shaking six, and Stan yanks him off in the direction of the woods. Ford stumbles but Stan doesn’t let up. He just drags his brother behind him, cackling the whole way.
“Are you insane?” Ford shouts, leaping over fallen logs and hoping very fervently that the government guys aren’t willing to shoot fleeing preteens.
“Probably!” Stanley says.
Finally, they get far enough into the woods that Ford can’t hear the sirens anymore. He’s panting, heaving huge breaths, and it takes him a second to realize that he’s hyperventilating from the panic, not just from the exertion of sprinting through the woods. His knees buckle and Ford ends up hunched over on the forest floor, leaf litter and rocks rough under his palms as he frantically scrambles for purchase.
“Whoa, Sixer, you okay?” Stanley asks. He kneels next to Ford and places a gentle hand on his shoulder.
“It’s my fault,” Ford forces out between breaths. “I called them. And now Grauntie Mabel is being detained, and those government guys are all over the Shack, and the government is searching for us, and it’s all my fault!”
“Eh, everyone makes mistakes,” Stan says with a shrug.
“Not like this! I just ruined our whole summer! What if Grauntie Mabel never gets released, and it’s all my fault for being so obsessed with this journal! Dad was right, I really am just a nosy freak.”
“Hey! Nobody gets to go sayin’ stuff like that about my brother! Not even my brother!” Stan lands a punch on Ford’s shoulder, but it’s not a hard one. “Besides, I totally have a plan. All we gotta do is go back into the Shack, and find the security tapes from this week. No way Grauntie Mabel was lying about restocking the gift shop!”
Ford looks up and wipes the tears from his eyes. Stanley’s jaw is set and determined, the look of forced optimism wearing thin on his face. Ford knows that look from report card day, or after boxing matches, or after a family dinner where their father decided to pick apart each of Stan’s flaws. He hates that look.
But right now that look has a plan, so Ford sighs and says, “Alright, so how do we do that?”
“Oh, you’re gonna love this,” Stan says, his grin becoming genuine. “You still got that grappling hook?”
Sneaking into the Shack is way easier than Ford thinks it probably should be, but he’s not gonna be the one to look the gift horse in the mouth. He sticks close behind Stanley as they creep down the halls, carefully avoiding the squeaky floorboards, peering around corners and darting past doorways. The guys from the government are mostly concentrated in the gift shop and the living room, so it’s not hard to make their way to Grauntie Mabel’s office without being seen.
The bright pink wallpaper is washed out by the light from Ford’s flashlight. The eyes of the animals on the motivational posters on the wall seem like they’re following him, and he shudders when he makes eye contact with a smiling yellow cat. Ever since that disastrous puppet show, the color yellow has sent a chill down his spine.
“Okay, if I was surveillance footage, where would I hide?” Stanley muses softly. He goes over to rifle through the drawers of Grauntie Mabel’s desk, pulling out sticker sheets and bottles of craft glue. “Nope, not here.”
“Maybe in the filing cabinet?” Ford suggests, heading over to check.
Stan gasps. “Wait! Look! The antelabbit!”
“The jackalope?” Ford corrects, but the argument dies on his lips when he sees the wires poking haphazardly out of the broken antler. “Stanley, you’re a genius!”
Stan practically glows under the praise. He reaches up to flip the antler back into place, and Ford feels his jaw hit the floor when a panel of pink wallpaper detaches. It swings open like a door to reveal an ancient boxy TV and dusty VCR. On top of the stack of tapes is one labeled from the past night.
“This is totally gonna clear Grauntie Mabel’s name!” Stanley says, and hits play. The screen flickers to life and Ford has to stifle a cheer when he sees Mabel puttering around the gift shop, sweeping the floor and counting down the register. She’s whistling cheerfully as she carefully arranges the glittery snowglobes and unicorn bobbleheads.
“Fast forward to when the government guys said that radioactive waste was stolen,” Ford says. Stan hits the button, and they watch closely, but their great aunt is nowhere to be seen. She’s gone for hours, the gift shop dark and empty, and Ford feels his stomach start to drop.
“Uh oh,” Stanley breathes.
He hits the fast forward button one more time, and Ford almost bites a hole in his lip when he sees the person on screen in the pink hazmat suit, carefully toting a barrel with the radiation symbol emblazoned clearly on the side.
“That’s gotta be someone else,” Stan insists.
The person in the suit drops the barrel. “Oh, unicorn fuzz!”
“That’s definitely Grauntie Mabel,” Ford murmurs, horror lancing through his chest.
“But what would Mabel need with radioactive waste? And–wait, what’s this box? That’s the pine tree from your journal!” Stan holds up a dusty shoebox from the bottom of the cupboard. Ford grabs for it, but Stan yanks it out of the way. “Nuh-uh! I found it, I get to open it!”
“I just wanted to compare the pine tree to the one on the journal!” Ford complains.
Stanley sticks his tongue out at Ford and opens the box. A cloud of dust puffs out, and Stan sneezes. He wipes his nose on his sleeve and starts pawing through the box. Ford leans over his shoulder to try and see what’s inside, but all he sees are yellowed papers and old polaroids.
“Wait, who’s this?” Stan asks, picking up a photograph. There’s a young woman in the picture who looks a lot like their mother, but she’s dressed in a bright green sweater and matching leg warmers, leaning against a jukebox and laughing at the camera from somewhere in the 80’s. There’s no one she could be other than Grauntie Mabel herself, bright and young and full of youth, smiling just as wide as she does now when Stanley and Stanford get into trouble.
The man next to her is a stranger. He’s an inch or so shorter than she is but with the same brown hair and same nose. In fact, the closer Ford looks, the more similar the two look. It’s almost as if they could be–
“Twins?” Stanley shouts. Ford shushes him frantically, but Stan just taps at the picture, not even lowering his voice when he says, “Grauntie Mabel has a twin? Since when?”
“Maybe he’s not a twin. She’d have told us about a twin! Right?” Ford asks. He takes one of the newspaper clippings and skims it quickly. It’s from the Gravity Falls Gossiper, dated from the fall of 1980. With a growing sense of dread, Ford starts to read. “The Gravity Falls annual craft fair has gone off without a hitch once again, as three-time winner Mabel Pines takes home another trophy for her outstanding yarnwork. Her twin brother Dr. Mason Pines has been awarded the second place trophy for a valiant attempt at oil painting.”
“Her twin brother? Mason Pines? We have a great uncle?” Stanley rips the paper from Ford’s slack grasp, his lips moving as he reads under his breath. When he’s done he practically throws the clipping to the floor, hands coming up to tug at his hair.
Ford grabs another newspaper clipping, this one from the summer of 1981. “Gravity Falls is having it’s hottest day of the year, but the town pool is doing great business. Local scientist Dr. Mason Pines has declared the pool water completely haunting-free for the first time in decades, and the town is showing their support by attending the annual pool opening ceremony in record numbers.”
Stanley makes a frustrated noise in the back of his throat. “But if we have a great uncle, why didn’t anyone tell us? Where is he? What happened to– Oh, no, Sixer, look at this one.”
“What’s it say?” Ford asks, taking the paper. He stares down at it without really comprehending, but numbly he begins to read. “Dr. Mason Pines declared missing? Gone without a trace? Foul play suspected? No comment from his twin sister, town darling Mabel Pines?”
“We had a great uncle who went missing, and now Grauntie Mabel is stealing radioactive waste? Am I dreaming?” Stan asks. He pinches himself, hard, and winces against the pain. Unfortunately neither of them wake up, and Ford sinks slowly to the ground, box of newspaper clippings forgotten. Information is piling up in his head, and he doesn’t like the conclusions he’s drawing, not one bit.
The rest of the box is more articles about the Pines Twins. They’re town heroes, apparently, battling gnomes and rescuing mermaids and studying lake monsters. Dr. Mason Pines is there on every page, arm slung around his sister, baseball cap perched jauntily on his head, his grin identical to that of a young Mabel.
Every clipping after 1982 is an update on his missing persons case, no leads, no suspects, just a cold trail and a sister who won’t say a word.
“Did Grauntie Mabel kill her brother?” Ford asks distantly.
“No! No way! She’s our grauntie, she wouldn’t kill anyone!” Stan protests.
“But how do we know?” Ford presses. “We didn’t even know she had a twin brother!”
“She loves us,” Stan says firmly.
Ford’s breath rattles out on a choked sob. “Does she? Does she really? She didn’t tell us any of this! Why wouldn’t she tell us any of this?”
“She had to have a good reason not to.” Stan fiddles with the box again, discarding newspaper clippings and old pictures and a few outdated drivers licenses for Mason Pines. There’s a grocery list in unfamiliar handwriting, presumably Mason’s, and a few postcards addressed to Grauntie Mabel. Underneath it all is a paper that makes Stan gasp and leap to his feet.
“What? What did you find?” Ford asks.
“The secret code to her hideout! And I totally know where it is!” Stan says. He grabs Ford’s hand and drags him down the hall. The government guys have all vanished, thankfully, because Stanley is not subtle as he leads Ford into the gift shop, shoes pounding on the floor, stepping on each and every squeaky board.
“The vending machine?” Ford asks. Stan shushes him and starts punching in numbers, the gentle beeping the only sound other than the pounding of Ford’s heart in his ears.
The vending machine swings open like a door, revealing a dimly lit staircase.
“Oh, cool!” Ford says. “Secret passageway!”
“Why does the Shack have to have so many secret rooms? That freaky body swap carpet room was bad enough,” Stan complains.
“You’re just mad because you kept stubbing my extra toes when our bodies were switched,” Ford says. He pulls out his flashlight and turns it on, shining the beam down the rickety staircase. The wallpaper is peeling and faded, but the stairs look sturdy enough, so he cautiously begins the journey down.
At the bottom of the staircase is an elevator. Stanley and Stanford share a look, shrug, and get in.
The elevator stops in a sub-basement. Ford steps out carefully, Stan close behind him, and his eyes widen at the machinery that lines the wall of the darkened hall. Everything is dusty and lots of it is rusted, but bright green indicator lights blink from the screens and bays of buttons. This stuff has clearly been messed with recently.
“What is all this?” Stanley asks.
“I don’t know,” Ford admits. He really doesn’t like not knowing.
At the end of the hall is a massive room. It’s like the Shack had been built directly atop a cave, which is being used to house the biggest piece of machinery Ford has ever seen. It’s triangular in shape and there are lights blinking along each side, bright and garish, flashing in an irregular pattern.
Ford’s stomach drops.
“That’s the portal from the journal,” he says. He slings his backpack to the floor and digs around until he comes up with the blue book with the silver pine tree embossed onto the cover. The page he’s looking for is toward the end, after the author starts to get a little rambly and paranoid and sleep deprived, so it’s easy to find.
“What, the scary doomsday machine your author warned you about?” Stan asks. He peers over Ford’s shoulder and starts to read, whispering the words under his breath, which normally doesn’t bother Ford at all, but right now he’s already overwhelmed and nervous and confused, so he just starts reading aloud.
“This machine should have never been built. I was tricked, and now, the entire world is in danger. It can never be activated, or there will be grave consequences. It’s a potential armageddon,” Ford reads. He glances up at the portal and frowns as all of the lights flash in unison.
Suddenly, Ford feels weightless. It’s like if, all at once, the entire concept of gravity stopped existing. He scrambles for something to hold onto as his feet lift off the ground, the ceiling rushing to meet him as he flails.
“Stanford!” Stanley yells, reaching out. Ford frantically grabs for his hand, tugging him close as they go careening across the room. Both of them are screaming, but they can’t be heard over the groaning whine of the portal as a white light begins to coalesce at its center.
“We have to turn that off!” Ford says, pointing.
“Yeah, I’ll get right on that!” Stanley yells back. He’s clinging to Ford with all four limbs, so when the gravity abruptly turns itself back on, he hits the floor with an oof. Ford lands roughly, but stays on his feet, so he’s able to go sprinting toward the control panel at the back of the room, journal in hand.
“Come help me!” he calls. Stanley picks himself up and hurries to join him as Ford runs a finger down the page, tracing the instructions for shutting down the portal, but it’s in one of the codes that Ford is still only half able to decipher. He rushes to hit buttons and turn keys and flip switches, hoping with every ounce of willpower he has that he’s doing it right, and that the portal won’t finish powering up before he’s done.
There’s a clang from the center of the room, and when Ford looks, he sees a bright red button in front of the portal.
“That’s gotta be the kill switch!” he says. “Hurry!”
“Wait!”
Both boys whip around to stare in the direction of the voice.Their Grauntie Mabel stands in the doorway, panting and leaning heavily on the doorframe. Her sweater is dirty and her hair is a mess of twigs and leaves, her fez missing completely. She takes a careful, slow step forward, hands up.
“Please, boys, let me explain,” she pleads.
“Explain what? That you kept your brother secret from us? That he disappeared mysteriously thirty years ago? That you have a huge doomsday portal in the basement? Start explaining, Grauntie Mabel!” Ford says. He steps backwards, toward the button.
“Stanford, please!” Mabel says. “I’ll explain everything, I promise, but you have to trust me! I wouldn’t have kept anything secret if it wasn’t to protect you!”
“Great job protecting us!” Stanley says hotly. “Now the freaky machine in the basement is gonna end the world, so you best start explaining!”
“I really, really need that portal to stay on,” Grauntie Mabel begs.
“Give me one good reason not to shut it down,” Ford says. He desperately wants there to be a good reason. He wants, more than anything, to believe that his great aunt would never purposefully keep such a big secret from them unless she had to. This summer was the first time Ford ever felt truly safe with an adult, and he doesn’t want that to be tainted by the thought that it was all a lie. It can’t have been a lie. Can it?
“I know I’ve made mistakes. I’m a selfish person sometimes, I know that, but I never wanted to bring you kids into this. This was my problem to fix. And I am going to fix it, I really am, but you gotta leave that portal on.”
There are tears welling up in Ford’s eyes when he says, “Please, Grauntie Mabel, tell me you didn’t kill your brother.”
“What?” Mabel looks genuinely shocked, the light from the portal throwing her face into deep contrast. “No! I would never have killed Dipper! I’m trying to save him!”
Ford’s about to ask what, exactly, she means by that, but the portal gives a terrifying, deafening shriek, and the whole world goes a blinding white. Gravity reverses itself and Ford goes tumbling through the air, eyes squinted shut tight against the light, blindly flailing for purchase against anything. His body collides with something soft and warm, and he grabs onto it without a second thought, a set of arms coming around him as Stanley hugs him back. Ford clings, trying to be brave, as everything around him comes apart.
And then he hits the cold concrete floor with a dull thud, landing half on top of his brother, who swears. Ford lays there and blinks at the ceiling for a second, noting the new cracks that have appeared.
“Oh, wow,” Stanley breathes.
Ford looks up.
And sees a figure walking out of the portal.
“Dipper!” Grauntie Mabel shrieks, and flings herself at the man, who grabs onto her and holds her close. He’s laughing, a booming, loud laugh, and Ford watches in awe as the man swings Mabel around in a circle like she doesn’t weigh anything. When he sets her back down, she jumps in place, like an excited child.
“I knew you could do it!” the man yells. “Mabel, you did it!”
“I did it! I did it!” she repeats, clapping.
“I’m so proud of you!” the man says. He grabs her for another tight hug. Grauntie Mabel buries her face into the man’s shoulder and her shoulders shake. The man pats her back and whispers something to her that Ford can’t hear over the sound of the portal powering down.
Mabel pulls back and scrubs at her eyes. “Oh! I almost forgot! There’s people you gotta meet!”
“But I just got back,” the man groans. “I don’t want to go talk to people right now! I want to, I dunno, get McDonald’s? Is McDonald’s still a thing? Or, ooh, I want to see what technology is like in this dimension now! Did Candy ever get those personal computers up and running? And how’s Grenda doing? And Pacifica?”
“I’ll call all of them later, I promise, but right now you have to meet our nephews!” Grauntie Mabel points to where Stan and Ford are still huddled on the floor. She’s grinning tearily, her hand clutching tightly at the trenchcoat the man is wearing. He’s still too shadowed by the light of the portal to make out much detail, but Ford is pretty sure his face goes slack and soft.
“Nephews? We have nephews?” he asks.
“Boys, come here!” Mabel calls. She flaps her hands and gestures for them to come over. Stanley and Ford share a skeptical look, but Ford can tell that Stan’s curiosity is eating him alive, so he shrugs and makes to stand. They cross the room together, shoulders touching, a united front.
“Twins?” the man asks.
“Twins! Stanley and Stanford!” Grauntie Mabel tells him, pointing at each boy.
“Yeesh, who named you?” says the man. He coughs when Mabel drives an elbow into his ribcage, and rubs an awkward hand on the back of his neck. “Er, sorry, it’s been a while since I was in this dimension and I kinda don’t remember social customs anymore. Anyway. I suppose I’m your uncle.”
“You’re our Great Uncle Mason?” Stanley asks, eyebrow raised.
“Ugh. Can I be your Grunkle Dipper instead? Nobody really calls me Mason except Toby Determined. Hey, is he still trying to get that newspaper off the ground?”
Mabel laughs. “Dipper, focus!”
“Sorry, sorry! It’s just, wow, big day for all of us, huh? Can’t believe I’m home! Hey, do kids still do handshakes?” He bends down and offers a hand. Stanley takes it and gives a firm shake, just the way their father taught them to, like a man. Grunkle Dipper beams at him and turns to Ford.
“Oh, Ford doesn’t really do handshakes,” Stanley starts, but Ford is determined to make a good impression, so he shoves his hand into Grunkle Dipper’s before he can second guess himself.
Dipper’s eyebrows shoot up. “Oh, wow! Polydactyly? And fully functional, too! I’ve never seen a case of complete postaxial polydactyly where the hands were so well formed! This is incredible!”
“Dipdop, you’re making him sweat,” Mabel points out. “He’s just a kid, not one of the creatures from your journal.”
“What? No!” Dipper looks horrified. He drops Ford’s hand immediately. Ford moves to shove his hands into his pockets, blush burning on his cheeks, but Dipper makes a panicked noise. “No! I’m so sorry, Stanford, I didn’t mean to treat you like something to study. I’m just interested in anomalies, is all, and your hands are absolutely fascinating. I wish my anomaly was as cool as your hands.”
“Your anomaly?” Ford asks quietly. He still wants to put his hands away, like his father always tells him to, but Dipper said they were fascinating, they were cool. Maybe his hands can be weird and still be something to be excited about. Especially if someone as cool as Grunkle Dipper says so.
“Yep! Check this out!” Grunkle Dipper reaches up and sweeps aside his bangs. Ford blinks in confusion at the weird tattoo on his forehead. Or, wait, it’s a birthmark! A perfect constellation is picked out in freckles on Grunkle Dipper’s forehead, the big dipper standing out in stark contrast to his skin. It’s perfectly to scale too, every star exactly where it should be, though the odds of that occurring naturally on a human body are astronomically small.
“That’s so cool!” Ford says. And… “Wait! Did she say your journals?”
“You’ve read my journals?” Dipper asks.
“Read them? We’ve lived them!” Stanley says excitedly. He pulls back his sleeve to show off the scar he’d gotten from the gnome fight earlier that summer. “Look at this! A gnome bit me!”
Grunkle Dipper laughs. “This kid is weird! I like him!”
“You’re the author of the journals!” Ford says. He has to resist the urge to flap his hands around in excitement, but then he remembers Grauntie Mabel doing just that, and lets himself wiggle his fingers, just a little. It feels nice.
“You know what? Why don’t we go upstairs, get rid of the government, and then we can all sit down and Dip can tell you all about the weird stuff we found in Gravity Falls before he fell into the portal?”
Dipper blinks. “Mabel, did you say government?”
“Maybe,” Grauntie Mabel hedges.
Grunkle Dipper groans. “Alright. Alright, that’s fine. I can handle that. I’m just glad you got me back.”
Ford thinks he’s glad, too.