Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“…but when the summer’s over, you give me my house back, you give me my name back, and this Mystery Shack junk is over forever. You got it?”

Stan looked taken aback, which irritated Ford even further; honestly, what had he been expecting? That he’d be happy about coming home to find that his entire identity had been stolen and turned into a freak show? That was ridiculous even for Stanley. So it was better to get things straight with him now, and then once summer was over Ford could start getting his life back on track-

“No.”

It took Ford a moment to register what his brother had just said. He blinked for a taken-aback second, and stared owl-eyed at Stan, whose expression had turned from surprised and hurt into something far more stubborn.

“No?!” he finally spluttered.  “What do you mean no?!”

“It’s the opposite of yes. I thought you remembered that from English class, Stanford.” Stan’s calm, quiet tone only infuriated him further.

“You can’t tell me no ! I’m telling you that I need-”

“I heard you the first time. And I’m telling you that I’m not doing that.” His position shifted faintly, until he looked like he was bracing himself for another fight. “I’m not giving up my house or my job. Not ever again.”

“This is my house!” Ford snapped. “I have every legal right-”

“Who’s gonna believe you over me?”

Ford froze, and made a sound like a kind of strangled snarl in the back of his throat.

Stan just glared at him, not looking smug so much as…resolute. “Everyone in this town knows who I am, knows that this is my place. And they don’t know you from Adam. If things got legal, you wouldn’t stand a chance.”

“Then I’ll-”

“You’ll what?” Suddenly Stan was right in his face, forcing him to take a small step back. “Beat me up some more?  Shoot me?”  Even closer, until they were practically nose to nose.  “Go ahead.”

And then he pulled away and marched for the stairs, leaving Ford seething in fury and disbelief behind him.

Stan’s stomach twisted with an uncomfortable cocktail of rage, hurt and guilt.

Had he really just said all that?

Had he actually threatened to steal Ford’s identity again, but for real this time?

This was a mistake, he’d gone too far and he knew it, he should just turn back now and-

And what?

It was far, far too late to apologize. Besides, Ford had made it pretty clear what Stan’s desire to fix things was worth to him.

With a sinking heart he continued heading upstairs, to try and get away from the mess that was all that remained of his greatest achievement.

Chapter Text

On the bright side, Ford’s helpless rage was an excellent fuel source in helping him dismantle most of the portal that night, until he finally collapsed from exhaustion and fell asleep right there on the floor (frankly, not the most uncomfortable sleeping arrangement he’d had in the last thirty years).

The next time he opened his eyes, for a moment Ford couldn’t remember where he was.  Was he in another dungeon?  Or was he back in the Incredibly Uncomfortable Hard Surfaces Everywhere Dimension (not a very popular tourist spot, for obvious reasons)?

Then he saw the shattered portal a few feet away and thought he was dreaming again…before the events of yesterday came trickling back to him.

He was back in his own dimension, and technically he was home.

Except he couldn’t even call it that anymore.

With a groan Ford sat up and rubbed his face, before he got up and began pacing, in an effort to collect his thoughts and simultaneously work some of the stiffness out of his limbs.

The worst part about Stan’s defiance was that he was absolutely right.

If Ford really wanted to reclaim his house and put an end to this ridiculous tourist trap, then he would have to find someone who could verify his identity.

His parents?  They were somewhat dubious as a possibility, since Stan had been able to fool them for the last thirty years, but surely if he went to them and showed them the indisputable proof of his hands-

Then again, were his parents even still alive?

Ford felt a sudden, unexpected sinking feeling in his chest.

He immediately felt foolish for it; he was an old man now, so had he really expected them to be?  Considering they hadn't exactly been in the prime of youth when he left this dimension, the odds were not high.

Shermie, then?

Stan hadn’t indicated one way or another if he was alive…but if he was, surely he would have known better than to entrust his grandchildren with him, since he’d always been good at telling them apart even if they switched places for the day.

Besides, it would be better to find someone who knew for certain that Stanford had lived here once…

Eyes brightening, Ford headed upstairs to find a telephone.

Fortunately, he managed to find one without encountering anyone else (namely, Stanley).  It took him a moment to draw it from the depths of his memory, but he dialed a number, and then tugged the cord nervously between his fingers as he waited for it to finish ringing, wondering how best to address his old friend and possibly make up for the last time they’d seen each other.

After a couple of rings, a woman’s voice said, “Hello?”

Emma May?  It doesn’t sound quite like her voice…but then again, I haven’t heard it in years, I could have just forgotten…

“...May I speak to Fiddleford McGucket, please?”

There was a pause, and then the woman said, “I’m sorry, sir, I think you have the wrong number.”

The sinking feeling came again, with interest.  “Are you sure?”

“Yes, I’m sorry, there’s no one here with that name.”

“Oh.  I apologize.”  With an unhappy sigh he hung up, and buried a hand in his hair.

Perfect.  Just perfect-

“Great Uncle Ford?”

Ford spun around to see his great-nephew standing behind him, looking even more nervous and sweaty than the last time he saw him (yesterday evening, to be specific).  And, of course, as soon as he made eye contact with the boy his pupils dilated and he looked seconds away from throwing up (again); out of courtesy he directed his gaze towards the pine tree on his hat, ignoring the newest flash of déjà vu the symbol brought him, and said politely, “Can I help you, Dipper?”

Dipper made a muffled squeaking noise at the sound of his name, but then cleared his throat and said quickly, “Sorry, sorry!  I’m fine!  I just…who were you calling?”

…Well, it was doubtful that he’d be able to give him the information he needed, but sometimes a long shot was better than none at all, and besides, he did seem genuinely interested in helping.  Ford managed to smile, and said, “I’m trying to gather news of an old friend of mine.  Fiddleford McGucket?  I mentioned him yesterday in the basement.”

Whatever reaction he’d been expecting, it definitely wasn’t for Dipper to cringe, and suddenly become very interested in the floorboards.

Ford frowned, and knelt down to be on the boy’s level.  “Dipper?  Do you know something about him?”

“Me?”  His voice cracked.  “Uh-no, I just-um-you probably don’t wanna-nothing!”

His eyes were practically all pupils now, and Ford could see his pulse throbbing frantically in his skinny little neck.  Just in time he realized that he was about to make a break for it, and caught his shoulder (which caused another squeak to emanate from his larynx).

“Dipper.”  Ford kept his voice firm, but gentle.  “If you know something, please tell me.”

A fresh kernel of worry in his chest had him wondering if maybe he was dead too.  If the last thing they’d done was quarrel, and he would never have a chance to make amends.

“...Kinda, yeah,” Dipper admitted.  “He’s still around, but-”

“Excellent!  Where can I find him?”  The relief was slightly overwhelming, but Ford quickly got to his feet and turned for the door.

“He’s probably still in the dump, but-Great Uncle Ford!”

Too late; Ford was already striding off the porch towards the road into town.

A little part of him wondered if he should have asked Dipper for further clarification on Fiddleford’s current state, and if he knew why on earth he had chosen to stay in Gravity Falls after the portal incident, but he reasoned that he would figure it out when he got there.

For now, he was just happy to know that there was at least one person in the area (even if he was a little confused about why he hadn’t gone back home to his family) who could help him deal with this problem, so he could focus on the far more important one of dealing with Bill!

…Assuming, of course, that Fiddleford would have any desire to speak to him after what had happened.

But-well, Ford was more than willing to admit that he should have listened to him when he had the chance, and that he had been arrogant and foolish and inconsiderate, and that had to count for something, right?

Heh; Ford wondered if Fiddleford enjoyed frequenting the dump because it was the perfect place to scavenge for spare parts he could then use for his inventions.  He’d done that quite a few times in college whenever he needed to relax, just found the nearest area with discarded machinery and grabbed seemingly a random collection of parts, which he would then use to build the most creative-

As he reached the dump, Ford heard the achingly familiar sound of a banjo playing.

He pulled open the gate, slipped inside-

-and froze in his tracks when he saw the wizened old man having a hootenanny in the middle of the rubbish, next to an old hunk of tin that barely qualified as a house.

For a second he wanted to ask him if he’d seen Fiddleford McGucket around, because he’d heard that he sometimes came here.

He didn’t want to believe that the hunched, dirty, thick-bearded sack of bones held together with old overalls and filthy bandages sitting in front of him was all that remained of his friend, even if he was playing a very familiar banjo and had some kind of device sitting in front of him that was boiling and bubbling and flickering with strange green electricity in its wires.

But then he got a good look at his face through the unkempt facial hair, and there was just enough of his friend in there for him to recognize.

Ford’s boot knocked against a tin can lying on the ground as he took a hesitant step forward; Fiddleford immediately stopped playing and spun around with a start, lifting his banjo by the neck like a club, until his eyes met Ford’s.

His face relaxed into a delighted smile, and he waved to him happily.

“Howdy, feller!  C’mon in, Ah was jes’ cookin’ up some grub!”  He indicated the device in front of him, and picked up an old tin mug which he dipped into it; it came up filled with some kind of greasy red-brown liquid that was distinctly on the gloopy side.

Even though he’d learned to eat things that looked far more unappetizing out in the multiverse, Ford didn’t have enough of an appetite to accept.  Instead he stepped closer and asked hesitantly, “...Fiddleford?”

Fiddleford blinked, and squinted.  “...Yeah, how’d ya know that?”  He tilted his head to one side, and then fumbled in the front pocket of his overalls, withdrawing a pair of large green glasses that he slipped onto his nose.  “Do Ah know ya?”

“Yes.  It’s me, Stanford.  Stanford Pines.”  His heart dropped into his stomach as realization set in; it appeared that Fiddleford's use of the memory gun had spiraled more out of control than he'd realized.

“The feller what works at the devil hut over yonder?”

Just the mention of the so-called Mystery Shack made Ford’s fists clench, and it took him a moment to steady his tone at least a little.  “ No .  I’m-we used to be friends back in college.  Don’t you remember?”  After another second of hesitation, he lifted one of his hands so Fiddleford could get a good look at his fingers.

Fiddleford squinted at them, looking confused-and then he turned white.

“ When gravity falls an’ earth becomes sky -no!” he croaked hoarsely, backing away.  “No, I-I ain’t ready fer rememberin’ that-no, no, no git away !”

A second later he’d dived headfirst into one of the piles of rubbish.

“Fiddleford, wait!”  Ford tried to rush after him, only to narrowly avoid getting knocked senseless by a wrench that came flying out of the pile towards his head.

“GIT AWAY, GIT AWAY !” Fiddleford shrieked with increasing incoherence as he dug his way further into the dump; a boot, a broken golf club, and several pieces of dismantled car came flying towards Ford, a few of them actually landing successful blows, as his friend continued to scream.

…Ford took the hint, and made his exit.

Once he was actually outside the junkyard, Ford sank down on the curb and buried his head in his hands.

Not only did he not have someone to support him in his troubles with Stan, but it was entirely his own fault because he’d been too wrapped up in the portal to pay attention to his mental state, and therefore had allowed him to drive himself insane.

And the only other people he could think of who might possibly remember him were Boyish Dan Corduroy (but considering he had no qualms about allowing his daughter to work for Stanley, it was unlikely), or Preston Northwest (after a moment of thought, Ford decided that he wasn’t nearly that desperate yet).

Eventually Ford got up and trudged back to his former home, feeling even more alone.

Chapter Text

Ford didn’t know what he’d been expecting when he came home, but it was definitely not for Mabel to burst out the door, carrying a large mug in one tiny hand, and after setting it carefully down on the porch, to lunge at him and throw her arms around him.  He barely managed to stop himself from incapacitating her when he realized she wasn’t posing a threat.

“What-what the devil-” he managed to splutter.

“Dipper said you’d gone to see McGucket,” she said, looking up and leaning her chin against his sweater.  “We were still trying to figure out how to tell you.  I’m sorry you had to see him like that.”

To his surprise, Ford felt a small lump rising in his throat as he registered that he was being hugged, by someone attempting to comfort him, for the first time in…well, in a long time.  He swallowed hard, and gave his niece an awkward pat on the head before gently extricating himself.

Mabel looked a little disappointed that the hug hadn’t lasted longer, but she retrieved the mug and brought it over to him; a glance revealed that it was hot chocolate, with what appeared to be a generous helping of whipped cream decorated with… glitter , of all things, on top.

A moment later the door opened again, and Dipper stepped out after his sister.  “...Believe it or not, he’s doing a lot better than when we first got here.”  He shuffled nervously, rubbing the back of his neck with one hand. “...It might be because we finally helped him get his memories back.”

“After we fought the Society of the Blind Eye and utterly DEMOLISHED it!”

Ford did a long, slow blink.

“...You did what?”  Images of Fiddleford in a long red robe with a crossed-out eye symbol flitted across his thoughts, and he put two and two together.  For once.

Mabel beamed at him.  “You wanna hear about it?  It was a totally awesome adventure!”

And despite himself, Ford nodded and slowly sat down on the porch steps.

The story lasted for approximately twenty-two minutes (in part because Mabel felt the need to tell him about the several failed romances she’d been tempted to make herself forget with the memory gun; Ford felt a little concerned, both that she’d wanted to erase her own memories, and that she was possibly too young/emotionally immature to even be thinking about a serious relationship, but he refrained from saying this out loud).

To his unexpected pleasure Dipper overcame his tongue-tied awkwardness enough to assist in the storytelling, and as he warmed to the subject he expressed a delightful level of curiosity, intelligence and resourcefulness far beyond that of the typical loutish adolescents Ford had been forced to associate with in his youth.

Despite its unconventional sparkly ingredient the hot chocolate was surprisingly comforting to take the occasional sip from as he listened (not to mention it tasted far better than his nutrient pills), so by the time they finished telling the story the mug was empty, aside from a thin dribble of brown liquid at the bottom.

“Maybe he just needs time to remember you,” Mabel reassured him, patting his shoulder.

Ford winced as he remembered how this conversation had come about in the first place.  “...Perhaps.”

For a minute the three of them sat in silence, watching the pine trees; Ford faintly remembered that Dipper had written about several of their other adventures in Journal 3, and was just thinking that he ought to give them a better look than the cursory one he’d had last night, when the boy cleared his throat and asked awkwardly, “...Um, Great Uncle Ford?  If now’s a good time, I have about a million and one questions about-”

“Kids!”  The screen door opened and Stanley came striding out.  “Do you have the glue gun-”

He stopped short when he saw Ford, and practically began bristling all over, like an angry cat.  “...Thought you were hiding in the basement.”

Ford didn’t dignify that with a response.  He just levered himself to his feet in one fluid motion and shoved past him; he’d reminded him that he needed to get back to work dismantling the portal anyway.

“Nice talking to you too!” he heard Stan yell at his retreating back.

It was all he could do to just keep walking.

‘Nice talking to you too’?  Seriously?

…Yeah, pretty sure I wouldn’t wanna talk to a guy who stole my identity and won’t give it back either.

Stan’s shoulders drooped, and he had to fight back the urge to run after him and try to apologize, because that’s all he’d been trying to do for the last thirty years and look where it had gotten him.

He was done giving up for Ford, done giving in to Ford.

Done letting Ford control his life and getting nothing in return.

He turned and saw the way the kids were looking at him-somewhere between confused, upset and accusing-and shrugged awkwardly.

“...So, glue gun?”

“It’s next to my bed,” Mabel said softly.  “Grunkle Stan-”

“Thanks, pumpkin.”  And he hurried inside and headed for the stairs to get it so he could finish his latest weird, spectacular attraction.

This house had been his a lot longer than it had been Ford’s, and as bad as he felt about the whole identity thing, he had no intention of giving it up.

Sooner or later, Ford was gonna have to just accept that.

Three days later

“Mabel, would you please ask Stanley to pass the salt?” Ford asked in a far too sweet voice, while glaring daggers at Stan across the table.

The children sat between them, looking back and forth uncomfortably as soon as the first shot was fired; Dipper’s shoulders immediately started to hunch, and an unhappy frown rose up between Mabel’s eyebrows as her grip tightened around her fork.

Stan lowered the newspaper enough to glare back at Ford over it, and said before Mabel could even open her mouth, “Dipper, tell Ford that if he wants it so badly, he should just come and take it.”

“Tell Stanley that maybe I will, since legally it is my salt and I have every right to it.”

“Tell Ford that it was bought with my dough, not his, and I bought it long before he came here, which means it’s my salt-”

“THAT’S ENOUGH !!!!”

Everyone jumped about a foot in their chairs, and Stan stared in shock at Mabel, who had slammed her hands down on the table and was now standing on her chair, face flushed and breathing hard through her nose.

“What the heck , kid, you tryna give me a heart attack?!”

“Everyone!” she ordered, pointing to the doorway.  “Living room!  NOW !”

Chapter Text

Grunkle Stan claimed the big yellow armchair, of course, and Great Uncle Ford brought his chair from the kitchen and set it on the other side of the dinosaur skull coffee table.

They didn’t seem to realize that they were sitting in near-identical postures, with arms folded and jaws clenched as they stared at Mabel, who was standing in front of them with hands behind her back and a very unamused expression.

Soos and Dipper perched side by side on the skull, looking between the two old men uncomfortably, and Wendy leaned against the doorway, ready for the entertainment to start.  Dipper was a little surprised she hadn’t brought popcorn or something.

Finally Mabel produced a long stick from behind her back, and wielded it over her head like a sword.

“Do you see this?” she demanded.  “This is a talking stick.  It’s like a fun stick, except instead of poking other people with it, the person who’s holding it is the only one allowed to talk, without anyone interrupting, arguing with or insulting you.”

Dipper already had a sinking feeling that this was not going to work as well as she thought it would; Mabel, however, turned to Grunkle Stan and offered him the stick.

“Grunkle Stan, how about you go first?  Start with the words: I feel…”

After a moment he reluctantly accepted it, and said in a flat tone, “I feel like an idiot holding this stick.”

Mabel looked somewhere between disappointed and annoyed.  “But how do you feel about Great Uncle Ford?”

Grunkle Stan glanced at his brother, and shrugged.  “He’d look like an even bigger idiot holdin’ this stick.”

“That’s a matter of debate-” Great Uncle Ford started to snipe back, before Mabel swatted him.

“No interrupting!” she scolded, unmoved by the indignant look he gave her.  Then she turned and poked Grunkle Stan’s belly.  “And you, no insults.  This is supposed to be a healthy, hostility-free conversation.”

“He started it.”

Great Uncle Ford leaned over and snatched the stick from Grunkle Stan’s hand in one swift motion.  “Oh, yes, of course .  Of course it’s my fault that you’re being childish.”

“Hey, no fair taking the stick before he’s done talking!”

Mabel’s protest was ignored, as Grunkle Stan snatched the stick back.  “ You’re the one throwing a tantrum.  Who’s childish now?”

Great Uncle Ford grabbed the other end of the stick, leading to a brief tug-of-war, with Soos and Dipper trying desperately not to be squashed in the middle, before he managed to pull it back.  “I think I have every right to be angry that you are refusing to give me back my home or even my identity !”

Dipper blinked, and stared at Grunkle Stan in shock.  “You what?”

Grunkle Stan flinched, and shrank back into his own chair, eyes darting guiltily from Dipper to Mabel…before his hands tightened on the arms of the chair and his glare came running back.  “Well, excuse me for not wanting you ta take away my house and my job by shutting down the Mystery Shack!”

This time everyone gasped, especially Soos and Wendy.

“He what?!”

“Dude, you can’t do that!  This is like my home away from home!”

A muscle in Ford’s cheek twitched, and his anger eroded a little bit into what Dipper thought might be embarrassment.  “...I’m-I’m sure that you are both perfectly capable of finding more honest lines of work elsewhere.”  He lifted the talking stick.  “And let me remind all of you that I still hold this, so it’s still my turn to speak.”

Stan snatched the stick, and smashed it over his head.  “And now it’s my turn.”

…The negotiations broke down from there.

Despite Mabel’s best efforts to restore order and remind them that this was not promoting positive family values, soon enough both old men were on their feet, yelling at each other at the top of their lungs.

Dipper couldn’t even understand most of what they were shouting, but it was even more uncomfortable than all the passive aggressive growling they’d been doing at each other over the last three days.  It was way worse than his and Mabel’s worst squabbles…and he had no idea how to make it stop.

And then Wendy rolled up her sleeves and stepped forward.

Crack!

Their uncles staggered apart, rubbing their foreheads and groaning as they tried not to trip on the carpet.

When he recovered from his dazedness a little bit, Grunkle Stan glared at his cashier and growled, “You’re fired.”

Wendy was unrepentant.  “And you’re both being a-holes.”

Mabel gasped, and clamped her hands over her mouth; Dipper felt Soos clap his hands over his ears, and tried to shove him off.

“She didn’t even say the actual word!”

“Better safe than sorry, dude.”

The struggle finished in time for Dipper to hear Great Uncle Ford saying in annoyance, “Young lady, I don’t think you understand-”

“Oh, trust me, dude, I understand just fine.  You’d both rather waste your time on a stupid grudge instead of just sitting down and talking this out like adults.”  She folded her arms.  “And the fact that you need us -” she waved to indicate herself and the others- “to point that out to you is honestly kinda sad.”

“Yeah!” Mabel chimed in.  “You need to stop fighting and being jerks to each other and hug it out and apologize!”

She didn’t seem to notice the way Grunkle Stan’s hands had clenched into fists again, but Dipper did.  He didn’t think his grunkle would ever actually hurt any of them, especially not her, but he still got up and tried to pull her back.

Mabel shook him off and went on scolding.  “If nothing else, you gotta do it cuz you two fighting all the time is making everyone else miserable-!”

“THEN LEAVE!”

…He doesn’t mean that, right?

He’s just upset, he doesn’t really want us to-

Dipper felt his sister trembling, and a quick glance at her showed him that tears were rapidly forming in her eyes.

He could tell that Stan saw them too, since the fury slowly faded into discomfort…before he turned away and stomped towards his office.

“...Mabel…”  Dipper reached out to touch her shoulder, but before he could actually make contact, she fled for the stairs, sobbing, forcing him to chase after her.

He didn’t see Great Uncle Ford tug the lapels on his trench coat in irritation and head for the gift shop.

Or Soos and Wendy look at each other and nod, before each of them chasing after an old man.

Stan had almost reached the door of his office, when something grabbed his shoulder and forcibly spun him around to a sight he never thought he’d live to see: a visibly angry Soos.  The normally mild-mannered face was flushed, and his mouth and eyebrows drawn together tight and hard.

“Y’know, it’s one thing making tourist kids cry, but doin’ it to your own family really isn’t cool, dude.”

“Drop it, Soos.”  Stan tried to turn away, only to be pulled back again by his surprisingly strong grip.

“ No , Mr. Pines!  They didn’t do anything wrong, and you don’t get to make them feel bad!”

In any other situation, Stan might’ve been impressed to have Soos standing up to him like this.  Honestly, he kinda was through his anger.  But that was still his predominant emotion: anger.

Walking away from the intervention thingy felt too much like backing down, and he was angry about that.

Mabel was upset, and it was his fault, and he was angry about that.

He wasn’t any closer to figuring out the whole situation with Ford, and he was angry about that.

And if Soos didn’t let him go in his office and blow off some steam by filling out a couple dozen fraudulent tax forms or something, he wasn’t sure what he’d do.

But Soos showed no signs of letting him leave; instead he was giving him a long, unusually intense stare…before he set his jaw, stepped forward, fists clenching at his sides-

And threw his arms around Stan.

“Hey!  Get off!”

Stan reeled, arms waving like windmills as he tried to escape, or at least process what the heck his handyman thought he was doing.

Soos just tightened his hold, and then said softly against his shoulder, “...I’m sorry you’re hurting so badly, Mr. Pines.  I’m not gonna let you lash out at the kids over it, but I am here for you.”

Slowly, reluctantly, Stan felt his shoulders relaxing into the hold, especially as he processed the gentle sentence.

After a minute one of his arms lifted, and gave Soos an awkward pat on the back.

“...You’re a good kid, Soos.”

Before Ford could reach the vending machine, Dan Corduroy’s daughter-Andy?  No, Wendy-stepped into his path and leaned against it, arms folded.

“Nope.  You’ve spent enough time hiding in the basement.”

Ford bristled.  “I have important work to do.”  Which wasn’t exactly untrue, even if he had contained the rift and dismantled most of the portal, since he still needed to figure out what to do about Bill should he manifest himself in this dimension.

Wendy didn’t budge.  “It can wait.”

Ford had to remind himself that if he physically lifted her out of his path she might retaliate, and she seemed to have inherited her father’s strength, if not his build, and he wasn’t in the mood for a potential black eye.  “It’s been made clear to me that I am not welcome in my own home, so it hardly behooves me to stay up here.”

Wendy did not appear impressed.  “You know, that’s probably because of your charming personality.”

Like when she’d ‘complimented’ his turtleneck, he suspected that her words were not meant to be taken at face value.

Before he could point out, once again, that he didn’t exactly have a lot of reasons right now to be his usual genial self, she went on, “It might not physically kill you if you could stop attacking Stan every time you open your mouth around him.”

Of course she takes his side.  Maybe it’s because he pays her.

“I was willing to cooperate with the talking stick, Stanley is the one who chose to escalate.”  Of course, he’d had a brief slip-up at the beginning of the exercise, but that was because Stan had felt the need to insult him again; after Mabel reminded them of the rules he’d been perfectly in line with them.

“You didn’t have to retaliate, though.  That was on you.”

Ford scoffed.  “I am no longer in the habit of caving in to bullying.”

At that , some emotion finally came into her face as she barked out a harsh laugh, which slowly faded into a glare.  “Sorry, it’s just that’s kinda funny coming from you , since you wanna throw him out in the street just like your piece of garbage dad.”

“I said no such thing!” Ford spluttered.

“You might as well have!”

After a moment of letting that sink in, Wendy took a deep breath and sighed.  “Look.  I know your situation’s really messed up.  And you’ve probably gone through some pretty heavy junk out in the multiverse, and you wanna be home again.  But I think the reason why Stan’s acting up so much, is cuz this is his home too.  If you take it away, he’s got nowhere else to go.”  She glared again.  “He might also be mad about you wanting to take away our jobs, because I’m sure as heck still mad about that.”

“...But it’s my house.”  Ford hated the note of pleading that entered his tone, and hoped fervently that he didn’t sound as much like a six-year-old whining over a toy as it felt like he did.  “ He doesn’t have to leave, but-but I want my identity back!”

She gave a small ‘can’t really argue with that’ kind of nod and shrug, before saying, “Then you gotta talk to him, not me.”

“He’s not listening to me!”

“That’s because you can’t even have breakfast without getting in a fight over salt.”

Ford gave a small, frustrated growl.

“Just think about it, man.”  She finally moved away from the vending machine.  “I’m gonna check on the kids.”

Once she was gone, Ford dialed the combination, and stomped down the stairs.

Chapter Text

An hour or so later, though, Ford’s sulk important work was interrupted by the sound of the elevator, and then the clomping of feet.

He turned to see the hairless gopher handyman-Soos, his name was Soos-step through the doorway, holding a large plate.

“Uh, hey, Other Mr. Pines!” he greeted him, smiling hesitantly.  “I, um, was just wondering if you’d like a cookie shaped like a dinosaur?”  He held out the plate for Ford’s inspection, allowing him to see that it did indeed contain cookies, which were indeed shaped like dinosaurs.  “They’re my abuelita’s special recipe for helping with sadness.”

“I’m not sad,” Ford retorted, even as he stepped forward to take a cookie for courtesy’s sake.

Soos tilted his head.  “Really?  Cuz your eyebrows are totally doing the same thing Mr. Pines’s do when he’s sad.”  He began scrunching his own eyebrows together, presumably in an imitation of Stanley’s.

Ford’s hand leaped up to cover his eyebrows…and after a moment of embarrassingly awkward silence, he decided to invest himself in tasting his new cookie.

Based on the colored frosting decorating the outside, he’d expected it to be an ordinary sugar cookie, but to his surprise, instead it tasted of ginger, nutmeg and cinnamon, and-were those almonds mixed in?  They provided a pleasantly crunchy texture that he hadn’t been expecting.

He swallowed the bite when he finished chewing.

“Ahem.  These are…very interesting cookies.”  Then, realizing that might not sound entirely complimentary, he added, “Well done.”

Soos beamed at him, in a way that reminded Ford of Mabel.  “Gee, thanks, Other Mr. Pines!”

Ford took another bite of the cookie.  Then he asked, feeling like Soos deserved some sort of payment for his kindness, “...Is there something I can do for you in return?”

The gopher man frowned in thought for a moment…and then brightened.  “Could you make a laser cannon that shoots disco-style lasers?”

The randomness of the request was…unexpected, to put it mildly.  “...What on earth for?”

“For parties and stuff, dude!  It’d be totally rad -whoa!”  He’d lifted his arms to do a dramatic gesture in accompaniment with the word ‘rad,’ and nearly sent the rest of the cookies flying before he caught the plate, and then set it down on the table.

Ford…was honestly at a loss for a response.

“Just think about it, yeah?”  Soos made a finger gun gesture at him, which seemed to be meant out of friendliness, and then smacked into the doorway as he left.

Despite himself, Ford smiled out of amusement at the handyman’s antics- and maybe just a little because he was touched by the open friendliness, which was comforting after the morning’s disaster.

As he went back to work, he continued munching the cookie, and when he finished it he took another one from the plate.

Stan had eventually been herded by Soos back into the living room, where his handyman settled him in his chair with a soft blanket, a big bowl of ice cream, and the remote (which he may or may not have used to search for The Duchess Approves before settling on some mindless violence), while Soos baked some cookies shaped like dinosaurs in the kitchen as an extra treat.

For a while he lost himself in glorious hedonism…until Wendy came thumping down the stairs from the attic.

“...The kids okay?” Stan asked as she reached the ground floor.

She gave him a flat stare.  “Aside from being stressed out and upset cuz their uncles keep fighting and one of them told them to leave if they didn’t like it?  Oh, they’re just peachy.”

…Yeah, pretty sure I deserve that.

“I told them you probably didn’t mean it, though, and that if you did I was gonna kick your butt until you took it back.”

“You don’t haveta do that, kid.”

A tiny bit of tension-or disappointment, knowing her it could go either way-went out of her shoulders.  “Good.  But they probably still wanna hear it from you.”

“I know.”

Maybe it was cowardly of him, but Stan finished his ice cream first.

He even took the dishes to the kitchen and washed them.

Then he grabbed a plate of Soos’s freshly baked dinosaur cookies, and headed up to the attic, where for once he bothered to knock, before opening the door without actually waiting for an invitation to come in.

The kids were curled up together on Dipper’s bed, wrapped in a blanket and clearly snuggling for comfort, with Waddles resting his head in Mabel’s lap.

Stan’s heart clenched when he saw how they both flinched when they saw it was him-and even more when he noticed the edge of Mabel’s suitcase poking out from under her bed.

“Kids…I got something I wanna say to the two o’ you.”

There was only one way he could think of that might adequately express to Mabel how sorry he was about lashing out at her in a way that she’d understand.

Shutting the door just in case, he set aside the cookies, and after a moment of shuffling awkwardly he began to sing.

“ I’m Stan, and I was wrong

I’m singing the Stan Wrong Song… ”

He even did the kicks, ignoring how his joints groaned in protest.

When it was over, he hesitantly looked at the kids to gauge their reaction.

They looked at him, then at each other…and then Dipper slowly produced his video camera from under the blanket, grinning.

“That was probably your best take yet.”

“Oh come on!”  Stan stomped forward, trying to snatch the camera; immediately Mabel leaped at him to protect her brother, and before long all three of them wound up on the floor in a pile of laughter.

“I really am sorry,” Stan finally admitted when they’d calmed down a little.  The phrase felt foreign, and burned almost as much as ‘please’ did, but not enough to make him want to take it back.  “I don’t want either of you leaving, I was just being dumb.”

“Thanks, Grunkle Stan.”  Mabel snuggled into the crook of his arm and munched a cookie.  “But you know what would really, really, really help me feel better?”

Stan rubbed his chin.  “...A batch of Stan-cakes covered in syrup with glitter in it?”

“Besides that.”  She sat up and looked down at him with wide puppy eyes.  “It would feel great if you’d talk things out with Great Uncle Ford-”

His ebullience dropped away immediately.  “Not gonna happen.”

Seeing the disappointment in her eyes-in both kids’ eyes-hurt.

“Why not?!” Mabel demanded.  “Don’t you wanna be brothers again?  After all your hard work getting him back?  Then you wouldn’t have to fight over the house, and I could make you ‘Best Brother Ever’ sweaters, and we could all watch Ducktective and fight monsters together and stuff!”

Stan sighed, and sat up too, running his fingers through his hair.

“...It doesn’t matter what I want, Mabel,” he muttered.  “Cuz it takes two to wanna fix a relationship, and Ford…”

He didn’t mean to say it, but it came slipping out in a hollow, tired whisper anyway, just like when he’d had to wear those stupid truth teeth.

“...Ford couldn’t care less if I’m alive or dead.”

“...Grunkle Stan, don’t say that.  Don’t you say that!” Mabel scolded in shock, shaking a tiny finger at him.  “Great Uncle Ford loves you!”

“Yeah?  Prove it.  Give me one scrap of evidence he’s shown ever since he got back.”  Much to his own disgust, a tiny flicker of hope welled up that she would be able to give him something through the Power of Mabel or whatever.

Mabel stammered, and then frowned in thought.

“Um-well, he-he hasn’t tried to-when he needed-Dipper, back me up here!”

Dipper looked the way Stan felt regarding Mabel’s optimism, but he gave a similar stammer to his sister’s before muttering, “...Maybe he’s just really bad at showing it.”

Stan shook his head and sighed again, as the flicker faded.  “Yeah.  Didn’t think so.”

Outside the doorway, a floorboard creaked.

But the Pines family was used to the house making strange random noises, and didn’t notice.

Chapter Text

The next day, the Mystery Shack returned to a more or less peaceful status.

This was because Ford stayed in the basement, and everyone else stayed upstairs, and never the twain did meet.

Once, or maybe twice-okay, okay, every spare opportunity they got, Dipper and Mabel went to visit Ford, hoping to get to know him better and learn more about his adventures in the multiverse (and maybe persuade him to take the first step in making amends with Grunkle Stan, since Stan was so tired of being rebuffed every time he tried and maybe it’d work better if they went to the other side)…but every time he was busy working on dismantling the portal, or doing top secret research that he couldn’t be pulled away from at the moment so please don’t disturb him.

Then, late in the afternoon, they went downstairs to find that the door into the main part of the lab was locked, and no amount of knocking or calling out was enough to make him answer them.

Dipper was crushed.

Not just because he was as tired of all the fighting and tension as everyone else…but also because he’d really hoped that when he finally met the Author of the journals, it would be someone he could connect with on a different level than everyone else, and talk to about all their respective discoveries and the weirdness of Gravity Falls.  Finding out that he was not only still alive, but an actual relative, had just strengthened his excitement and interest…only for him to show little to no interest in even talking to him or his sister beyond that brief moment the day after his arrival.  And he’d taken his journal back soon after he returned, so Dipper didn’t even have that anymore.

Despondently he ignored Mabel’s attempt to cheer him up by reminding him about the new season of Ducktective , or even that she was coming up with a new plan to bring their grunkles together and help them talk without fighting, and went up to the roof to mope.

Unbeknownst to him, out in the forest Ford was doing more or less the same thing.

He’d left earlier in the day, after locking up his lab and fixing some sandwiches and a thermos of coffee, and just let himself wander the familiarly unfamiliar woods in the hopes that it would help him come up with a solution to the problem whose seriousness he had been greatly underestimating.

Not Bill; he had a decently good idea of how big of a problem the little monster would be if he was unable to find a more permanent method of containing the rift.

The other problem, the one whose seriousness he hadn’t realized the extent of until last night.

It was one thing to be able to rationalize that “Stan brought this on himself,” or “he’ll be fine,” or “I’m just taking back what’s rightfully mine, if he’s upset about it he’s just not accepting that it’s his own fault.”

It was harder when everyone else seemed to think he was a monster for it.

Or when he’d had to hear Stan’s thoughts about him, about what he thought he felt.

(He didn’t want to think about it too hard, but they also put a rather horrifying spin on when Stan had refused to relinquish the house, and had basically dared him to kill him-except he hadn’t meant it like that , had he?

…Had he?)

It wasn’t true, though.

Ford was sure that it wasn’t true, that it couldn’t be true, because just the thought of Stan being dead created a hollow aching sensation in his chest that he hadn’t even realized he was still capable of.

The problem, however, was how to convince Stan of that.

Words probably weren’t good enough, since Stan didn’t seem interested in listening to anything he said, and even less interested in believing it.

Logically that meant he should try to think of actions that would express his feelings instead, but what could possibly be good enough?

He walked and pondered, walked and pondered…but by evening he had still failed to come up with an answer.

And to add insult to injury, he was out of coffee and down to one sandwich.

Ford thought about eating it…but then it occurred to him that there might be someone who would appreciate it more (and possibly it could make progress as a peace offering?).

After some hesitation, he headed back towards town, and the junkyard.

There was no sign of Fiddleford when he climbed through the gap in the fence, but he could hear something large rummaging around in a heap of rubbish.

Nervously Ford walked up to it and cleared his throat.

“...McGucket?  Is that you?”

The rustling noises stopped, and Ford’s ears picked up the sound of a small, nervous squeak.

Carefully he reached into his coat, and pulled out the sandwich, which he held aloft.  “I have food.”  He looked at the sandwich, trying to remember if Fiddleford had any food allergies or special dietary preferences.  “It’s not baked beans, sorry, but…I like to think roast beef’s nothing to sneeze at?”

After a long second a cluster of old tin cans and a rusty tractor hood were pushed aside, and Fiddleford’s head and shoulders hesitantly rose into view, with a bunch of wires clenched in one bony fist.  He peered at Ford suspiciously through his glasses, and then at the sandwich.

Hesitantly he crawled onto the cab of the rusty old car in front of him, sitting up on his haunches like a squirrel (the way he held his hands curled up at his chest only adding to the mental image), and craned his neck, sniffing.  Ford thought about stepping closer, or saying something else, but didn’t want to risk scaring him off.

At last Fiddleford smacked his lips, and a second later he had snatched the sandwich from Ford’s hand and crammed half of it into his mouth in one bite, barely taking the time to chew and swallow before devouring the rest of it.

It wasn’t his table manners that turned Ford’s stomach, so much as the fact that his kind, brilliant friend had been reduced to this…and he hadn’t done enough to stop it.

As Fiddleford finished and licked his fingers clean, Ford asked, “...So, um…do you need more?  I don’t have anything else with me, but…maybe I could bring you some?”  Unconsciously his hand rose up to rub the back of his neck.  “Or…even just some shoes?”

Fiddleford harrumphed and shuffled back an inch.  “Don’t need no foot prisons.”

“Okay, okay, that’s fine.  I was just wondering.”  Think of a more comfortable topic think of a more comfortable topic think of a more comfortable topic- “...The children tell me you’ve built quite a few robots.”  Ford tried to smile, but it felt more like a grimace.  “Are any of them as good as the thesaurus bot?”  It had been his most impressive creation their sophomore year, as well as the thing that nearly got Fiddleford expelled if it hadn’t been for some fast talking on his part and the part of his extremely proud (if more than a little eccentric) robotics professor.

Fiddleford blinked…and then snorted out a surprised laugh as his eyes lit up in a painfully familiar way.  “...Heh.  Ah don’t wanna brag, but lotta them are even better .”

The smile became more genuine.  “Is that right?”

“Indeedy-do.  Ya wanna take a gander at what I’m workin’ on right now?”

Ford was taken aback…but it was better than him screaming and throwing things, so he just nodded.  “You have my undivided attention.”

Fiddleford whooped, as he slung the wires over his shoulder and snatched up some pieces of what looked like the car’s dashboard; then he scampered off towards the old hut in the center of the dump and ducked under the ragged blanket that served as the door.

A second later his hand reappeared and waved to Ford.  “C’mon in!”

Cautiously Ford approached the hut, and stepped inside.

When he saw the dilapidated conditions his friend was living in, with dead possums and dented pots and pans hanging from the ceiling, broken electronics in every corner, and a raccoon curled up on a pile of rags that clearly constituted his bed…it was yet another reminder of how big a part Ford had had in completely ruining his life.

Fiddleford appeared oblivious to his sudden turmoil, as he bounded through the mess and lifted an object lying on the table.  When he turned around, Ford saw that it was a massive hand, big enough to trap him if it wanted to and with long, jagged metal claws.

He shook himself out of his despondency enough to smile weakly.  “...Very well done.”

“Aw hush, this is jes’ the tip o’ the iceberg!  Ah still gotta make the head, the tail, the whole dang thing!”  Fiddleford produced one of the wires he’d found, and began attaching it to the circuitry already inside the hand; it spasmed, nearly snapping on the end of his nose, before relaxing again.  “Problem is figgerin’ out how Ah can use it ta get Tate’s attention, cuz the kidlets asked me not ta do massive property damage no more.”  His tinkering slowed, and he gave a thoughtful frown to the device.  “...An’ in retrospect, doin’ it in the furs’ place wasn’t quite right o’ me.”  For a moment his shoulders slumped, before he shook his head and went back to work.

“...Yes, well, it’s not nearly as heinous a crime as inviting an omnicidal maniac into our world by building him a portal, ignoring your friend’s repeated requests that you not do so.”

Ford hadn’t planned on saying the words, but once they actually left his mouth, it was too late to take them back.  Besides, it seemed better to rip the bandage off.

Fiddleford’s hand slipped, and he made another startled squeaking noise, looking up at him with wide eyes.  For a moment it looked like he was going to start shrieking again, so Ford quickly backed up, giving him space if he really needed to flee, even though he hoped he wouldn’t before he got the rest of this out.  When he didn’t run, Ford screwed up his courage and resumed speaking.

“...I know it’s thirty years too late, but I am so, so sorry, Fiddleford.  I was a fool for not listening to you, and for not trying to help you handle your trauma better.  A stupid, arrogant fool who I wouldn’t blame you for hating and never wanting to see again.”

He was mortified to feel tightness rising in his throat, and closed his eyes in an attempt to preserve whatever dignity he still had.

Silence dragged by for a minute, then two.

Ford was just beginning to think that this was all a mistake and he should have just left Fiddleford in peace, when he felt a hand on his elbow.

He opened his eyes, and saw Fiddleford smiling gently up at him, eyes clear and understanding but not terrified or repulsed.  He gave his elbow a soft pat, and then said, “...Thank ya kindly, Stanford.  Ah needed ta hear that.”  Then he held up the robot claw in his free hand.  “Ya wanna help me get started buildin’ the rest o’ this?  Sounds like you’re a man with a lot on his mind, an’ Ah find workin’ while Ah talk helps.”

Ford sniffled, and rubbed his face.  “That sounds perfect.”

Chapter Text

“...so that’s basically the long and the short of it.  I just…don’t know how to fix this.  Because I wasn’t-I didn’t think that Stan wouldn’t-and it’s not like I want him gone , not really , I just-assumed he would-I don’t know.  Be all right.  Because he always is.  Or…at least he’s supposed to be.”  Ford sighed, and untangled another wire.  “And if I’m going to be back in my own dimension, in my own house , it doesn’t seem fair to not even be able to use my own name anymore…but I don’t want to leave him homeless either.  I like to think I’m not that heartless.”

“...Sounds like you’ve gotten yerself in a big puddle o’ donkey spittle.”

“You still have the most eloquent way of putting things.”

Fiddleford snorted as he pulled his welding helmet back down and reignited the blowtorch.

He had already assembled the robot’s head and torso by reshaping and welding together any metal parts that seemed right-this mostly consisted of car hoods, as best Ford could tell.  Fiddleford had also partially attached a massive arm to the right side of the body, and was currently trying to decide whether to give his creation actual legs or just use the cannibalized treads from an old caterpillar tractor.  As they worked on attaching the head, they debated the pros and cons of the two options, and eventually decided on the compromise of putting the treads on the bottoms of its feet, so it would be as if the robot was wearing roller skates.

And as he helped assemble the biomechanical brainwave generator, oblivious to the shadows of sunset steadily creeping around them, Ford told Fiddleford about his troubles with Stanley.

Fiddleford hummed thoughtfully as he pulled back to inspect the newly completed kneecap.  “Mebbe what ya gotta ask yerself is, are ya willin’ ta meet him halfway?”

“...Halfway?”

“E-yup.  Figger out a middle ground that’ll make the both o’ ya happy.”

“Yes, I know what meeting someone halfway means,” Ford muttered, somewhat waspishly.

“Coulda fooled me.”  Even covered by the welding mask, Ford could tell that Fiddleford was smirking.

He just rolled his eyes at him and began untangling a handful of wires that had all snagged onto and wrapped around each other until they looked like a mass of writhing snakes.

When he’d managed to regather his thoughts and started connecting the wires to the circuit board inside the robot’s skull, he went on, “I don’t even know where to start, though.  Because he believes that I don’t actually care about him, and…”

And I didn’t realize I do, or how much it would hurt for him to think I don’t, until I heard him say it.

“...and I’m not sure how to prove him wrong.”

“Wheel, a good start might be ta not treat him like somethin’ the cat dragged in whenever you’re in company.”

Ford sighed, even as he flinched guiltily.  “Yes, Boyish Dan’s daughter suggested a similar strategy.  But even that doesn’t feel like…enough.  Not after everything we’ve-ouch!”  He pulled back with a curse when one of the wires sparked briefly; the last thing he needed right now was to get electrocuted.

“Careful with the morality circuits, they git a tad fritzified when it’s this hot and make the robot start actin’ up.”  Fiddleford finally removed the welding helmet and began rummaging around in a nearby pile of junk.  “Now, where’d I put that coolant?”

“I suppose the best idea I can think of,” Ford mused aloud, “is for me to prove I do care by…rescuing him.”

The way he always rescued me.  The way he spent thirty years working to rescue me even though he shouldn’t have .

“Heh.  Come to think of it, it would be perfect if this robot unexpectedly came to life and attacked him or something.”

Ford laughed to himself as he connected the final two wires-

-and the robot’s eyes opened.

Inside the gargantuan brain, artificial synapses sparked with fresh new information that had been gathered via its audio receptors over the last hour or so.

While it didn’t fully understand the reasons for its newly-established purpose, or how it could do so when it felt so incomplete, it had picked up enough to understand the most important fact:

“DIRECTIVE CONFIRMED: FIND AND ATTACK STAN PINES.”

“Wait, what?”

With a loud rumble and whir of gears coming to life and jolts of electricity coursing through its artificial veins, the robot levered itself up onto its giant arms.  Oblivious to the way the wires hanging out of the bottom of its torso began sparking in protest at their not being connected to anything, or the cries of alarm from the tiny pale figures even farther down, a tiny antenna in the top of its head lit up and began searching for signals in the surrounding area.  The brainwave generator looked through them at rapid-fire pace for all available information on Stan Pines, and soon enough narrowed down his location.

With a glint in its massive eyes that could almost be viewed as determined, the robot began lumbering towards the chain link fence ahead of it.

A swipe from one clawed hand quickly reduced it to shreds of metal, and without even pausing it continued following the signal in the direction of the residence colloquially known as the Mystery Shack.

Chapter Text

Apparently Ford was hiding in the basement again.

Stan told himself that was better than having him marching around the house like he owned-like a grumpy owl, glaring at all the attractions and the gift shop like they had personally offended him.

Better than getting in another argument with him, and upsetting the kids again.

He just focused on his same old routine of the last thirty years: charm and trick the tourists, sell the phony merchandise, smile and laugh, everything’s fine, nothing to see here, just an old con man trying to make a living in this crazy messed-up world of ours, with no dark secrets in the basement whatsoever.

The kids were still unhappy, though.

Dipper spent most of the afternoon moping on the roof, and Mabel had dug out her leftover craft supplies from that weird play thing and disappeared to the attic with a look that said she had some new trick up her sleeve.  Stan didn’t have the heart to tell her not to hold her breath, or to tell Dipper to quit hiding and get back to work; he just told Soos to make sure Wendy didn’t slack off too much and handled the rest of the usual chores himself, ignoring Wendy’s slightly accusing look as she glanced up from her phone.

He definitely wasn’t worried when dinnertime came and there was still no sign of Ford.

It was honestly kinda nice, because it meant the jerk wasn’t sitting and glaring at him all through the meal like he usually was.

It was just him and the kids, almost like it had been at the beginning of the summer.

Really like the beginning of the summer, because Dipper was moodily picking at his food and Mabel, while she was trying to be her usual talkative self, kept turning uncomfortable glances at the kitchen door like she was waiting for someone.

After about the sixth time Stan said aloud, “...He’s fine, pumpkin.  He’s probably just working on a project or something.”

Cuz when it comes down to it, that’s all he really cares about.  His projects and his reputation and always being the smartest effing person in the room-

RrrrrrRRRRUMBLE!!!!

Now what?!

For a moment Stan wondered if Ford had started up the portal again-if he had he was going to kill him-until he realized that they weren’t levitating.  And yeah, there was a kinda pulse to the shaking and rumbling that was making them all bounce up and down in their chairs, but it was different from the portal’s, almost like-

Stan glanced out the window, and saw the giant metal monstrosity lurching erratically towards the house.

“...You gotta be kidding me.”

It had to be another of McGucket’s thingamajigs; no one else in town had that kinda skill, or was that crazy.  Stan wondered idly if it was another one that had gone rogue, or if the old wacko was piloting it himself.  Either way, he didn’t know why it’d be coming here, since he usually avoided the Mystery Shack like the plague (which apparently was yet another thing that was Ford’s fault)...but it wasn’t a good sign that it had.  And he had a feeling that his bat wasn’t gonna be enough to deal with it.

“Kids, go hide in the basement.”

Of course, instead of just obeying him Dipper had to look out the window to see what it was.  He pulled back with an alarmed squeak.

“What the heck?!”

“Another giant robot?”  Mabel watched the unfinished, advancing colossus with a mixture of alarm and interest.  “Seems like every time we turn around there’s another one of those-”

“Basement!  Now!”

Stan didn’t wait for them to argue; he quickly snatched one kid up in each arm, and carried them into the gift shop (while being near Ford wasn’t necessarily any safer than being attacked by a giant robot, it was the lesser of two evils for the time being; and hey, maybe seeing his family in danger might be enough to get through the idiot’s head-but then again, maybe that was just wishful thinking on Stan’s part).  It was a matter of seconds for him to push the buttons that opened the secret door behind the vending machine, and once it was open he set the kids on the stairs, ignoring their attempts at protest.

“Both of you stay put !” he ordered in his ‘and I mean it’ tone of voice, before shutting the door.

Then he stomped towards the front porch.

Once he was outside, Stan got a good look at big-and-ugly.

Even though he wasn’t anything close to a robotics or engineering expert, he could tell this thing was only half-finished-and not just because the sparking wires hanging at the bottom were a dead giveaway.  It was mostly general things, like seeing how dented and rusty the torso was, or the way one of the arms tended to jerk a little as it propelled itself along.  It looked like it had just barely been thrown together; not up to McGucket’s usual standards at all.

After a hesitant second he stepped to the edge of the porch, and cupped his hands over his mouth.

“MCGUCKET?  YOU IN THERE?” Stan bellowed.  “WHADDYA WANT?”

Please just be a weird invitation to a hootenanny in the dump or something.

The robot tilted its head, and there was a loud whizzing noise as its left eye appeared to focus in on him.  After a second, a loud, computerized voice came crackling from the mouth.

“TARGET ACQUIRED.  COMMENCING DIRECTIVE: ATTACK STAN PINES.”

“WHAT?!”

Stan barely had time to process what he’d just heard, much less start trying to figure out why he’d heard it, when a giant metal claw came slicing through the air.  He barely had time to jump out of the way in a move that his back definitely would not thank him for later, and landed on the lawn just as the claw smashed the middle of the porch with a sickening crunch !

Oh, come on!  I just paid to have that fixed!

Fortunately Stan’s legs were thinking faster than his brain, and forced him to get up.  Covering his head to avoid being hit by splinters, he rushed towards the totem pole.  He could hear the robot clumsily turning around (apparently it wasn’t easy when it was balancing on its arms; good, that gave him a little bit of an advantage), but just focused his attention on touching a spot at the base of the pole which looked exactly like the rest of them.  It slid open, allowing him to pull out some of his emergency supplies: a double-barrelled shotgun and a box of ammo.

It might not be enough to beat that thing, but hopefully he could at least slow it down and keep it from hurting the kids.

“That’s gotta be them morality circuits actin’ up!” Fiddleford panted as they rushed down the street; despite how bony and emaciated he was, he could move remarkably fast, even if his gait had become a lot more animalistic than Ford remembered.  He leaped onto the hood of a nearby car, and appeared oblivious to the alarm that was instantly triggered as he skidded across it and down the other side.  “Oh, banjo polish , Ah knew Ah shoulda put the brakes on!”

“What’s it going to do?!” Ford demanded, wishing he’d built his cabin a little closer to town, even though there was no way he could possibly have anticipated something like this happening.

“Jes’ what ya told it to-attack Stan Pines!”  Fiddleford swung around a lamppost in a style that’s usually done in movies during a rainstorm and while carrying an umbrella, and cast Ford a sharp look as he landed.  “Ya said jes’ ta ‘attack,’ right?  Not ‘kill’ or ‘destroy’?”

“Certainly not!”

“Jes’ checkin’-it can be kinda literal sometimes!”

Ford’s stomach gave yet another horrified lurch as he thought about how even an order to ‘attack’ instead of ‘kill’ could still go horribly wrong.  “How do we stop it?!”

“Welp, ideally we’ll be able ta order it ta stop its directive, unless o’ course it’s achieved sentience enough ta rise up against its masters-”

Before Ford could demand why in the name of all that was holy Fiddleford would create a robot that was capable of that, his ears picked up the two loud cracks of a shotgun being fired off in the distance.  His stomach now felt like it was trying to crawl up into his throat-what if they were too late?  What if the robot decided to target the children as well?  What if his ill-advised words led to them all being-

They reached the clearing, and saw all hell breaking loose.

Fiddleford’s robot was somehow managing to balance on only one arm-though probably not for long, since he could see it shuddering and trembling under the weight-while the other one was clutching a small, struggling form in its massive fist.

To his relief, Stan was clearly still alive, and not going down easily; as he was lifted into the air he pulled a shotgun up against his shoulder, and got off another blast.  There was the sound of shattering glass, and one of the lights that made up the robot’s eyes went out.

The robot uttered an unholy screech that sounded almost like it was in pain, and Ford saw its claws starting to clench tighter around his brother.

“STOP!”

Ford rushed forward until he was standing in front of the robot, waving his arms frantically.

“Directive concluded!  Stop!  Do not continue attacking Stan Pines!”

The robot looked confused; its head tilted with a creaking noise as it stared down at him.  Ford stared back, feeling his pulse pounding as he waited for some sign that the robot was acknowledging this new order-

“...Directive?”

The voice that asked it was soft, but it still carried just enough that Ford heard it perfectly.

He glanced up at Stan-and suddenly they were no longer old men, they were just barely on the edge of adulthood and Stan was staring up at him from the sidewalk, not wanting to believe that he would do this.

“I-Stanley, it’s not what it sounds like, I promise.”  The words sounded weak even to his own ears, and he struggled desperately to think of the right ones.  “I was just-the robot overheard me saying-”

At that moment the robot’s arm, the one struggling to maintain its balance on the ground, made a dangerous crunching noise, and Ford saw the metal slowly start to bend in on itself.

Chapter Text

“We need to get Great Uncle Ford!”

Mabel frantically stampeded down the stairs towards the elevator and began punching in the code to open it.

Even if he was still mad at Grunkle Stan, Ford wouldn’t want him dead , right?  And he was really smart and buff and had a cool laser gun and stuff, so maybe he and Grunkle Stan could have an epic bonding experience by fighting the robot together, and prove once and for all that they cared about each other!  Yes, this was an even better plan than the one she’d been working on all day!

She turned to ask Dipper if he remembered what code to punch in-and saw his legs disappearing back up the stairs.

“Dipper, wait!  Just because you beat up one robot doesn’t mean you should try to fight all of them-!”

Too late; he was already opening the vending machine door.

Mabel looked back and forth between the two doors, biting her lip as she weighed her options.

Try to reach her buff, giant nerd great uncle who she barely knew and didn’t even seem interested in helping, in the hopes that maybe this would finally fix his and Grunkle Stan’s issues?

Or go after her noodle-armed brother?

…After one last apologetic glance at the elevator, she ran after Dipper.

To her relief, when they stepped out into the gift shop everything was still standing.  No sign of giant robot claws slicing up the house, or of blood.  But there was also no sign of Grunkle Stan.  And as she pushed the vending machine closed the ground shook again, indicating that the robot was still outside the house.

Dipper and Mabel looked at each other uncertainly, and tiptoed their way towards the living room, holding each other’s hands for security.

No damage here, either…except that the window was partly smashed in by a long piece of splintered wood that looked like it’d come from the front porch.

Mabel’s tummy felt like Gideon’s giant robot hand had wrapped around it was squeezing, way too tight.

And then outside she heard, in rapid succession, the roar of a shotgun blast, the roar of an angry robot, and a familiar voice yelling, “STOP!”

“...Is that Great Uncle Ford?”

Mabel’s heart leaped- no, it soared , like an eagle.

He wasn’t hiding in the basement after all!  He’d probably found out the robot was coming with some multiverse science thingummy, and had gone out to save Grunkle Stan!

Excitedly she ran to the door and threw it open, barely even blinking at the porch being all smashed up; they would definitely have to hug after this-!

Grunkle Stan was out in the yard, being held in one of the giant robot’s fists, with Great Uncle Ford standing on the ground staring up at him.

Neither of them seemed interested in hugging.

Rats.

Great Uncle Ford was saying something, but his voice was too low for her to hear it.  Based on his and Grunkle Stan’s expressions, though, it wasn’t exactly the warm reconciliation she’d been hoping for.

…And then the robot’s other arm started bending in a way that it didn’t look like it was supposed to bend, and the whole robot lurched forward.

“Stop!”  Great Uncle Ford started yelling again, sounding kinda scared for the first time since Mabel had met him.  “Halt!  New directive!  Set Stan Pines down!”

Instead of obeying him, the robot made a funny grinding fizzing noise, and then shuddered and jerked a couple times like a confused puppy.  Then Mabel thought she saw a few sparks shoot out the top of its head, before its arm made a really big crunching noise and the whole thing began to fall as the metal ripped and shrieked.

“GRUNKLE STAN!”

Mabel rushed forward, starting to draw her grappling hook-but before she could figure out where to even fire it, Great Uncle Ford had pulled what looked like a kind of gun out of his pocket-for some reason Grunkle Stan looked even more panicked when he saw it, but that was silly, he didn’t think Ford was gonna shoot him, did he?-and did something with it before aiming and firing.

A kinda blue pulsing light thingy burst out of it and wrapped itself around the robot, bringing the fall to a stop.

Mabel definitely wanted to know what that thing was and where she could get one of them, but she could also see that Great Uncle Ford’s arms had already started shaking and the robot was slipping towards the ground bit by bit.  And if it fell all the way, both her grunkles would get crushed!

Frantically she looked around, trying to find somewhere she could fire her grappling hook.  The roof?  The totem pole?  Maybe she should just swing onto the robot itself?  But what if the extra weight was too much for Grunkle Ford-?!

Dipper was suddenly at her side, pulling her the rest of the way off the porch.

“Aim that way!” he ordered, pointing to a spot just up and to the left of Grunkle Stan’s head, “We can grab him on the upward swing!”

Mabel didn’t argue; when it came to math and science junk, Dipper was the one who always knew how to figure out stuff like that.  She just pointed the grappling hook that way and fired, and wrapped her free arm around her brother.

It was lucky that the grappling hook had such a long reach; there was a crunching noise as it snagged onto something in the trees, and within seconds they were swept off their feet.

Mabel didn’t have time to enjoy the rush of flying through the air like she normally would’ve; instead, for once, she made herself focus on what needed to be done at the moment.

“GRUNKLE STAN WE’RE COMINGGGGG!!!!”

Ford was inordinately grateful to his younger self that he’d thought to include a polarity reversal option when he’d designed this magnet gun.

The obvious downside, of course, being that he hadn’t considered needing to hold back something this massive in mind when he was designing it, and he could tell, based on the fact that his arms felt like they were attempting to bench-press an elephant, that it was at best a very temporary solution.

His eyes darted back and forth as he ran calculations in his mind.

Was the arm at a low enough distance for Stan to jump, if he could break out of the robot’s grip?  Could Ford even persuade him to if it was?  Stanley hated heights, he’d gotten stuck on the top rung of a ladder once when they were six and it took Ford almost ten minutes to talk him down, and he hadn’t been any less afraid as he got older-but he might not have a choice, Ford could see that the magnet gun’s power was already starting to run low and he knew he couldn’t keep this up much longer-

“GRUNKLE STAN WE’RE COMINGGGGG!!!!”

Two brightly colored blurs flew past his eyes; Ford barely managed to recognize them as the children.

Huh; I’d nearly forgotten that Mabel possessed a grappling hook.  Very resourceful of her.

Their trajectory was just right: within seconds they had slammed into Stanley, and began trying to tug him free of the robot’s grip, as he tried to assist them by thrashing and slamming the butt of his (hopefully empty) shotgun against the giant metal hand.  The problem was that the robot seemed completely unwilling or unable to let go, and instead tried to pull away, even as its other arm continued cracking and straining.

Neither child was willing to let go of their great uncle, though, and only fought harder to get him free.

Ford looked at the magnet gun, desperately searching for a feature he could use to help-maybe the magnetic pulse?  He’d never tried it in reverse polarity before, but it might be better than nothing , and if he didn’t do something right now his family could-

More sparks shot from the top of the robot’s head, and its voice, even more unsteady and tinny-sounding than before, crackled through its speakers.

“DIREC-DIRECTIVE-DIRECTIVEDIRECTIVEDIRECTIVE UNC-unCLEEEEEAR REVEeeeRTING-TOtoTOto-DEeeeeEEEEFAULT attAAAAACK MODE-”

And then from the back of its head a voice cried, barely discernible above the chaos, “OH NO YA DON’T!”

Fiddleford had to do something fast iffen he wanted ta save not jes’ Stanford, but his brother and the kidlets.

It was…hard, makin’ hisself get closer ta the devil house.  ‘Specially now that he could remember why he mostly avoided it, ‘cept fer occasions like the wax exhibit and that one hootenanny he’d gone to, back when he could still get lost in the foggy patches where his memories oughta be and not be afeard o’ nuthin’.

Even knowin’ his robot was goin’ on a rampage hadn’t been enough ta stop that little terror-fied voice in the back o’ his head wantin’ him ta skedaddle on outta there and jes’ let it destroy the dad-blamed place…till he thought o’ the kidlets.

They’d been patient and friendly with him where most folks just wanted ta make the crazy old man who lived in the dump git away from ‘em, and they’d actually taken the time ta talk with him once in a while.

And they’d helped git his memories back.

Even if they hadn’t been young’uns, he’d o’ walked through fire fer ‘em iffen they’d needed it.

Besides, Stanford was back, and he was sorry, and he needed his help fixin’ what he’d broke with his brother, and iffen there was one thing Fiddleford knew how ta do right, it was fix things.

Except his relationship with Tate, but it was probably too late for that .

While Stanford was in front o’ the robot, yellin’ fer it ta stop its directive, Fiddleford scrambled to the leg it was standin’ on and began climbing it.

As he climbed, Fiddleford reckoned it was a lucky thing he hadn’t built this here robot with a nervous system like some o’ the others; it didn’t notice a thing as he finally reached its shoulder and pulled hisself up.  There was a panel in the back of its noggin, an’ iffen he could jes’ get into it he could turn on the manual override, mebbe pilot this thing back ta the dump afore it broke down altogether-

He was nearly thrown off when the whole robot suddenly lurched forward.

With a terror-fied squeak Fiddleford grabbed on with every finger, toe and beard hair at his disposal, and clung till the robot was still again.  Then, once his heart stopped tryna break outta his ribs, he slowly sat up and crawled the rest o’ the way ta the panel.

Faintly he could hear Stanford yellin’ at the robot as he began gettin’ it open.

“Stop!  Halt!  New directive!  Set Stan Pines down!”

That ain’t a good idea, Stanford…you’re givin’ him too many conflictin’ orders, that’s gonna-

He felt the metal under him shudder, and heard the generator thingamajig start sparking.

…short circuit it.

Ah, banjo polish.  Forget gettin’ back to the dump , I’ll be lucky iffen I can get this thang ta the ground safely.

There was another gut-churnin’ screech, and another few seconds o’ freefall.

It came to a sudden stop again, but Fiddleford could tell without even lookin’ that the arm was on its last leg.

…Or somethin’ like that.

Finally he managed ta yank the panel off, and began typin’ in the code needed fer ta turn on the manual override.

Why in the Sam Hill had he felt the need ta make it so lickety-splittin’ long an’ complicated?!  I mean, shore, it was handy iffen ya needed ta make sure nobody else could steal your robot an’ use it for their own rampages through the city, but in sitiashuns like this’n it was more trouble’n it was worth-

The robot shuddered an’ jerked, and sparks burst and went flyin’ all around him like kettle corn.

“DIREC-DIRECTIVE-DIRECTIVEDIRECTIVEDIRECTIVE UNC-unCLEEEEEAR REVEeeeRTING-TOtoTOto-DEeeeeEEEEFAULT attAAAAACK MODE-”

“OH NO YA DON’T!”

As he pushed the last keys ta complete the override, Fiddleford sent a command ta the right hand: RELEASE.

Followed by an all-purpose EMERGENCY SHUTDOWN.

The robot had time for one final coherent thought- FATHER, NOOOO -before the light in its final eye flickered and died, and its head slumped forward lifelessly.

Unfortunately, at that exact moment the last bit of power in Ford’s magnet gun also flickered and died, and the massive mental body broke free of the arm it had been using as a support and pitched towards the ground.

It landed with a deafening crash, not unlike the one of the giant Gideon robot earlier this summer.

Chapter Text

Pathetic.

That was the perfect word to describe Stan, because when the giant robot thing went crashing to the ground, the main thing that went through his head was panic over whether his would-be murderer was alive.

Mabel barely had time to lower them to the ground before he was running frantically towards the smoking, burning wreckage, heart pounding in his chest worse than it had since the day he first came to this stupid town, worse than when he first got the stupid portal working again, with please don’t let him be dead waging war against stop caring about him you stupid idiot he obviously doesn’t care about you and I can’t .

Faintly, through the ringing in his ears, he could hear the kids calling out to him as he rushed to the spot where the traitor his brother Ford had been standing when the robot crashed, hoping against hope that he wouldn’t have to see-

As the smoke began clearing away, he saw the giant hand, with its fingers buried up to the knuckle in the ground and positioned until they kind of looked like a giant metal teepee.  And curled up inside it was a familiar shadowy figure, who after a moment coughed and slowly sat up.

Stan was disgusted by the rush of relief that filled his chest and made his knees go weak.

“Great Uncle Ford!”  Dipper’s voice was cracking with anxiety even more than usual as he rushed forward.  “Great Uncle Ford, are you okay?!”

Ford coughed again, and then crawled out of the giant hand’s wreckage and slowly got to his feet, holding a hand to his head.

“...Yes, I’m all right, my boy.  Mostly, anyway, I think I might have-”

CRACK!

Guess all that time in the multiverse didn’t give him perfect fighting reflexes after all, Stan thought, flexing his throbbing fist in vicious satisfaction and ignoring the shocked and indignant (respectively) cries of his niece and nephew.

After a moment Ford slowly pushed himself up on one elbow, wiping the blood from his lip, and said in a dazedly accusing voice, “...You hit me.”

“No sh- shirt , genius!”  Even through the sudden rage tinting his vision with red and breaking through the relief, some stupid part of Stan’s brain registered that the kids are here enough to keep him from using the word he actually wanted to say; instead he advanced on Ford again, snarling like a mad dog.  “You sicced that thing on me just ta get your stupid house back?!  What is WRONG with you?!”

“No!”  Ford slowly pulled himself to his feet, swaying unsteadily until he staggered back against the giant hand, “It was an accident!  I was-looking for a solution to my problem, and the robot overheard me talking to myself!  I never would’ve-the closest I came to that was…thinkin’ about lurin’ you into my spare cryo tube in my secret bunker with a trail o’ money, but I wouldn’t’ve actually done it!”

He didn’t seem to realize how that really wasn’t helping his case, not least because it sounded like the lamest lie Stan had ever heard from a guy who wasn’t even a good liar to begin with-

“It’s true!”

Like a hillbilly-shaped jack-in-the-box, Old Man McGucket popped out of the wreckage and hobbled towards them, coughing and hacking and using his beard to wipe some of the ash and smoke from his face.

“Stanford didn’t mean ta hurt ya none, he was jes’ talkin’ out loud and accidentally gave the robot an attack order!”  He stumbled to a halt in front of them, favoring his right foot, and wrung his hands.  “...In retrospect, I mighta needed ta change its wiring in a few spots in case o’ somethin’ like this happenin’.”

…Stan wanted to believe it.

He desperately wanted to believe that this whole thing was a stupid accident on Ford’s part instead of him wanting to get rid of Stan so bad that he’d resorted to-to that.

On the other hand, he couldn’t afford to trust in anything that seemed like Ford didn’t totally hate his guts, not anymore, and the crazy old man that lived in the dump wasn’t what he’d call a reliable witness even on his best day…

Stan looked back and forth between them in growing frustration-and then he saw the trickle of red oozing from under Ford’s palm, and that his glassy, watery eyes had slightly uneven pupils as they stared pleadingly at him.

Again, he felt disgust at himself, because he knew what a pathetic idiot he was for what he was about to do…and that he was going to do it anyway.  With a groan he pushed his glasses up enough for him to pinch the bridge of his nose.

“...Let’s just go inside and see what you idiots did to yourselves.”

Thankfully the porch was the only thing that had been seriously smashed up, and as he limped through the wreckage Fiddleford offered to fix it for free, which Stan obviously accepted with no take backs.

Without even needing to be asked Dipper retrieved the medical kit, while Mabel got a bowl of water and some clean rags from the kitchen.

Their parents probably wouldn’t think it was a good sign that they’d learned how to do this so well, but hey, it just meant they were living dangerously the way kids should.

While they were doing that, Stan herded Dr. Frankenford and McIgor into the downstairs bathroom and had them sit on the edge of the tub while he checked them over.

Both of them were pretty bruised and scratched up all over, meaning Mabel was probably going to use up her whole box of goofy bandages on them by the time they were done.  McGucket also turned out to have a high tolerance for pain, considering he’d been able to limp all the way inside with a broken ankle, and a few nasty slices on his arms and chest that were definitely gonna need stitches.  Stan wondered if Mabel knew enough about sewing to handle that, since it’d definitely be cheaper than taking him to the hospital, and bonus, the kid’d probably make the stitches butterfly-shaped or something, so it’d be like getting a few fancy tattoos.

As for Ford…

“The good news is, your concussion probably isn’t fatal,” Stan finally said, sitting on his haunches in front of his brother.  “The bad news is, you have a concussion.”

Ford blinked a few times, and then muttered, “The metal plate in my head…prolly shielded me from the worst of it.”

“Very funny.”

Ford reached up and knocked on the side of his head.

Clank, cla-

“Son of a groppin’ -nyeaugh!”

“...And that’s why you shoulda waited ta do that until you’re better, knucklehead.”  Stan recovered from the surprise of realizing he was serious about the plate enough to wring out a fresh cloth, and began sponging away some of the blood caked around Ford’s ear and clotted in his hair, trying to ignore the memories of younger times tapping his shoulder.

After a minute Ford’s eyes opened again, and widened like he’d just realized something.

“...Dipper?” he croaked; his eyes wandered dazedly for a moment until they settled on where their nephew was helping Mabel clean up McGucket (who now, sure enough, had multicolored bandages wrapped around his hands and the smaller injuries on his arms).  “Could you and your sister…go downstairs and…get the…” he frowned in concentration and then brightened, “ green case on my desk?  It has some…some things inside that should be more effective…than a hospital.”

Dipper blinked, then quickly jumped to his feet.  “Uh, yeah!  Yeah, sure, I can totally do that!”

Ford gave him a wobbly smile.  “Thank you, my boy.”

Stan tried to not let himself feel more bitter than he already was.

An expression of impending joy overload spread across the kid’s face, accompanied by the faintest sound of a squeal building in the back of his throat, until he contained himself and sprinted off for the basement, racing Mabel.

“You got some kinda healing voodoo crap?” Stan asked once they were gone.

“...Jheselbraum the Unswerving told me where to find some,” Ford murmured, wincing as Stan began cleaning out the cut with peroxide.  “She said…with my personality I was probably going to need it.”  He chewed his lip for a moment, before adding, “...I’m just realizing that might not have been entirely complimentary.”

“Nope, I don’t think it was,” McGucket muttered, trying to flex his toes and giving a tiny yelp of pain.  He was by now lying sprawled in the tub, with his ankle propped up on the edge of it and wrapped in an ice pack to try and lower the swelling, foot pale and dirty where they'd finally unraveled all the bandaging that'd been wrapped around it. Ideally he would’ve gotten an actual bath, since whatever he was covered with probably wouldn’t do his injuries any favors, but it seemed better to handle one problem at a time, and besides, Stan already had to see his own gross old man body once a day, he wasn’t in a hurry to see someone else’s-

“I want my house back.”

…Oh that’s okay.  It’s been a whole twenty minutes since you tried ta kill me, I totally needed another reminder of why you did it.  Oh, right, sorry, it was just an accident cuz you were talking out loud to a robot about how ta handle this ‘problem.’

How ta handle me .

Stan took a deep breath through his nose, and another one out, reminding himself that it would probably upset the kids if he screamed or punched his brother again-and instead compromised by picking up the bag of frozen peas Mabel had grabbed from the fridge and slamming it just a little too hard against the side of Ford’s head.

Ford moaned and went cross eyed for a second, before forcing his vision to focus on Stan again as he clamped his own hand over the ice pack.  “Lemme finish, St’nley.  I wanna…have my house back, but…you don’t…gotta leave.  Never said that.”

That pleading was back.

It had to be a lie, now that his plan had failed, right?  He’d been gone so long maybe he’d actually learned how to lie properly, if Stan tried to trust him he’d just be falling into his trap, whatever it was, he couldn’t-

He couldn’t see any tells.

Not even the signs of someone who was really good at hiding their tells.

Just a lot of pain that Ford was trying to push through with a scary amount of success as he stared back at Stan.

He could tell he wasn’t going to be able to meet the stare for long without something inside him breaking; to his relief, at that moment the kids came back with the med kit or whatever it was, so he didn’t have to.

Chapter Text

Under Ford’s instruction, the kids opened the case and pulled out a bottle of green gloopy stuff with little glowy things floating around inside it.

“...I call ‘em bio-nanites,” Ford muttered as he twisted the top off and tipped some of it into his hand, before turning and placing a chunk of the glop onto McGucket’s ankle, and a few more on his really bad cuts.  His former-or was it newly regained?-friend shuddered and squirmed, but then, as the stuff seeped into his skin, he let out a sigh of relief and slowly relaxed.  After a few seconds his ankle already looked a lot less swollen, and the gashes started knitting themselves back together.

“Their main purpose…as best I can tell…is to find things that are wrong in the human body, and fix them.  If only some of the ingredients needed to grow them existed in this dimension, it could revolutionize the world of medicine.”

Clearly, not even a concussion was going to stop him from giving a lecture on weird stuff.  Stan wasn’t too surprised, but that might’ve been because right now he wasn’t too much of anything: the emotional whiplash of the last hour-fear, then fresh betrayal, then confusion, then terror, then rage, then fear and confusion and suspicion all together-had all abruptly settled into a familiar gray dullness that he hadn’t felt since at least the beginning of summer, making him feel like he was watching everything happening around him without really being part of it.

“Even I don’t fully understand how they work or what they’re made of.”  Ford lowered the frozen peas, and slowly placed another glop against the cut on his head; his teeth clenched in a hiss, but then he relaxed the way McGucket had.  “But they have saved my life on several occasions.”

His words were already becoming less slurred, and his eyes more focused.

“The worst of our injuries should be healed up within a matter of days, if not hours.”

Both kids stared at the green stuff in awe.

“...Whoaaaa,” Mabel whispered, reaching out and poking at the open bottle, making the contents wiggle like jello.

“Where did you get them?” Dipper asked eagerly.

Ford’s expression softened as he looked at them, before turning kind of embarrassed.  “I… liberated them from a medical clinic in this one dimension.”

Through the mist, Stan was able to spare a flicker of dry humor at the realization that Goody-Nerd-Shoes had actually stooped to thievery.

Guess I’m not the only thief and charlatan in this family, huh?

Ford was suddenly giving him a very intense look.

Stan didn’t exactly panic , but he felt his pulse jump, and wondered if the metal plate gave the nerd telepathy or something, and what he’d do if it turned out it did.

But then Ford held out the bottle and asked, “Do you need any?”

Slowly, voice slightly echoey in his ears, Stan shook his head and muttered, “I’m fine,” even as his ribs gave a little throb of protest.  But they weren’t broken, he knew what broken ribs felt like and this wasn’t it, so it was fine, he could just walk it off-

“You have a cut on your cheek, your knuckles are split open, and your breathing is a little shallower than normal, leading me to suspect there might be at least some damage to your ribs from being held in the robot’s fist like that.”  Ford held out the bottle more insistently.  “...Please.”

Ugh.  Even when other people said it, it hurt.  Especially when it came from him .

Stan started to open his mouth to refuse again.

And then little hands were tugging his sleeve, and a voice was insisting, “Grunkle Stan, please take some if you’re hurting.  I don’t like it when you’re hurt.”

Like the sucker he was, Stan sighed and held out his hand.

He had to admit, even if seeing and feeling the tingle of the bio-nanites sinking into his skin was kinda freaky, feeling the pain in various places starting to vanish was…nice.

McGucket had fallen asleep in the tub, so Stan called his son and asked him to come pick him up.  Then, while the kids cleaned up the rest of the bathroom, he half-herded Ford into Soos’s break room and pushed him onto the sofa to rest up while his tiny robot things did their work.

“You probably oughta stay awake for a spell, just in case.  Make sure you don’t fall into a coma or whatever,” he muttered.

Ford nodded, leaning back and closing his eyes.  “...So what are we going to do now, Stanley?” he asked.

“I told you.  Stay awake and don’t fall into a coma.”  Without even thinking about it, Stan reached out and smacked his cheek a couple times-not hard, but enough that he opened them again with a moan.

“I’m just resting my eyes,” he grumbled, glaring at Stan.  “And that’s not what I meant.”

“...I’m gonna get you some water.”

And he walked away as quickly as he could, like a good little errand boy.

When Stan returned, carrying a glass that was dripping condensation, Ford had sat up again and taken off his gross muddy boots; his holey socks weren’t much of an improvement.

“You’re avoiding my question,” he scolded as Stan handed him the glass.

“...You shouldn’t talk too much.  You don’t wanna strain yourself.”

“If you’re that worried about the seriousness of my concussion, I should talk more.  It gives you a way to track my lucidity.”  The point would’ve sounded like a simple confirmation of the facts if his voice hadn’t been so smug.

Irritation flickered through the fog like a searchlight.  “So recite the Gettysburg Address or something.”

Even though he should probably just leave, he turned away and started fiddling with the pile of crap on the table next to the door, a bunch of glass beakers and junk.  He could faintly remember a few occasions when he’d first been in this room, where he’d done nothing for hours but lie on the couch and stare at them, watching the light reflecting off the glass because he’d been too empty inside to do anything else.  They were a lot dustier than he remembered.

“I’d prefer to address my previous question of what we’re going to do now.”  Ford’s voice was uncompromising; Stan heard a soft clink as he set his glass down.  “I meant it when I told you that the robot’s attack was…an accident.”

Wait, I can explain!  It was a mistake!

Even through the numbness he must have shown some kind of emotion at the memory: he heard Ford cut off with an audible gulp, before he went on.

“...I…don’t know how to convince you of this, but I don’t want-I wouldn’t ever try to-” he made a familiarly frustrated sound that meant, at least when they were young, that whatever he was trying to say wasn’t coming out how he wanted to.  Then he abruptly changed tracks with the words, “I wasn’t thinking about how you might interpret my…request regarding the house.  Or well, I suppose it was technically a demand.”  He laughed mirthlessly.

Stan didn’t answer.  He just picked up a glass bottle and turned it in his hands.  It was heavier than it looked, even though it was empty, and the cool, slightly dusty surface was kind of grounding.  He ran a callused thumb across it, staring at his barely-visible reflection.

“I was thinking about how everything had changed while I was gone, and I wanted to grasp any chance at normality I could.  But you are correct that if it came down to a legal dispute, I would have significant difficulty proving this house was originally mine, even if I could convince Fiddleford to testify that he knew me thirty years ago-”

SMASH!

The fog was gone.

And what came bubbling up was sharp, and hot, and had been lurking in wait under the surface ever since that punch to the face in the basement, only able to rise in bursts and spurts since then, but now it was finally awake.

Stan whirled around, the tips of his shoes crunching in the fresh pile of broken glass and scattering pieces that he’d have to make Soos vacuum up later.

“What more do you want, Stanford?!” he demanded in a snarl.  “I gave up thirty years of my life ta bring you back-heck, I gave up my life !  I don’t even exist anymore, I’m just some kinda- shadow , or something!  And then you come waltzing back, and tell me that it’s still not enough for you!”

He stomped forward until he loomed over his brother.  “Whaddya want from me, huh?!  BLOOD ?!  Cuz I’m not giving it to you!  I’m tired of working myself to pieces for you and hoping I’m even gonna get scraps in return!  I’m tired of being nothing !”

It felt like giant worms were crawling out of his chest in time with his words, leaving a lot of raw, bloody holes in their wake.

Ford’s eyes were wide as they stared up at him, and his mouth opened and shut a few times…but nothing came out.

For once there was no sophisticated comeback, no blistering retort to remind Stan who was the brilliant capable non-screw-up twin in the room, no refutation of his words.

Stan wished he felt more triumphant about it.

This was not going according to plan at all.

First the fiasco with the robot, which had made Stanley think that Ford was actively trying to kill him-and now everything he said only seemed to make his brother angrier.

And Ford had no idea how to make it stop.

He wasn’t even sure that he could blame the concussion, especially now that his headache had finally started clearing and his thoughts were forming coherent patterns again.

They wanted to give reasonable arguments to counter Stan’s tirade: he shouldn’t have been brought back at all because of how close he’d been to defeating Bill at that time, because turning the portal back on could have given the demon the opportunity he was looking for to wreak havoc on their world, because Ford wasn’t worth the trouble -

But Stan knew at least some of that, if he’d read Ford’s journals, and he clearly didn’t care.  Lecturing him about it wouldn’t help, and it definitely wouldn’t defuse the situation.

Stan was still glaring down at him, chest heaving with the strength of his emotion…waiting for him to say something.

And Ford knew it was vitally important for him to say something, if he could just figure out the right words.

‘Thank you?’

…While he was glad to be back in his own dimension, regardless of the risks, he didn’t know if he could sincerely say that yet.  He probably should, but…

‘I’m sorry?’

Stan didn’t seem like he would believe it.  Because Ford hadn’t given him a reason to believe it, because he kept messing this up even when he tried to follow Fiddleford’s advice on meeting him halfway.

But Stan was still standing there, still looking so angry and so tired and so frustrated and like he wanted an answer already, and if Ford said the wrong thing right now it would probably be the final nail in the coffin of their relationship, but if he said nothing it would definitely be.

So he clearly had to say something …but the more he struggled to figure out the right thing to say, the more incapable he was becoming of saying anything at all.

And then both of them jumped when a high-pitched voice that was trying to sound gruff said from the doorway, “You’re not nothing, Stanley, don’t say that about yourself!”

A small figure came into view-one that appeared to be made out of a paper bag, with big googly eyes and the tiniest hint of an arm poking out from under it.

“Hello!” the figure chirped, “I’m the inner Grunkle Stan, who says all the things he’s too afraid to say out loud!  And I’m here to help!”

Chapter Text

For an uncomfortably long moment the puppet just hung in the air while they stared at it.

Then Stan heard Mabel’s voice hiss, “Dipper!  That’s your cue!”

There was the sound of Dipper sighing, before another puppet appeared on the other side of the door-one that looked almost exactly like the Stan puppet, except that it had a cloud of fluffy gray wool attached to the top of its head, and its hands had an extra finger taped on.

“And I’m the inner Great Uncle Ford, here to speak all the suppressed emotions of his heart,” it said flatly.

“Put some feeling into it!” Mabel’s voice hissed.

“I am putting feeling into it!”

The puppets shoved each other briefly, and then returned their attention to the two startled old men.  The Ford one cleared its throat.

“Stanley, you are not ‘nothing.’  I-I hope that the real me actually believes this too-”

Ford made a sound like he’d just been socked in the gut.

“-but you are…probably the most remarkably determined man I have ever met.  Determined, and brave, and incredibly loyal.  And I can’t imagine how you managed to stay that way after everything you’ve been through.”

Stan was mortified to actually feel a lump rising in his throat.  Even as he reminded himself that that didn’t mean Ford really thought all that, it was just what the kids thought about him (maybe), he shouldn’t get his hopes up don’t get his hopes up-

“Ford,” the Stan puppet ‘replied,’ “I’m so sorry about your science fair project, and then about what happened with the portal!  I know I messed up, but I’ve been trying so hard to make it better so we can be brothers again, and at the end of the day all I really want is to hug you tight and never let you go-”

“Stop trying to make them hug, Mabel!” Dipper’s voice hissed, “It’s not gonna work if you keep pushing it!”

“I’m just trying to give them subliminal messages like the ones Stan has in the gift shop!”

“Those are literally the opposite of subliminal!”

Two extra arms appeared, smacking at each other while still trying to keep their owners out of sight.

Stan buried his face in his hand, unsure if he wanted to laugh or die of embarrassment.

Possibly both.

When he looked up again, the fighting had stopped, and he could hear muffled giggles from the doorway, because as crazy as they drove one another those knuckleheads couldn’t stay mad for long.  Definitely not something Stan was jealous of in any way, shape or form.

The inner Ford spoke again.  “I’m sorry for staying angry for so long.  And for wanting to shut down the Mystery Shack and take away your only source of income, that was unfair to both you and your loyal, hard-working employees-okay, seriously?  Did Wendy and Soos tell you to put that in?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” said the inner Stan primly.

Stan could almost hear Dipper rolling his eyes.  He certainly was, considering that if anyone thought Wendy was ‘hard-working’ they needed a serious reality check.

After a moment the Ford puppet went on, “I-um-I don’t know everything that’s happened to the real me, unfortunately, so I can’t be as thorough about this as I’d like to be.  But…I do know that I…miss you, Stanley.  It’s just been easier to stay mad at you than to admit it.”

Ford made that strangled noise again.  Stan glanced at him to make sure he wasn’t choking or something, but he looked mostly fine.  Even the bruises and scratches he’d gotten when the robot crashed onto him were looking better-probably thanks to the robo-doohickeys.

And he was staring very intently back at Stan, with that pleading look again, the one that was making Stan’s gut twist and squirm and made him want to go back to his rage from earlier because it would feel a heck of a lot better than all this conflict -

Ford reached into his coat, and pulled out a slip of paper, which looked really old and faded and ripped at the edges.  He bit his lip, and then held it out so Stan could see it.

It was a photograph.

Flashback flashback flashback flashback

Shermie wrinkled his nose.  “You really think you’re gonna be able ta fix this piece of junk?”

“No, we know we can!” Ford retorted, giving the hull a proud pat, and ignoring when a piece on the other side immediately fell off.  “I found some books on boat building at the library, and there’s lots of old driftwood lying around we can use!”

“And we got some o’ Pa’s old tools ta help us!” Stan added, holding up hammer and saw.

“Does Pa know you have those?”

“...Yes.  Absolutely.”

Shermie raised a skeptical eyebrow…but then shrugged.  “Just don’t cut yourselves, okay?”

“Okay!”  Both of them saluted, and then winced as their hands brushed against their sunburned foreheads.  Ma was definitely gonna raise Cain and slather them in aloe vera when they got home.

Then their big brother held up his camera with a grin.  “Shall we preserve the moment?”

Happily Ford and Stan scrambled to different parts of their new boat, trying to look as epic and heroic as humanly possible.

End of flashback end of flashback end of flashback end of flashback

Stan stared at the photo, at how gently Ford was holding it…and tried to remind himself it all had to be part of the Lie, that he was just trying to get Stan’s hopes up so it’d be more satisfying for him to yank the rug out from under him again the moment he started believing him.  But it was a lot harder this time.

But Ford’s eyes immediately saddened, like he could read his thoughts, and he lowered his hand.  Until he brightened up again not more than a few seconds later.

“...I can prove that I-or the children speaking for me-or-you know what I mean-that my intentions are not…well.”  He reached into his coat again, and this time pulled out the journal Dipper had been reading all summer, flipping through it until it reached the section he was looking for.

“Many years ago, I discovered a strange phenomenon in the forest: a set of golden dentures that render whoever wears them incapable of lying-”

“Kids already found them.”

Ford blinked.  “They did?”

“Uh-huh!” the inner Stan said from the doorway.  “We threw them in the bottomless pit after learning that sometimes there’s such a thing as too much truth, because Grunkle Stan almost got arrested!”

“And he revealed too much about the depths of his tortured soul,” added the inner Ford.  “And about his bad personal hygiene.”

Okay, enough is enough.

Stan walked over and carefully, so he wouldn’t smash any fingers, but firmly, shut the door, ignoring the muffled protests from outside, and leaned against it, facing his brother.

Ford swallowed, and slowly put the photo back into his coat.

“...That does make things slightly more difficult.  But…if you want, if it would make it easier for us to have this discussion…I can try to find them.  Or come up with some equivalent-perhaps a potion, or a spell.  I’m certain I could make something suitable.”

Stan pondered…and then swallowed his pride enough to nod.  After all, if he did find the truth teeth and it turned out he really had tried to have the robot kill Stan because he didn’t care two cents about him anymore (if he ever had ), at least he could have the bitter satisfaction of knowing he’d been right all along.  He wasn’t sure what he’d do afterwards if that turned out to be it, but he’d cross that bridge when he got to it.

Ford’s shoulders relaxed.  “Thank you.”

…It wasn’t the thank you Stan wanted to receive, but he’d take what he could get.

“...So where do we stand now?” Ford asked.

“Technically, you’re sitting.”

Ford blinked, and then rolled his eyes as realization set in.  “Ha ha.”

“Hey, if you’re allowed to be pedantic, so am I.”  Stan smirked.

He was rewarded with the smallest fraction of a grin, before Ford gave him a “this is serious” look.  “I meant, what are we going to do now, Stanley?”

Stan sighed, and shoved his hands into his pockets.  “...I don’t know.”

Ford sighed too, and nodded.  “...Mabel will be disappointed that we haven’t already fixed things and hugged it out.”

“Yeah, well, she’s gotta learn that sometimes, you don’t get what you want.”

Ford flinched, but didn’t argue the point.

For a moment they remained still, looking like one of those paintings at a fancy art gallery that people stood in front of and pondered what the subjects’ facial expressions and junk meant.

Then, without saying a word, Stan opened the door and left, walking slowly past the kids for the stairs.

“Grunkle Stan?” he heard Dipper call after him worriedly.

He glanced over his shoulder and gave what he hoped was a reassuring smile.  “I’m okay, I just…gotta get some shut-eye.”

For about twelve hours straight, ideally, but he wasn’t holding his breath hoping for that.

Chapter Text

…Brilliant, Stanford.

Of all the ideas you’ve had in the last forty years, up to and including making that utterly idiotic deal with Bill, offering to find the truth teeth which were thrown into the BOTTOMLESS PIT has to be at least in the top ten.  How exactly would you expect to find them?  If they don’t reappear within 24 hours, they’re gone for good-you know that!

It was the first idea that sprang to mind!

Yes, well, it was a dumb idea.

Not for the first time, Ford wondered if Bill had somehow managed to re-infiltrate his mind, and had to tap his skull so the familiar clank, clank would reassure him that that was impossible.

Speaking of Bill, as long as he was in the basement he decided to take a moment to check on the rift; he had seen neither hide nor hair of him since arriving back home, but Ford knew from experience that that in no way meant the little monster wasn’t watching.  And it was a strange mixture of startling and oddly satisfying to realize that this was the first time since yesterday that he’d given him much thought.

He breathed a sigh of relief when he saw that the snow globe-shaped containment unit had remained intact.

For now, at least.  Something as commonplace as this probably won’t be enough to cage something so powerful as a rift in time and space.  I’ll have to decide on a more permanent solution at some point…perhaps some sort of adhesive coating?

Out of morbid curiosity, Ford picked up the rift and held it up to his ear, like he used to do with sea shells that he and Stanley would find on the beach; instead of the ocean, however, he could hear a pulsing, thrumming noise…and perhaps he was imagining it, but it seemed to be accompanied by the faint echo of a familiar high-pitched, mocking cackle.

With a shudder, he quickly put the rift back in its cupboard and locked it away.

Then he began to pace up and down the lab in an effort to help himself think.

Maybe if he could solve at least one problem, it would make it easier to focus on coming up with an answer to the other one.

To his own surprise, Stan had managed to have a semi-decent, dreamless sleep.

And when he opened his eyes, he failed to feel a fresh round of pain in some random area of his anatomy like he usually did first thing in the morning.

I mean, sure, he still felt old and decrepit , and for some reason his mouth was a little sore…but on the whole he felt less like he was about to fall apart at the seams any second than usual.

Huh.  Maybe Ford’s bio-doohickeys really work.

With a yawn Stan slowly sat up, swinging his legs to the side in a familiar motion; with one hand he grabbed his glasses and slipped them onto his face, and with the other reached for the glass of water containing his dentures.  He pulled them out, shaking the excess water off, and tried to put them into his mouth-

Except that something was already in there, blocking the way.

No no NO PLEASE tell me Stanford didn’t sneak in and put those stupid truth teeth in my mouth while I was sleeping, I’m gonna kill him-!

He dropped his normal dentures back onto the table and reached into his mouth to try and pull the gold ones out…but they wouldn’t come out.  And they didn’t even feel like dentures.

They felt a lot like his normal, regular teeth used to.

…What the Sam Hill?

Stan raced for the bathroom, checked in the mirror.

No signs of gold, or anything else outta the ordinary.  Just a relatively normal set of big, off-white teeth, exactly like the ones he used to have.

“StanFORD!!!!”

“...Remarkable,” Ford finally said, tapping a finger against Stan’s teeth before straightening and rubbing his chin.  “The bio-nanites must have viewed their loss as a significant injury, and decided to recreate them.”  He looked at Stan with a small confused frown.  “...I didn’t even realize you needed dentures.”

It was only due to the kids watching from the gift shop doorway with worried little frowns that Stan bit down on the retort he wanted to give about that; instead he asked, “So should I be worried?”

Ford shook his head.  “No, I don’t think so.  The nanites’ purpose is to repair damage, not cause it.”

“Are they still…in me?”  Stan looked down at his arm uncomfortably, wondering if he’d ever be able to sleep again if he had to think about hundreds of tiny green doodads living in his bloodstream or whatever.

“Generally after they repair whatever damage they can find, they dissolve naturally.”

…Rats.  Guess that means I can kiss any hopes of selling tourists the Elixir of Life goodbye.

“Awww, so that means I wouldn’t get to have hundreds of tiny friends living in my blood?”

No prizes for guessing who asked that .

Ford chuckled as he looked down at Mabel, who along with Dipper had stepped fully into the room.  “Unfortunately, no.  As handy as it would be to have them exist in perpetuity within your system, the scientists who created them believed there were too many inherent risks involved.”

Dipper tilted his head.  “It, um, sounds like they’re kinda like an advanced version of the healing spirits that can be summoned up by clerics in…” he stopped, blushing, before muttering, “...in this one game.”

Ford’s pen, which had been diligently scribbling in his journal, screeched to a halt, and his gaze snapped to meet his nephew’s.  “Do you mean the healing spirits that can be conjured in Dungeons, Dungeons and More Dungeons?”

Dipper let out a shocked squeak, then cleared his throat and said, trying to make his voice sound deeper, “You know about Dungeons, Dungeons and More Dungeons?!”

The way Ford’s eyes brightened was like watching tiny light bulbs turning on behind them.  “Children in this dimension still play that?!  I was worried that it had gone out of fashion while I was traveling the multiverse!”

“Are you kidding?!  It’s one of my favorite games!”  Dipper didn’t seem to notice that his voice had immediately gone up an octave again.  “Especially since exploring the woods has given me hundreds of ideas for campaigns and characters and stuff!”

“Believe it or not, I’ve actually done that once or twice, because you’re right, this is the perfect place for such inspiration!”

When both of them began reciting the dorky theme thingy together, and then burst out laughing, Stan and Mabel glanced at each other in a way that said without words, Great.  Now there’s two of them.

As freaky as it was having teeth again and having to hear two mega-nerds talking each other’s ears off about “natural 38s” and “rolling for strength checks,” the day had to go on.

Stan and Mabel slipped away to the kitchen as their respective siblings started talking about campaigns, and quickly fried up some bacon and eggs.

It felt…weird, being able to chew with his own teeth again.  Not in a bad way, just…weird.  It kept startling him whenever he took a new bite.

He was startled out of his thoughts by Mabel’s voice.

“Grunkle Stan?  Are you okay?”

Stan glanced at her, and smiled.  “Yeah, thanks, pumpkin.  Just peachy.”

…Okay, okay, it wasn’t his best lie ever.  And he could tell from the look Mabel gave him that she wasn’t buying it.

“It’s okay if you’re not,” she told him, far more seriously than usual.  “Cuz if I thought Dipper had tried to kill me and I didn’t know whether to believe him when he said he didn’t, I’d be pretty upset too.”  She reached over and patted his arm.

Stan’s hand clenched around his fork, but he just finished eating wordlessly, then headed upstairs to get dressed.

He was buttoning up his shirt when he heard the heavy tread of boots outside his door, followed by a knock.

“Stanley?”

Stan didn’t answer, hoping Ford would take the hint and go away.  The wounds from yesterday’s talk (or from the last forty years, if you wanted to get technical about it) were still pretty raw, and he needed to get into his normal routine (sans working on the portal, obviously) to help him feel a little more like himself before he was ready to deal with them.

Naturally, Ford did no such thing.

“...I’ve given it some thought, and the truth teeth are most likely not a viable option, under the circumstances.  So instead I’ve narrowed down two other possibilities for…making it easier to talk,” Ford said after apparently realizing he wasn’t gonna get an answer.  “I wasn’t sure which one to choose, and thought you would appreciate the option.”

What does that even mean, ‘possibilities for making it easier to talk’?

It’s never a good sign when he says stuff like that.

…On the other hand, Stan had to concede that it sounded like at least he was trying.  And he had agreed to let Ford try, and unlike some people around here he actually made an effort to keep his promises.

So he replied at last, “Hit me.  Not literally this time.”

He regretted the cheap shot as soon as it came out, but after a moment of silence all Ford said was, “...The simplest equivalent to the truth teeth would most likely be alcohol.  If you don’t have any of your own, from what I recall the Corduroy family has their own very potent brew known as scumble-”

Stan opened the door enough to give him a flat stare.  “I’m not gettin’ either of us drunk when there’s kids in the house.”

Ford did a slow owl blink, before sheepish realization set in.  “...Right.”

“What’s the other option?”  Stan stepped out, tying his tie and slinging his suit jacket over his shoulder.

Ford swallowed, and held up one of his journals to an open section.  “The Evitceles Truth Spell.  In principle it’s very similar to the truth teeth, except that there’s an option to cast it so that the afflicted party, or parties, are only compelled to tell the truth to one specific person, or to each other.”  He pointed to a few incantations he’d written down thirty-plus years ago.  “All I’d need is a sample of your DNA, some lapis lazuli stones, two purple candles, and some chalk.”

Ford chuckled as he turned the book around to face himself.  “It’s fascinating, honestly.  I’m not certain if this was created by whoever was responsible for the truth teeth, or if there was just a phase in Gravity Falls’s history in which multiple people wanted to create situations that rendered others incapable of lying.”

…On second thought, getting drunk is sounding better and better.

Stan chewed his lip thoughtfully, and again was startled by being able to feel the sensation through his own real teeth.

Ugh, that probably meant he was gonna have to start brushing again, didn’t it?  One of the nice things about having dentures had been that the only cleaning you had to worry about was soaking them in-

“Mr. Pines!” Soos’s voice called from downstairs, “We got tourists, and they’re all looking a little freaked out by the damage from your epic robot battle yesterday!”

Eh, nothing Stan couldn’t work with.

He glanced at Ford as he finished buttoning his jacket, and pushed back his fez to a more comfortable angle.

“I’ll think about it while I’m suckering these yahoos.”

Without waiting for a response, he headed downstairs.

Chapter Text

Ford decided that worrying about his multiple, seemingly insurmountable problems could wait.

He had finally found someone-a member of his family , no less-who enjoyed Dungeons, Dungeons & More Dungeons, and it was imperative for him to drop everything and play !

He was almost giddy with glee as he rushed to the second floor of the basement; he had left his DD&D dice and a few other items in one of the cupboards in case he and Fiddleford had time to campaign during breaks from the portal, and then forgotten about them first in the midst of his work and then after discovering Bill’s treachery.

Hopefully the rules hadn’t changed too much since the last time he played this; from what Dipper had told him it didn’t sound that bad, except for what sounded like an absolutely horrendous version that had cropped up during the 90’s (he didn’t want to even begin to imagine what “Probabilidizzle” was supposed to be like), but perhaps they should compare their understanding of the rules beforehand just to make sure.

Oh-Ford wondered if Dipper would be interested in hearing about some of the campaigns he and Fiddleford had created back in the day-which led to the delighted thought that perhaps, as part of his plan to continue mending fences with his old friend, he should invite Fiddleford to come over and play with them.

…Then again, maybe he should play at least one game between just himself and Dipper first, both for courtesy’s sake and so he could get an inkling of the boy’s playing strategy, figure out what his strengths were-

Ford was so lost in thought that he didn’t even realize he was back in the gift shop until he heard Stan’s voice from the porch.

“Ladies and gentletourists, do not be alarmed!  What you see lying in front of you is the remains of an epic battle that took place here in the ancient time of…yesterday evening!!”

Oh.  Right.

Ford had almost managed to forget about this .

He was about to leave and go find his nephew as quickly as possible, and hopefully find a quiet place to play where he wouldn’t have to see this , when he heard a ripple of laughter from a moderately large group of people.

Apparently tourists will laugh at anything these days.

He peered through the window and saw Stan standing next to the robot, with one foot planted on it in a dramatic pose and leaning on his cane.  And he was wearing the grin that had always meant he was about to spin a long, slightly ridiculous yarn for his audience.

“Many years ago, when I was a younger, even handsomer man than I am now, I was the apprentice of a mad scientist, whose biggest ambition was to one day RULE THE WORLD!!!!”

He threw back his head and cackled gleefully, making several tourists (but definitely not Ford in any way, shape or form) jump.

“And as part of his evil plans, one day he decided ta create this monstrosity you see before you.”  He gave it a firm tap with his cane.  “What the egghead didn’t count on was that one day, it achieved sentience!”

And so on, and so forth.

Stanley did indeed spin an elaborate tale, about his younger self managing to befriend the robot and encouraging it to run away from its master, before running away himself to Gravity Falls; then, years later, the mad scientist Stan had been ‘apprenticed to’ apparently tracked him down yesterday seeking revenge, but in a moment of deus ex machina the robot came to the rescue, and fought its creator to the death in an epic showdown, the remains of which lay before them now.

…Ford had a nasty suspicion of who Stan had in mind for the role of the mad scientist, and what he was getting his inspiration from.

Regardless of his own emotions, though, the audience was clearly eating the story up, and when Stan finished, they immediately lined up and began throwing fistfuls of money at him just to have their pictures taken with the fallen colossus.

Heh; Ford had almost forgotten how good Stan was at entertaining people.

To his own consternation, he realized that the corners of his mouth had turned up as he watched Stan’s antics, and listened to his (admittedly very entertaining and creative) story.

He shook his head in disgust-but when the group of people came into the museum part of the house, he quietly trailed after them.

Ford told himself that he wasn’t entertained by Stan’s clowning around.

He told himself that he wasn’t enjoying the litany of puns (and that some of them were definitely not cleverer than his, thank you very much).

He told himself that it didn’t warm his heart, just a little, to see how genuinely pleased Stan looked every time he made his audience laugh, or the way Soos was watching him work from behind the statue of the Sascrotch and beaming proudly, even as his mop sat forgotten in his hand and soaking his shoes.

He told himself…a lot of things.

Finally Stan lured everyone to the gift shop, where he proceeded to con even more money out of them by selling bumper stickers, bobble heads, and ridiculously overpriced T-shirts in a way that would have made Pa-that Pa would have been-

…Well, that would have made their mother proud.

“And remember, we put the fun in ‘no refunds!’” Stan called gleefully after the tourists as they headed for their cars.

Ford couldn’t help it; the faintest hint of a muffled snicker slipped out of his mouth.

Stan glanced over his shoulder, and startled when he saw him standing in the gift shop.  A second later, his jaw clenched.

“You got something you wanna say about how I run my business, keep it to yourself.  Cuz I don’t wanna hear it.”

Ford could actually see him bracing himself for another potential fight, or cutting remark; his stomach squirmed.

He wasn't sure what he'd been planning to say when he opened his mouth, but what came out was, “You’re a natural salesman, Stanley.  I’m impressed.”

His brother’s eyes widened, and for a second he seemed incapable of forming words, until finally he stammered, “...What?”

“You heard me.”  Almost of its own free will, Ford’s hand raised and rubbed the back of his neck, before he cleared his throat gruffly and turned away.  “...I’m going to go find Dipper.”

Smooth, Stanford.

Chapter Text

Ford found Dipper, finally, when the boy burst through the front door in a cloud of dust, gasping and hefting a box almost as big as his entire upper body in his skinny arms.

“Gre-Uncle F-I found-I got-look-” he wheezed, sounding like he had when they first met in the basement.

Ford knelt and put a gentle hand on his back.  “Take a moment to breathe, my boy.”

For a moment he worried that he might have made matters worse, since the moment he touched him Dipper made another of those high-pitched squeaking noises, and he could feel his heartbeat absolutely pounding against his hand.

But then Dipper took a few deep breaths through his nose and out through his mouth, and after a minute he seemed to finally calm down.  After one last breath he straightened back up, grinning proudly, and held out the box.  “It’s the latest edition of DD&D!”

Ford examined it with a delighted eye, and produced his old gear.  “Excellent!  I have my dice and some graph paper all ready to go.”

Dipper grinned, and pulled his own dice out of his pocket.  “Let’s go set it up!”

For the better part of an hour dungeons were created, a quest was established, and various monsters, thieves and minions of the evil wizard Probabilitor were fought.

It took Ford a while to realize, as he guided Dipper through another maze and waited to see whether the boy would stumble into any of his traps, that he was having fun .

When was the last time he’d been able to say that?

Probably at one or two points in the multiverse, in between stealing weapon parts and seeking information.  But even then, he doubted he had ever allowed his neck and shoulders to drain of tension as much as he could feel that they were now.

Strange; being here, in his own dimension, in his own basement, and playing his favorite game with his nephew almost made him feel…safe.  And comfortable.

As they were taking a break for him to assemble a new dungeon, however, Dipper gave his throat a nervous clear and then asked, “...You’re not gonna kick out Grunkle Stan, are you?”

He was staring up at Ford with a frown that was mostly just serious, but if he looked closely, he could see genuine worry behind it.

Ford hesitated, choosing his words carefully before saying, “It has come to my attention that attempting to do that would be somewhat impractical of me.  To say nothing of…extremely unkind.  So no; Stanley is not obligated to leave this house unless he truly decides that he wants to.”

He still wanted to find a way to remedy the whole identity-stealing thing, but one step at a time.

Dipper gave a small sigh of relief.  “Oh.  Good.  I’ll tell Mabel she can stop making her ‘Stop Being a Jerk, Great Uncle Ford!’ sweater.”

…Her honesty was somewhat brutal, but the most humble aspect of Ford’s psyche suspected that he needed to hear it.

As he finished the dungeon and began laying it out, Dipper cleared his throat again.

“...Then what about the Mystery Shack?  I know it’s…not what you had in mind when you built this place, and when I first came here it felt like kind of a joke to me too, especially when I saw all the amazing stuff that’s really out there, but, um…”  In a gesture that Ford found very familiar, the boy reached up and absently rubbed the back of his neck.  “...It’s kind of grown on me and Mabel.  And Soos would definitely cry if it closed down, and Wendy would pretend that she was okay with it but she really wouldn’t be because that’d mean she’d have to go to logging camp instead, and-”

He cut off with a squeak, and gulped, before looking intently down at his character sheet.

“…Never mind.  Forget I said anything.”

Stomach squirming, Ford quickly said, “No, that’s all right, Dipper.”  He bit his lip.  “That…is something I will have to discuss with Stanley.”

Dipper looked even more apprehensive.

Ford felt his stomach give an even more uncomfortable squirm.  “But I will admit…it’s not without its level of amusement.”

His nephew relaxed again, and even gave him a shy smile before holding up his dice.  “I’m ready when you are.”

Ford smiled.  “Let’s see how you do against Probabilitor’s most devious trap yet.”

They only stopped playing when Mabel came down, banging a couple of pans together and yelling that dinner was ready with enough gusto that it shook both of them out of their roleplaying reverie (in addition to nearly giving Ford a heart attack).

Dipper smiled ruefully at Ford as he got up, and caught his sister’s arms.  “Okay, we’re coming, you can stop now.”

Mabel made a face, and pulled away.  “No way, I’m doing this for fun now!”

Before she could clang the pans together again, Ford snatched them out of her hands.  “You might damage them if you keep doing that.”

Unmoved by her pouting, he tucked the pans under his arm and headed for the elevator.

Dinner was a relatively modest offering of mixed vegetables and “scrambled meat,” as Stanley referred to it when he placed it on the table.  Maybe it was Ford’s imagination, but something about the spices he tasted brought back a few faint memories of meals cooked by their mother.

Mabel chattered cheerfully about whatever thoughts happened to be in her head at the moment as she ate, while Dipper interjected with his own when she stopped to swallow.

It was a marked contrast from their awkward silence of the last few days, when he and Stanley had spent most of dinner either ignoring each other as best they could or making jabs at each other, which ranged from subtle to blatantly hostile depending on their current moods and how much they were able to rile the other one up, making the children uncomfortable in both scenarios.

Speak of the devil, Stan barely spoke during dinner, unless someone addressed him directly.

But this time, his silence felt less hostile and more…thoughtful.

Ford just ate his dinner and tried not to do or say anything that would seem confrontational.

It wasn’t until later that night, when the children had been herded upstairs and Ford was adjusting his bedding in the break room, that Stan stepped into the doorway, tossed him a can of Pitt cola, and said, “Tell me about the spell.”

Ford was taken aback, but finally popped the tab on his soda, barely remembering in time to turn it so the spray only got on his sleeve instead of on his face.

“Well, as I told you, it’s a spell that compels-”

Stan waved a hand impatiently, before opening his own cola can.  “Yeah, I remember that part.  It’d make it so we can’t lie to each other and junk.”

Ford nodded, and took a drink, startling a little at the fizz.  “And I would set it up by forming a circle of lapis lazuli stones, with a purple candle lit at either end, and placing two samples of our DNA in the center of the circle, so it would exclusively affect us.  Then I would recite the incantation, and the spell would last for as long as the candles lasted.”

Stan frowned.  “Is it dangerous?”

“No, of course-well, it is imperative that the candles not be disturbed until they go out on their own.  Trying to blow them out and end the spell prematurely might render us incapable of lying for the rest of our lives, if not something worse.”

“You think there’s something worse than that?”  Stan looked aghast.

Ford gave a sheepish little shrug.  “There’s always something worse than what seems like the worst possible thing that can happen to you.”

Stan grimaced, and took a big gulp of soda, before coughing and spitting out the pit.

“Don’t know why they put that stupid thing in the can,” he muttered, wiping his mouth on his wrist.  Then he looked at Ford, and sighed.

“...If I get cursed ta speak the truth for the rest of my life, I’m telling the kids about how you got detention for tryna dig up a dinosaur you thought was buried under the school.”

Ford suspected that Stan might eventually be motivated to tell them that story anyway, especially that what his eight-year-old self had thought were bones was actually part of the sewer pipe-but that wasn’t the point!

“You-you’re really okay with this?”

Stan shook his head, looking disgusted.  “Pfft , no .”  Then he sagged.  “But we don’t have a lotta good options, do we?”

“...No.  I suppose not.”

Chapter Text

Stan wasn’t wild about setting the spell up in the basement; he had enough not-so-great memories of night after night spent in it.

But he reluctantly admitted to himself that it was also probably the safest place for it, especially since Mabel didn’t seem to know the meaning of the words “don’t touch,” and so he didn’t argue when Ford suggested conducting the spell there.

Soon enough two (relatively short, at least) purple candles and lapis lazuli stones had been gathered and set up in a neat little circle on the floor, close to the scattered remains of the portal.

“Now, for the DNA sample, I do have a scalpel lying around somewhere-” Ford began.

Stan immediately stepped out of reach.  “Not gonna happen.  I’ve spilled enough blood for you down here.”

A muscle in his brother’s cheek twitched, and he took a deep breath before saying, “I was going to suggest just using some of your hair.”

“...Sure you were.”  But a quick run of his fingers over his scalp later, and Stan had managed to pull out a few loose strands.

Ford accepted them, and then used a mini laser knife thing to slice through a few of his own curls, apparently oblivious to how nasty the smell of burnt hair was afterwards.  The samples were set down in the middle of the circle, and weighted down with some pieces of metal from the portal to keep them in place.  Then Ford flipped to the right page in the journal with 2 written on it, and began reciting the incantation aloud.

“ R JOHDW VSLULWV,

WKHVH VWXEERUQ IRROV KDYH VRPH LWXHV WR ZRUN RXW.

L RIIHU WKHH WKHLU HVVHQFHV.

IRU DV ORQJ DV WKHVH FDQGOHV EXUQ,

PDNH WKHLU ZRUGV WR HDFK RWKHU QDXJKW EXW WUXWK! ”

A few times Stan wondered if he was actually saying words, or if he was just trying to hack a loogie.

But when he finished, there was a soft chiming sound, like far-off bells, followed by a whisper of voices that swirled around them, making chills run down Stan’s back and arms, and the candles flared, before relaxing back into their soft golden glow.

“...So now what?” Stan asked, trying to figure out if he felt any different.  Nothing seemed to have changed.

Ford shut his journal, and pulled out the one Dipper had found, flipping to a blank page with pen poised.  “Now we have what will most likely be a brutally honest conversation.”

…Easier said than done, apparently.

It had been at least three minutes since Ford said that, and neither of them had said a word.  They just stood on opposite ends of the circle, staring at each other, kinda like gunslingers having a standoff.

Stan sure as heck wasn’t gonna be the one to make the first move: this whole thing was Ford’s idea ( and his fault ), so if he really wanted this he was gonna have to-

“You don’t have to leave.”

Ford’s voice breaking the silence actually made Stan jump a little.  He quickly composed himself, pretended he was just adjusting the lapels of his jacket, and glanced at Ford, who made an attempt at a smile.

“I never intended to suggest that, not consciously.  I just…when we had that conversation, I was trying to process multiple unexpected changes and unfortunate circumstances at once-”

Stan’s gut clenched.

“-and wanted to return my living situation-and to be frank, my life-as near to normal as I could remember, while at the same time figure out a possible contingency plan for if and when Bill decided to show himself.”

Ford’s eyes widened in horror as he started saying the last part, but his mouth didn’t even slow down until he clamped a hand over it.

Bill…oh, right.  That guy.

Stan tilted his head.

“Ya mean the little yellow freak with one eye and a top hat?”

Ford actually turned pale.  “How do you-”

“I flipped through your journal a bit before I gave it back to Dipper; despite what you think, I do know how ta read.”

Huh; this ‘spell’ doesn’t feel like much of a spell at all.  I probably would’ve said that anyway-

“Also, he broke into my mindscape earlier this summer tryna steal the combination to my safe for Gideon, and the kids had ta come in and scare him off while I pretended not ta know what was going on.”

…I take it back.

It was almost exactly like the truth teeth.

The freakiest part was that even as the words felt like they were being physically pulled out of him, his mouth was moving perfectly normally, and his tone of voice was as normal-sounding as it would have been if he’d been lying to a tourist, or even a tax collector.

Ugh, this was why he kept away from magic.  While it had its uses, you were always in for a world of hurt sooner or later.

Stan got a look at Ford’s expression, and winced; his pupils had dilated, and he could see sweat droplets breaking out on his forehead, and his hands had clenched around his book until the knuckles turned white.  It took him a couple seconds to visibly collect himself.

“...I see.  That’s…marginally better than what I feared had happened.”

“Gimme some credit, Poindexter.  I know a scam artist when I see one, it happens every time I look in the mirror.  If I ever let him into my mind, it’d haveta be cuz I was pulling one on him, not the other way around.”

Ford flinched.  “You’re more sensible than I was, at least when it comes to Bill.”

Again, Stan was thrown off by Ford saying something that came dangerously close to a compliment.  He changed the subject.

“...Any chance of him trying that again?”

Ford cleared his throat.  “I haven’t seen any signs of him so far, but knowing him, he could just be planning his next move.  The metal plate in my head protects me from further invasion for the most part, but unless I can gather materials to perform the same procedure on you and the children-”

“Don’t even think about it.”

“-it’s likely that I will need to encrypt all of your minds against him.  Or set up a protection spell that uses-” he pulled out Journal 2 again, flipped through it, and made a face- “ugh, unicorn hair.”

Huh; so unicorns were real too.

Stan wasn’t even surprised anymore.

Before he could think about that too long, though, Ford started talking again.

“Dipper was right, by the way,” he said, slowly closing the journal.  “I do miss you.  I’ve missed you ever since the night you drove away, and just forced myself to stay angry with you all this time because being angry felt better than feeling hurt and confused and lost.”  He fiddled with his hands, the way he always had when he was trying to say something and having trouble spitting it out.  “But that’s how I felt whenever I stopped to think about the fact that our relationship had fallen apart, and you were gone, and that I might never see you again: lost.  At college, and here…and even in the multiverse.”  Slowly he lifted his eyes to meet Stan’s.  “And I know I was abysmal about expressing it when I first arrived, but I am glad to be home.”

Stan swallowed, hard, trying to stop the lump threatening to rise in his throat.

It should have felt like a relief to hear Ford say that, especially knowing that both of them were under a truth spell so it couldn’t be a lie or an other attempt to trick him.  He should’ve been happy to hear it.  Heck, it should’ve been enough for him to immediately walk over and gather Ford up into that bear hug he’d wanted to give him the moment he stepped out of the portal.

…So why wasn’t it?

But all it took was a moment of thought for him to know why.

Something in his eyes must have confirmed his thoughts, because Ford’s hopeful expression fell, replaced with a combination of confusion, hurt and a touch of frustration.

“Why is this so hard for you to believe, Stanley?” he demanded, marching around the circle of stones.  “This spell is affecting me just as strongly as it is you.  I don’t think the plate is capable of repelling it, and frankly I would have nothing to gain and everything to lose by-”

“‘Ironically, the only other person left that I can trust is the least trustworthy person I know.’”

The words, which had seared themselves into Stan’s brain during his cursory scan before returning the journal to Dipper, burned his mouth on the way out.

From the way Ford screeched to a halt mid-stride, they might as well have been knives through the heart.

It physically hurt to see him like that, but Stan felt the rest of the words come rolling out with equal mercilessness.

“‘He is a thief and a charlatan -but a well-traveled one.  I have no doubt that he is familiar with mob hangouts and back alleys the wide world over.  He will find somewhere to hide Journal 1.  I have sent word to him and now must await his arrival.’”

He knew he should probably stop now; he’d made his point.

“‘Perhaps he can yet prove his worth to me.  Perhaps the mistakes of the past can be undone.’”

Ford flinched, and his shoulders rose almost to his ears as he looked down at his boots.

“...Yeah,” Stan whispered bitterly.  “You’re gonna haveta excuse me, Stanford, if I have a little trouble believing you really miss me, when you made it pretty clear a long time ago that you don’t see me as a brother anymore.  Or a friend.  Or a person.  Or anything besides a potential pawn in your stupid little game with Bill.”

He turned away, and ran his hand over his face.

Chapter Text

There comes a time in everyone’s life, at least once, when they look back on something their younger self once did or said, and dearly wish that they could go back in time and undo it.  Or, failing that, at the very least give their younger self a good hard smack upside the head.

Unfortunately, members of the Time Paradox Avoidance Enforcement Squad rarely appear during these moments offering time tape unless it would have an impact on the natural flow of the timeline important enough to warrant Time Baby’s attention, and this was not one of those times.

Hearing his own words parroted back to him was a harsh reality check to Ford about how heartless they had been.  And while he did have legitimate reasons for the emotions behind them, and had been under a lot of “I’ve potentially doomed the world” stress at the time, and he hadn’t known what was happening to Stan other than that he was running some kind of less than savory business somewhere in New Mexico last he’d heard from Ma, and he certainly never expected for Stan to read what he’d said about him…he had just enough self-awareness to realize that that didn’t make it okay.

After staring at Stanley’s back for a moment, struggling for the words he so desperately needed to fix this and failing miserably, he reluctantly pulled that particular journal out of his coat pocket and flipped to the offending section.

It didn’t look any better in print.

He could still remember the half-mad frenzy in which he’d scrawled the words.  He hadn’t even known who he was writing them for; future generations, perhaps?  Because even then, he’d been so adamant that the information in his journals be preserved, despite how dangerous it was, because perhaps someday someone wiser than he might see it and know better than to use it as he had-

Modoc the Shaman most likely had the same thought when he-if it really was him-painted that warning in the cave.

With a disgusted sound Ford turned to the recording of his life in Gravity Falls before the portal.

Back when he was still innocent and happy and thought Bill was his friend, and everything was much simpler.

He had missed Stanley.

Even when he was at his lowest points, he’d never quite managed to stop wondering about his twin: if he was all right, if he’d ever see him again, if the last words they’d ever say to each other would be in anger.

In those lowest moments, he’d wondered briefly if he was even alive , before quickly telling himself that that was ridiculous, Stanley was fine.

Yes, he’d been angry, and hurt; he had a right to be, after losing his chance at not just a good college, but the best college money could buy, and then Stan had just disappeared without so much as an “I’m sorry” (he tried to ignore the inner voice that hissed, “Yeah, cuz he had so much reason to think you’d listen”).

But there was still a small spark somewhere inside him that had missed the time before all the anger and hurt, when they’d been happy together, and it was just Ford and Stan against the world.

Occasionally he’d even-

A small spark of inspiration, or maybe even hope, flared up.

“Stanley?”

Stan didn’t acknowledge that he’d been addressed.

All right, time to play hardball then.

Ford cleared his throat and read aloud, “I recall finding a shrunken head in the family pawnshop and bringing it to show-and-tell.  Every other student brought a football, a football trophy, or a book about football.  All of these objects were thrown at me as I gave my report.  If my brother hadn’t shielded me and punched one of the other kids in the nose, I might have spent the rest of the year in the hospital.”

Stan did a little half turn in his direction.  Ford held up the journal so he could see the entry; he said nothing, but his eyes widened a fraction, and some of the hostility went out of his stance.

Ford turned to another section.

“There is no other place in Gravity Falls I would rather be than the lake.  It reminds me of my childhood and Glass Shard Beach.”

Even though he had written it in code, he remembered the next part perfectly.

“I still recall that one summer Stanley and I hunted for the Jersey Devil in the Pine Barrens.  Mom and Dad never believed that we really saw one.”

Was that a muffled laugh from Stan?  Maybe the faintest hint of a smile?

“In hindsight, I would technically have been more correct in saying that we searched for it on the boardwalk and the caves by the lighthouse, but when I wrote this the Pine Barrens sounded like a more mysterious and appropriate setting for finding the Jersey Devil.”  With a sheepish shrug Ford turned to another entry.

“At one point Fiddleford and I went hiking, in search of parts for the portal, and I wrote this while we were sitting by the campfire one night.  ‘Reminds me of camping with my brother.  I wonder what he’s up to.’”

Stan immediately winced again, and turned away, towards the ruined remains of the portal.

“You could’ve found out, if you’d really wanted to,” he whispered hoarsely.  “You could’ve at least tried .”

“...I know.”

Stan finally turned to look at him again, expression revealing nothing, but Ford could see that his hands were tight at his sides, the way they always had when he was bracing himself for something that was probably about to hurt.

It was disconcerting how he felt the spell immediately reacting to the words he was leaving unspoken, and shoving them forward.

“I thought about it, whenever something happened that reminded me of you.  Every Hanukkah, and every birthday.  And when I first moved here, even when I enjoyed exploring the woods and all the strange anomalies I found here, I often thought about how much more I would have enjoyed doing it with you.”  He bit his lip, his own hands clenching around his journal.  “But…I remembered how you’d said that you didn’t need anyone.  And I would just allow myself to get worked up all over again over the old hurt, and then return my attention to whatever I was studying and try and forget about it.”

He took a tentative step forward, mindful of the candles; he saw Stan’s shoulders immediately tighten in response, but at least he wasn’t walking away just yet.

Well, better rip the bandage off, as long as so many of them were already metaphorically laying in a bloody pile at their feet.

“...I want to believe that you didn’t sabotage-”

“I didn’t .”

Ford winced at the snarl of complete and utter frustration, and held up his hands in surrender.

“You’re right, I’m sorry.”  He took a deep breath.  “I’m glad that this spell is confirming that you didn’t, as harsh as I realize that sentiment is now that I’m actually saying it aloud.  And it wasn’t fair of me to assume that you had in the first place, without hearing your side of the story in full.  But…the consequences for me were still the same as if you had.”

Stan flinched, and rubbed the back of his neck.

“And that was the part that really hurt me, Stanley.  Because West Coast Tech was important to me.  Or, at least what it was offering me: a chance to be surrounded by people who would not only accept me as I was, but challenge me on an intellectual level-”

By the way Stan’s face darkened, he realized again that that had been a poor choice of words, and tried to furiously backpedal.

“You know what it was like living in Glass Shard.  All anyone ever saw me as was the six-fingered freak who knew too many vocabulary words and understood complex calculus that went over their heads, and West Coast was…a way out.”

Stan made a scornful sound through his nose.  “Yeah, cuz my life was an effortless wave of joy compared ta yours.  You think I liked being the dumb one?  Or that I was thrilled ta hear that I didn’t have a future beyond scraping barnacles?”

It was Ford’s turn to flinch.  “You are not dumb-”

“It’s not like I didn’t want you ta succeed in life,” Stan interrupted vehemently.  “You’re a bright guy who needs ta stretch his brain muscles and junk, and those West Coast jerks didn’t know what they were missing out on.  But I had dreams too, ya know.  Maybe not as big and important and world-changing as yours, but they were still…mine.”

Ford wondered if he was ever going to reach a point in this conversation where he would stop feeling awful.

At the moment, the possibility seemed highly unlikely.  And it wasn’t much comfort to see that Stan looked equally miserable.

In retrospect, it should have been obvious that Stan would have been eavesdropping on that meeting; he wouldn’t be Stan if he hadn’t.  And as much as he claimed not to care what other people thought of him, and that he didn’t let it get to him…hearing the principal say those cruel things about him ( and not one person speaking up in his defense ) must have broken his seventeen-year-old self’s heart.

“I know I shoulda told you what happened,” Stan interrupted his musings hoarsely.  “Or just-not gone near the dad-blame thing at all.  And I should’ve caught you in time.”  He nodded towards the portal.  “I’m sorry about all of it.  I can’t even tell you how sorry I am.”  He rubbed a hand over his face again.  “I’m just…so tired of paying for it.  I’ve been paying, and paying, and paying…and it’s never enough.”

The worst part was that he wasn’t even angry this time, like he’d been upstairs when spitting similar words at Ford.

He wasn’t even bitter.

He just sounded…tired.

And broken.

“...Stanley, don’t say that,” Ford choked out at last.  “Please don’t say that.”

Stan opened his eyes and squinted at him.  “Gimme one good reason not to.”

“Because you’ve paid for all of this far more than you should ever have had to, and you deserve better.”  Ford began maneuvering around the circle of candles towards him.  “Because you didn’t deserve to lose everything over a dumb mistake, or to feel worthless.  Because I have made plenty of my own mistakes in this whole disaster, so the responsibility does not entirely lie on you.”

Stan backed up uncertainly at his approach, and ended up stumbling over a few broken pieces of portal before catching himself, eyes wide and looking somewhere between suspicious and bewildered.

Undaunted, Ford continued his approach until they were face to face.  “...Because it’s taken me a foolish amount of time to realize it, but I don’t want to lose you again.”  He kept his gaze steady, trying to convey his conviction with it.

Stan swallowed, hard, and glanced at the candles before meeting his eyes again.  “...I wanna believe you.  Honest-heh, can’t be anything but right now-I do.  I just…keep waiting for the other shoe ta drop.”

“That’s fair,” Ford admitted, lowering the intensity a little.  “I am experiencing similar fear.  And while I appreciate your apologies, I suspect it will take a while for the hurt to completely fade.”

Stan gave a little shrug.  “That’s better’n a poke in the eye with a sharp object, I guess.”

Ford’s lips twitched.  “If you are amenable, I would suggest that we just try…taking things one day at a time.  See what happens.”

Stan chewed his lip, mulling over something, then nodded and said reluctantly, “...If you really wanna shut down the Shack, you’ll have to figure out some other type of income-”

“We don’t have to shut down the Shack.”  The little part of Ford still feeling territorial over it rankled, but he reminded it sternly that a) they had no other way of earning money at the moment, b) Stan clearly excelled at this line of work, and c) part of rebuilding his relationship with him would have to include knowing when to make compromises.

Immediately Stan brightened.  “Really?”

Ford gave a firm nod.  “Really.”

For a moment he thought Stan was going to lunge forward and hug him.  Instead his shoulders relaxed, and he whispered, “...Thank you.”  One of his hands twitched briefly at his side, before he gave a loud, theatrical yawn and stretched.

“Ugh.  I dunno about you, but I’m exhausted from all the emotional vulnerability, so I’m gonna pretend I’m more tired than I actually am and go to bed-”  He stopped, and groaned into his hand.  “Stupid truth spell.”

Ford chuckled.  “I was considering taking similar action, though in my case I’m going to stay up all night thinking about what to do about the interdimensional rift and what further precautions to take against Bill until I collapse from exhaustion-”  He groaned.  “You’re right; this truth spell is incredibly frustrating.”

“...Yeah, no.”  Stan grabbed his lapel and began towing him towards the elevator.  “We’re gonna get some ice cream, and maybe bourbon while we’re at it, and see if there’s anything good on TV, and fall asleep in our chairs like the old fossils we are.”

“Hey!”

But Ford allowed himself to be tugged across the basement to the doors, and half-shoved inside.

As they were going up, he cleared his throat.

“Stanley?”

Stan, who had been leaning tiredly against the wall, glanced at him out of the corner of his eye.  “Hmm?”

“I’m sorry too.  For everything.”

Stan…appeared to get glitter in his eyes for a moment.  He didn’t answer, he just nodded and swallowed, then led the way to the kitchen.

Chapter Text

“EEE-mmph!”

“Ssh!  They’re still asleep!”

“Sorry, I can’t help it!  My dreams are coming true before my eyes!!!!”

“Sssssssh!”

“Can I at least take a picture?”

“As long as you can do it quietly .”

There was a soft click , followed by a series of louder ones that meant a camera was being used.

Stan barely registered the noise; he was too busy trying to sort out the rest of the sensations his body was picking up.

Warm, fleecy material draped over his knees-blanket.

Kind of a light breeze on his neck-his collar was open, and he realized that he could faintly feel his tie draped over his shoulders.

The thickness of a heavier material wrapped around the top of his head, something wispy tickling his temple-that was his fez.

And he had a headache, the front part of his skull throbbing in tandem with his heartbeat.

So far, situation relatively normal.  He must’ve fallen asleep in front of the television again after a long day of suckering tourists, and forgotten to go to bed because of some crappy program.

So what?  He’d earned the right to be a couch potato in his old age.

Something thick and heavy pressing into his shoulder, and a soft, floofy sensation tickling his chin-wait, what?

The heavy weight shifted.

It grumbled.

Stan fought back a wave of panic and tried to remember what happened last night and whether he could fight his way out-

“...3.1…415…zzz…926…zzz…”

Oh.

Right.

Stan tried to decide how he felt about…this.

About him and Ford having finally kinda-sorta cleared the air, a.k.a. the thing he’d wanted more than anything in the world for the last forty years.

He should’ve been over the moon about it, especially cuz the truth voodoo meant it had all been real and neither of them could have covered up or lied about anything.  He should’ve felt happy, the way he’d been last night when they came up out of the basement.

Instead, at the moment he just felt…kinda numb.

Not exactly like he had after the giant robot incident, but kinda close.

Like this was all just another beautiful dream.

There was another muffled squeal that had Stan resisting the urge to open his eyes, and another “Sssh!” that had to be Dipper.

The head on his shoulder snuffled, and then slowly scooted off of him, before its owner made a startled noise.

“Oh!  Um-good morning, children.”

“Hi, Grunkle Ford!  Did you sleep well?”  Ugh, Stan could hear the joyful smugness in Mabel’s voice.

“Quite well, thank you.”  There was a clinking noise down by their feet; if he had to guess, Stan would say it was probably one of the, ahem, expired corn bottles from last night being discreetly nudged under the blanket they were sharing, and oh ugh, they were never gonna hear the end of this, were they?

Stan continued pretending to be asleep in order to delay the inevitable for just a little longer.

“...Is everything okay between you now?”  Dipper was still more subdued than his sister, but there was a hint of excited curiosity in his voice.

Stan actually felt a small twinge of nervous anticipation in his guts as he waited to hear how his brother was gonna answer that.

Ford hesitated, and then cleared his throat.  “...We’re working on it.”

Okay, weirdly enough that made Stan feel a little better.

“Oh.”

It was all he could do not to wince at how crestfallen Mabel sounded.  But a second later she said brightly, “But this is definitely a huge step up!  I’m so proud of both of you-you deserve celebration of brotherly love pancakes!  C’mon, Dipper!”

And there was the thundering of feet headed towards the kitchen.

Okay, better ‘wake up’ and make sure they don’t set the stove on fire.  Again.  Or put glitter in my saucepan.  Again .

He was just about to start stretching and yawning when he felt the lump next to him nudge his shoulder.

“I know you’re not asleep, Stanley.”

“...Yeah I am.  And now I’m talking in my sleep.”

Huh; guess the candles must’ve gone out.

Ford made a gruff old man noise.  “You haven’t been snoring for the last three minutes.  That’s not going to work this time.”

With a sigh Stan opened his eyes, squinting against the morning light, and resettled his glasses onto his nose.

Ford was giving him a weird look as he swam into focus.

Not that kind of weird; weird as in it gave Stan a funny feeling in his chest that continued the work of cutting through the numbness and making him feel things (rude).

He busied himself with pushing his way up and out of the chair, grumbling as his old bones creaked, and cracked his back.

“How are you feeling, Stanley?” Ford asked, folding the blanket and setting it back in the armchair.

“Old.”  Stan reluctantly knelt back down and picked up the empty ice cream carton and spoons.  He noticed with a wince that some of the leftover sludge had oozed onto the carpet, and made a mental note to make one of the kids clean it up.

“I know the feeling.”

“Sure ya do, Mr. Action Hero.”  Stan cracked his neck from side to side, and headed for the kitchen to face the music.

The next few days were…a little better.

Not like they used to be, not half as idyllic as the days of wandering the beach, but at least they weren’t yelling anymore, or even passive aggressively sniping, and there was no talk about anyone having to leave, or the Mystery Shack being shut down.

Instead there was mostly just awkwardly dancing around each other, with the occasional good moment thrown in.

Like Stan sneaking a jar filled to the brim with weirdly shaped jelly beans-that he’d apparently been saving for the last thirty years-down to the basement and leaving them on the table (he claimed to know nothing about it, but Ford knew better).

Or Ford, after his failed attempt at making breakfast one morning resulted in using up most of the fire extinguisher, deciding instead to start setting the table for meals.

Or Stan stomping into the basement to drag Ford away from his work because a new episode of The Duchess Approves remake was on, and he needed someone to help mercilessly mock its inferior quality compared to the original, and often wound up with both of them falling asleep side by side in their chairs.

Little things like that.

Ford found himself being dragged into spending more time with the kids, too.

Mabel somehow persuaded him to let her paint a turkey onto his hand, and from there to participate in a charming little film she called “Mabel’s Guide to Hand Makeovers” that involved them going into town in search of people with hands in need of being decorated, and was forced to cut off abruptly when they nearly got arrested because the dear girl decided to cover the statue of Nathaniel Northwest’s hands with the word “LIAR” over and over in bright red paint.

And of course he and Dipper took every opportunity to play D, D&D, the campaigns growing increasingly elaborate as they allowed their imaginations to run wild.  He even found himself relaxing enough to tell the boy about some of his adventures in the multiverse, and the wide-eyed delight in his eyes as he asked him questions made a strange, warm feeling rise in Ford’s chest every time.

Even Stanley’s employees seemed happier with his presence in the house, now that he was no longer trying to enforce his will over it.

Soos occasionally tried to help Ford get caught up on all the popular culture he’d missed out on during the last thirty years (which mostly meant he would talk his ear off about something called ‘anime’ or different video games that he liked to play until Stan told him to get back to work), and once in a while joined Dipper in asking questions about his travels.  They were usually less scientific than Dipper’s, but he seemed so happy when Ford took the time to answer them that he didn’t have the heart to ignore him.

As for Wendy, she was not as openly friendly as the others, but she at least accepted him without hostility if they happened to be in the same room, and would continue reading her magazine or texting on her cellular device without acknowledging that he was there unless he addressed her.

Ford decided to count that as progress.

Eventually McGucket showed up at the Mystery Shack (with his son, no less, so perhaps fences were being mended there too) to help get the remains of the robot off the lawn, much to the disappointment of the tourists until Stan improvised a new story about it returning to life and escaping to a giant tree city in the clouds.

He looked better; still barefoot, but now he was wearing new clean clothes, and even appeared to have gotten a few square meals and taken a bath or three since the last time Ford had seen him.

Of course Ford assisted with the dismantling of the robot, partly because he was sort of-okay, mostly responsible for its being there in the first place, partly as an opportunity to catch up on lost time with his old friend and continue making amends for his egregious mistreatment of him.

Fiddleford assured him there was no need for the latter, since he’d acknowledged that he’d been a “bullheaded idjit” already and apologized for it, but he seemed to enjoy his company regardless.

And every once in a while, Ford would sneak back down to the basement and check on the rift to make sure that the container was holding firm.

It was, even if he could still hear disturbing sounds echoing inside of it.

But one morning he opened the cupboard, and saw a thin, hairline crack etching its way across the glass surface.

Chapter Text

Ford fought back the urge to panic.

At least, he tried to.

Unfortunately, he had some doubts about his success in the endeavor, since within seconds he could feel something with long sharp claws reaching into his chest and squeezing his heart, and his vision had started blurring and graying, as a familiar mocking cackle echoed in his ears-

It was a minute or two before he could focus on his surroundings again.

He realized that the sharp discomfort in his spine was because he was now standing against one of the monitors, which was digging into the middle of his back.

Ford shifted so that he was leaning against the wall in a somewhat more comfortable position, and wrapped his hands around the lapels of his coat as he took a few deep breaths, in through the nose, out through the mouth, until he had regained some semblance of control again.

It’s okay.

It’s just a crack, not a full shattering.

Bill hasn’t broken through yet.

He hasn’t been able to hurt anyone.

Even though it’s only a matter of time-

Focus!

He appeared to have slammed the cupboard shut in the midst of his distress; tentatively Ford stepped forward and opened it again.

The crack was still there, standing out darkly against the vibrant mini galaxy.

Had it grown since he’d last looked at it, or was that just his anxious imagination?

What can I do to stop it from spreading/being used against us?

Plan A: shield everyone’s minds against Bill with Project Mentem immediately.

It wouldn’t keep the rift from growing, but it would keep the little beast from using any of them to get his greedy claws on it.

But if I remember correctly, the encryption procedure takes ages.

And what if he finds someone else in the interim?

I don’t have time to encrypt the minds of everyone in town before he decides to act!  And even if Fiddleford and I worked together to reconfigure the machine, that would take time that we don’t have at our disposal-

He fought down another wave of panic, and began to pace.

Plan B: put a shielding spell around the house, before traveling to Crash Site Omega and retrieving some sealing adhesive.

That seems like a more viable option; perhaps Celestabellebethabelle has mellowed out over the years and would allow me to actually take some of her hair this time, pure of heart or not.  Or, failing that, I can just bring some chloroform and a good pair of scissors and-

“Uh, Ford?”

Clearly Ford had been back in his own dimension for too long; he must have grown soft if he hadn’t been able to instinctively hear someone entering his lab even while he was lost in thought.

With a half-yell he spun around, twisting his face into his best attempt at a disarming smile as he took a quick step to the right, blocking the view of the cupboard.

“Nothing, everything’s fine!”

…Stanley didn’t look like he was buying it.  He just tilted his head, and slowly folded his arms in a pose that was an eerie reflection of their mother when she could tell they were trying to pull a fast one on her.

The smile faded into a somewhat manic grimace.

…On the one hand, they had been working on being open and honest with each other about things that were important, because not doing so had done nothing but cause both of them a highly unnecessary amount of pain and anguish.

On the other hand, this was something he could- had to -handle himself; every time he involved other people, even more disasters happened, and nobody else had a personal score to settle with Bill the way he did-

“Is that the inter-whatsit rift thingy?”  Stan was peering over his shoulder.  “Is it supposed ta be cracked like that?”

“...No.”  Ford reluctantly admitted to himself that there wasn’t much point in denying it.  “No, it’s not.  It means that…it’s in danger of breaking open and giving Bill access to our dimension.”

Stan hissed through his newly restored teeth.  “...So what’re we gonna do about it?”

“There is no ‘we’.  I have everything under control-”

“Ford, shut up.”

While Ford was still trying to splutter out a response, Stan dodged around him and deftly scooped up the rift.

“Be careful with that!”  Frantically Ford checked his brother’s pupils for any sign of yellow.  Even if, despite Stan’s personal misgivings, he was right and his brother was less likely to fall for Bill’s machinations, that didn’t mean he was completely non-susceptible-

“Relax, Poindexter.  No one in here but yours truly.”  Stan cradled the rift carefully in his hands and tilted it, frowning as he looked at the crack.  “...I take it super glue’s not gonna cut it.”

“Unfortunately not.  I have, however, been considering a stronger adhesive.”  Ford swallowed, and gingerly took the rift back.  “It’s a sealant from…” despite his current emotional turmoil, a small touch of old excitement welled up in his chest, “...a place that I discovered years ago.”

“That’s not incredibly vague at all.”

“Just tr-”  Ford hesitated, rethought his words.  “...It would be easier to show you.  And-perhaps we could bring the children, and search for the adhesive together.  Make it a family outing.”  Dipper would definitely be excited about the possibility of visiting an alien crash site, and even if Mabel didn’t have the same passion for science that they did he suspected she might at least enjoy the opportunity to descend into the depths of the ship using a magnet gun.  Or, more likely, her grappling hook.

Stan’s eyes brightened for a moment…but then he frowned.

“So you’re just gonna cover that thing in super strong glue and hope it works?”

“More or less.  It should make the containment unit infinitely less easy to destroy, even if Bill does somehow manage to get it.”

“...And how likely is it that he’s gonna do that?”

Ford tried to ignore the small chill that ran down his back, and shrugged irritably.  “I don’t know.  As long as I remain vigilant and keep it locked up, it won’t be easy for him.”

“But from the sound o’ things, Bill’s pretty stubborn, right?”  Stan’s words were slow, and a little uncertain, but they remained steady.  “And he’s immortal, unlike us, so chances are sooner or later he’s gonna get hold of it, and figure out a way ta get it open.  Or some chucklehead’s gonna open it ta see what’s that shiny thing inside-”

“Well, do you have a better idea?!” Ford snapped.

“I’m just asking, okay?!”  Stan bristled back, jaw clenching.  “Sorry for thinkin’ ahead a little!”

He spun around, ready to storm off-but he hadn’t taken two steps before a six-fingered hand closed around his arm and pulled him up short.

“...You’re right.”

It was odd to actually say that phrase aloud and direct it towards someone else, but it was worth seeing Stanley’s anger immediately relax.

Ford gnawed his lower lip for a second, before admitting, “...I know that it’s no good hiding it, or sealing it, or even putting up a sign warning future generations not to open it.  I’m living proof that that method doesn’t work.  But…I don’t know what else to do.”

Stan turned to look at him again, then back at the rift.  “...Same thing they did with the One Ring.  Destroy it.”

…Did Stanley just make a casual reference to Lord of the Rings ?

I am so confused and so proud at the same time.  I always knew he’d like the books if he gave them a chance and could get past the parts he’d think were tedious.

“That would be ideal, yes.  Unfortunately, we don’t have a handy volcano capable of vaporizing rifts in space and time nearby.  I wouldn’t even know where to begin.”

“Yeah, well, maybe we can get some input from the kids.  If anyone can figure out how ta destroy something that’s indestructible, it’s them.”  Stan adjusted his fez, which had tilted at a crooked angle.  “Or heck, maybe we can just give it ta Soos.  One time I gave him some stainless steel parts for an exhibit, and when I came back ta check on him he’d somehow managed ta get ‘em all rusted…”

But Ford wasn’t completely listening anymore.

His eyes were fixated on the shiny golden symbol in the center of Stan’s fez.

And the reminder of Dipper and Mabel had brought back memories of the blue pine tree symbol on Dipper’s hat, and the shooting star on one of Mabel’s favorite homemade sweaters…

Absently setting the rift on the table, and barely remembering in time to push it towards the center so he could avoid dooming the universe right then and there, Ford pulled one of his journals from his coat and began flipping through it to a passage he’d written on one of the many strange drawings in the caves of Gravity Falls.

It’s a bit of a long shot…but it also might be just crazy enough to work.

Chapter Text

“Family meeting!  Family meeting!”

It was a matter of seconds before the call was answered by the pitter-patter of little feet, and the children stampeded into the living room.

They were greeted by the sight of Stan lounging in his armchair with a Pitt cola, and Ford standing in the center of the room, in front of a large whiteboard.

On it he had drawn a circle containing ten unusual, but somewhat familiar symbols-with a large, isosceles-or possibly unilateral, depending who you asked-figure in the center.

And as soon as he laid eyes on it, Dipper skidded to a halt, barely even seeming to notice when Mabel smacked into him.

“...Bill?”

His voice cracked, in a way that probably had nothing to do with being on the brink of puberty, and his face lost at least two shades of color as he stared at the image of the demon.

Ford winced; he had read over the childrens’ entries in Journal 3 regarding their experiences with Bill, so in retrospect this diagram could perhaps have been displayed a little more tactfully.

He cleared his throat, and tried to give his nephew a reassuring smile.

“...Yes.  I…take a seat, please, children.  We have important matters to discuss that concern him.”

He’d debated with himself over how much this was truly necessary, but at last come to the conclusion that if he wished to continue improving his relationships with his family members, that most likely meant being open and honest should be a precedent with all of them, not just Stanley.  Even as he worried about how the truths he was about to reveal might impact his relationship with the children.

If they’d think less of him for his mistakes.

Dipper and Mabel glanced at each other uncertainly, and then at Stan, who rolled his eyes and gave them a “he’s being so dramatic” look that was clearly (probably) meant to help relax them.  It seemed to be successful, as after a second they meandered over to his chair and climbed up onto the arms, one on either side of Stan.

Once they had made themselves comfortable, Ford gathered his courage and opened his mouth again.

“...Years ago, when I first came to Gravity Falls and began studying the strange and wondrous creatures that lived here, I had a dream of one day uncovering the reason why it is a haven for so many of them.  The closest I came to actually finding it was my theory of Gravity Falls’s natural law of weirdness magnetism, but I still didn’t know why it occurred, or how.  And the fact that I didn’t know caused me no end of frustration.”  Just remembering his entries about it in his journals made him cringe at his younger self’s arrogance.  “...And then one day, I was exploring the caves of Gravity Falls, and I uncovered an unusual painting that seemed like it could help me find the answers I was looking for.”

It was even more painful than remembering his eagerness to discover the Grand Theory of Weirdness, explaining to the children what had happened with Bill.

Now that he could see with clear eyes how he’d allowed himself to be tricked by empty flattery, isolated from the outside world by honeyed words reassuring him that he was so much better than those pathetic plebeians who were just not smart enough to really understand him, dazzled by the gifts and the games and the fascinating stories into adoring and even worshiping their giver.

He tried not to go too far into detail about it.  Or about how violated he felt when he finally realized the awful truth.  But he couldn’t in good conscience sugarcoat the gravity of what would happen if Bill managed to get hold of the rift between their worlds.

“...To him-” he pointed to the drawing- “it’s all just a game.  But to us, it would mean-” he turned the board, revealing another drawing of the Nightmare Realm- “the end of the world.”

For a long moment the children and Stan sat and stared at the picture, eyes wide.

Ford wondered if maybe that last part had been overkill.

After a minute, Dipper finally whispered, “...Oh man.”

It sounded worried, but not necessarily condemning.  And when Ford glanced at him and Mabel, all he could see in their eyes was anxiety as they stared at the artwork.

Perhaps it’s simply taking a while for the truth to sink in.  Don’t get your hopes up.  Just because Stanley doesn’t seem to blame you, at least not for this, doesn’t mean nobody else will.

“Oh man, indeed.”  He rubbed the back of his neck and pushed away the unhappy thoughts.  “I don’t mean to frighten you, but I need all of you to understand why this next part is so important.”  He turned the board back around to the side with the Zodiac.

“Do any of these symbols seem familiar to you?”

“Yeah!  That one looks like the one on Dipper’s hat!”  Mabel pointed to the symbol of the pine tree.  “And that one looks like the symbol I put on my favorite sweater, and that one-”

She gasped, and spun around to poke the center of Stan’s Order of the Holy Mackerel fez.  Stan pulled back with a gruff snort and swatted her hand down, but his expression was more fond than actually upset.

“What is this, Great Uncle Ford?” Dipper asked.

“...I’m not entirely sure,” Ford admitted.

Seeing the way Stan’s eyes started to widen sarcastically, before his brother could open his mouth he added quickly, “But it’s from another cave painting I found, which contains a prophecy that these symbols could together be the key to putting a stop to Bill.  I think that, if we can find all of the people bearing them and get them to join together, that might be enough to successfully seal the rift and stop Weirdmageddon before it starts.”

“You mean like the Avengers or something?” asked a voice from the doorway.

Ford had really spent too much time becoming complacent since leaving the multiverse; it took all his self control not to immediately reach for his gun, as he quickly assured himself that Stan’s employees were not an active threat to him or the others, and neither of their eyes had so much as a trace of yellow in them.

Soos smiled sheepishly as he shuffled into view.  “Sorry dude, but we heard you calling for a family meeting while we were restocking the popsicles, and like, we weren’t sure if that meant you were including us or not, cuz you probably don’t see us as family, but Mr. Pines and the kids are totally family to me-” Stan made a strange noise in the back of his throat- “and Wendy too even if she doesn’t wanna admit it.”

One of Wendy’s feet darted out to give Soos a swift kick to the ankle, but the way her cheeks reddened seemed to confirm the sentiment.

“Of course you guys are family!” Mabel said brightly, beaming at them.  Then she turned to look at Ford.  “It’s okay, Grunkle Ford, they can help with this.”

Ford glanced between the newcomers, at the dark green question mark in the middle of Soos’s chest and the empty ice bag Wendy had slung over her shoulder.

“...Yes, Mabel, I do believe you’re right.”

“...So that just leaves us with the stitched heart, the llama, the all-seeing eye, and the spectacles.”

“The heart one’s easy,” Wendy said.  “Robbie’s been wearing that same dumb hoodie since seventh grade.”  Soos still seemed a little dazed (and had muttered something that sounded like “Questiony was real this whole time?!”), but she had recovered remarkably fast from the revelation that she was part of an ancient prophecy destined to stop an evil dream demon; the symbol of the ice was a perfect match for her.

Dipper groaned.  “And unfortunately, I recognize that symbol too.”  He pointed to the star with the eye in the middle.

Mabel groaned too.  “Oh, come on!  Of all the people in this town, why did it have to be him ?!”

“Because the universe hates us, sweetie,” Stan said dryly.

“Dare I ask who you’re referring to?” Ford interrupted the grumble-fest.

“Gideon.”  The way Stan said it, he might as well have said “toxic waste” or “tax collector”.

“He’s a psychotic little twerp who tried to go out with Mabel against her will and take over the Shack,” Wendy said.

“ And he’s in prison, so even if we wanted to make him part of the Zodiac-” Dipper began.

“Which we don’t !” Mabel cut in.

“Yeah, which we don’t-he’s kind of inaccessible at the moment.”

Oh.

Right.

Ford remembered skimming over that part of Journal 3, but at the time he’d been more invested in studying their dealings with Bill.  He made a mental note to go back at his earliest convenience and read all the childrens’ entries from beginning to end.

But despite their misgivings, this Gideon fellow being imprisoned was quite possibly the least dire of their concerns-especially if Bill happened to be spying on them and knew what they were planning.

“For now, just focus on finding those last few people that match with these symbols,” he indicated the glasses and the llama, “and make sure to round up Robbie and explain the situation to him.  Once that’s done, bring all of them here.”

“What about Gideon?” Dipper asked.

Ford smiled grimly.  “Leave that problem to me.”

Chapter Text

It was kinda nice, not being as angry all the time anymore.

Don’t get me wrong, Robbie was still pretty angry-you would be too, if you had to deal with teenage hormones combined with parents who were relentlessly cheerful all the time the way he did.

But he had at least managed to stop pining over Wendy.

A little part of him still ached over things not working out with her, yeah.  After all, she was his first crush, ever since the day she punched him in the face for pulling her hair; that wasn’t something you got over easily.

But in hindsight…the way he’d behaved after finally getting the chance to date her had been…maybe a little possessive.  Not to mention creepy.

And had he seriously tried to get in a fight with a twelve-year-old just for liking her?

That was…kinda low, even for him.

Sometimes Robbie thought about maybe sorta apologizing to the kid for that whole mess; on the other hand, that felt a lot like giving in, which totally went against his Cool Teen Code of Conduct.

Mostly he just tried to rechannel his emotions into music, and went around with Tambry and the rest of the gang every chance he got, now that they’d accepted him back into their group.

And, y’know, stopped glaring at Dipper every time he and his sister hung out with them.

This particular day, though, he’d been kept busy running an errand for his parents.

Apparently they were having a sale on coffins (Order Now, Get An Extra Fluffy Pillow Upon Interment!), and Mom had asked him to go around town to see if anyone was looking ill, or older than usual, and if so he was supposed to leave a flier on their doorstep.

Something about that felt a little messed up, but Tambry was shopping with her mom, and he was out of spray paint, so Robbie agreed to it.

He squinted down at the list Mom had written for him, rolling his eyes at the way she dotted all her ‘i’s with little hearts and wondering again how they were related.  After all, any teenager with sense knew that the cool thing would be to dot them with little pictures of skulls.

Ooh, Mayor Befufflefumpter was next on the list.  He and the gang had driven by the mansion once or twice to cat call and make Thompson moon the place through the car window, but he’d never actually gone to the front door.  Kinda worth bragging about to the guys.

Robbie strode along, musing new song lyrics to himself as he walked and thinking about which ones to share with Tambry during his texting break, when he was interrupted by a familiar voice down by his leg chirping, “Hello!”

Robbie jumped, and made a noise that definitely wasn’t a yelp or anything, as he looked down to see-

“Oh.  Hey.”

Mabel beamed up at him.  “Whatcha doin’?”

Robbie gave a world-weary sigh.  “Dropping off fliers for my parents.”

“Aww, that’s sweet of you!”

Ugh, she was just as chipper as Mom.  But somehow it was a little less annoying coming from her.

“Eh, I was bored.”  He shrugged, and continued walking.

Mabel fell into step beside him (impressive, considering how short her legs were compared to his), and asked, “Hey, after you’re done with that, would you mind coming back to the Mystery Shack with me?  We need your help fulfilling a prophecy that’ll save the world from an evil triangle.”

…Robbie wondered if this kid had found more Smile Dip or something.

“Uh…”

While he kinda-sorta-maybe liked the fact that she’d been the only person who’d been nice to him at his lowest point, and she was maybe fun to hang around in a “cute little sister” kind of way, he didn’t know if it was enough to make him actually want to spend time with her for whatever kind of weird game this was-

“Afterwards we can do manicures ,” Mabel singsonged, pulling some polish out of her sweater.  “I got some special colors just for you!”

She held them up, allowing Robbie to see the labels: Nosferatu’s Lunch Red and Heart of Darkness Black.

“...What kind of prophecy are you talking about?”

“Llama…llama…” Dipper muttered, looking back and forth as he walked in search of any signs of someone wearing a llama symbol.

Or someone with a llama.  Or, heck, even someone with fluffy hair, or who was really good at spitting?  After all, Grunkle Ford said that it didn’t have to be a literal llama, it could just represent someone with the qualities of one…what about Old Man McGucket?  He didn’t have any real hair left except for his beard, but he did do a lot of spitting-

The walkie talkie in his vest pocket crackled.

“Starman, this is Question Dude.  Any luck?  Over.”

Dipper pulled out the walkie talkie.  “Negative, Question Dude.  Not a llama as far as the eye can see.  In fact, the only person I’ve seen in this town who owns anything with a llama on it is Mabel, but it can’t be her if she’s already the shooting star.”

There was a long pause.

“...Soos?”

“Dude, you’re supposed ta say ‘over’ when you’re done talking.  And use our code names, in case Bill is listening in on our conversation.”

Dipper rolled his eyes.  “Soos, I’m pretty sure that if Bill is watching us, he already knows who we are, so the code names aren’t gonna be much help.”

Another long pause.

Dipper sighed.  “Over.”

“Fair point, dude-I mean, Starman, but you gotta admit they sound cool.  Over.”

“...Yeah, okay, I’ll give you that one.  Over-wait a second.  The petting zoo!”

“Dude?  Over?”

Dipper turned on his heel and began jogging in the direction of Farmer Sprott’s farm.  “Remember when we went to the petting zoo and stole that mutant cow?  Over?”  Surprisingly, he wasn’t as out of breath as he would have been at the beginning of the summer; maybe all those times spent running for his life or chasing down homicidal pixelated action heroes were finally beginning to pay off.

“Oh yeah, I remember that!  Then we had to watch her eat crow-literally!”

“Yeah, and I think I saw a llama at the zoo!  Maybe Farmer Sprott is the next part of the Zodiac!”

Soos was too excited to scold Dipper for not giving him a chance to say ‘over,’ and for forgetting to say it that time.  “Smart thinking, dude!  I’ll meet you there in a few minutes!  Over!”

“Over and out!”  Dipper shoved the walkie talkie into his vest and picked up speed.

Time to really impress Great Uncle Ford.

Wendy glanced at Mr. Pines, and saw that he was looking a lot better than he’d been ever since his brother came home.

He was frowning, yeah, and drumming his fingers on the steering wheel as he looked back and forth at passersby, but it was more normal “grumpy Mr. Pines” and less “I hate my jerk brother but I also want him to love me again.”

Maybe he and said jerk brother really had figured out how stupid their whole fight was and gotten their sh-uh, stuff together.

…Not that she cared or anything, but she didn’t like seeing the kids and Soos upset about it.

“So,” she finally broke the silence, “I was thinking, what about Candy?”

Mr. Pines blinked.  “If you wanted a snack, you shoulda brought your own.  I’m not made of money, and if you wanna try gettin’ it for free-” he wiggles his fingers meaningfully- “you’ll haveta outwit the security cameras.”

Wendy snorted.  “I’m not opposed to that, actually, but I was talking about Mabel’s nerd friend.  The one who wears glasses.  Maybe she’s the one we’re looking for.”

His eyes widened…and then frowned thoughtfully.  “Huh.  Ya think?”

“Well, who else do we know in this town who wears glasses and is crazy levels of smart?”

Before Mr. Pines could answer, a herd of people stampeded past their car in a chorus of screams that were different variations on “RUN FOR YOUR LIFE!” and “NOT AGAIN!”

A second later, a giant gray metal possum came striding into the street, overturning a couple of cars and knocking the top off of a fire hydrant with its tail.

From inside its mouth, two familiar voices echoed:

“Sorry, I’m still getting used ta steerin’ this thing!”

“Yore doin’ great, Tater Tot!  Jes’ ease up on the clutch a bit, an’ remember it ain’t too different from drivin’ a car, ‘cept it’s way more versatile an’ can climb up the sides o’ buildings!”

The possum rose up on its hind legs and waved its paws in the air, while from inside it came the sounds of banjo playing and Appalachian laughter.

Mr. Pines and Wendy looked at each other.

“...Maybe grab both of them, just in case?” Wendy suggested.

“Good plan.”  Mr. Pines honked on the horn, and stuck his head out the window.

“Hey, McGucket!  Mind if we have a word?”

Chapter Text

A little part of Dipper had worried that Farmer Sprott might remember him and the rest of his family being responsible for stealing Octavia the multiple-limbed cow from the petting zoo, and have some kind of posters up advertising a lifetime ban or something.

It wasn’t that he had a problem with breaking in, per se, but it would make things a little more difficult, and they didn’t have any time to waste if they wanted to get this Zodiac thing done before Bill could notice and retaliate.

But to his surprise, there was no sign of any posters, and one of the farmhands let him through the gate without so much as looking at him funny.

Maybe Farm Sprott had erased his memories of the incident before the Society of the Blind Eye was, ahem, permanently disbanded.

Dipper stood just inside the entrance, waiting on pins and needles, until he saw the familiar dark green form of Soos come driving up in the golf cart.

“Good news, dawg!” he announced cheerfully as he hopped out, “I saw Mabel and Robbie walking back to the Shack as I was on my way here!”

“Robbie.  Great.”  Even if he wasn’t dating Wendy anymore, Dipper doubted he would ever be on his list of favorite people.

“Yeah, I know, dude.”  Soos patted his shoulder.  “But we just gotta tolerate his presence until we have this over and done with.”

“Thanks, Soos.”  Dipper smiled.

They headed for the corral, and began searching for any signs of llamas.

Sure enough, after a moment or two Dipper spotted a large brown one, kneeling haughtily at the far end of the paddock and leisurely chewing a carrot.

…What he wasn’t expecting was the small blonde figure standing in front of it, feeding it the carrot while gently running a brush through its coat.

“…Pacifica?”

The girl froze like a sparkling purple glacier, before she whirled around in a tornado of blonde hair.  Her eyes widened in horror when she saw him and Soos.

“Uh-this isn’t what it looks like!  I’m just doing this as part of a service project that’ll look good for the newspaper!”

The llama grunted indignantly, and she turned and fed it the rest of the carrot.  “Sorry, sorry!”

Dipper glanced at the Volunteer Llama Handler badge pinned to her jacket, and smirked.

“…Right.”

Pacifica turned a shade of pink he hadn’t thought she was capable of, and tried to cover the badge with her lapel.  “What do you want?” she demanded.

“…Remember how I helped you put an end to a hundred-year-old curse by encouraging you not to follow in your family’s footsteps?”  Dipper held up a paper with a picture of the zodiac on it.  “We need you to return the favor.”

“...So basically, you want me to come back with you to your tourist-trap house, and hold hands with a bunch of people in a circle as part of a weird ritual thing?” Pacifica asked a few minutes later, wrinkling her nose.

“Yes, because if you don’t, the world will probably end up getting destroyed.”  Dipper gave her an earnest look.  “Think about it, Pacifica.  No more mall.  No more credit cards, or fancy mansion, or peacocks, or crazy little town for you and your parents to look down on every day.  Cuz it’ll all be taken over by this megalomaniac-” he pointed to Bill- “and his buddies, and torn to pieces.  Forever .”

To his surprise, he thought he saw her actually give a little shiver, before she glared at him.  “...As horrifying as all of that sounds, you could have just stopped at ‘the world will probably end up getting destroyed.’  I got the message.”  She tucked a few loose strands of hair behind her ear and pulled out her phone, tapping at it with her thumbs.  “Hold on, I need to cancel my chauffeur.”

Oooof course.   But since she was genuinely agreeing to help, Dipper smiled at her.  “Thanks, Pacifica.”

For some reason, her cheeks immediately turned an even darker shade of pink than when they’d caught her with the llama.  “I’m only doing this because I don’t want the world to be destroyed, okay?  This is not because I like hanging out with you!”

“...Uh, nobody said it was.”

She went even pinker, before making an aggravated sound and marching toward the golf cart.

Dipper shot Soos a confused look.  “...What did I say?”

The look Soos gave him in return was even weirder-like he had just missed something obvious.

“Oh, dude.”  And he actually reached over and patted Dipper’s head, before following Pacifica’s lead.  Without the irritated stomping, obviously.

(Just as they reached the porch of the Mystery Shack, Mabel abruptly slapped her forehead.

Robbie gave her a confused look.  “Did you get a mosquito?”

“I-I don’t know.  I just…have the horrible feeling that a perfect matchmaking opportunity was just lost.”)

Gideon lay stretched out on his bunk, chubby arms folded behind his head, one stubby foot resting on his opposite knee, glaring balefully at the ceiling.

Usually he would be in crafts class right now, working on his beautiful wedding dress for Mabel when she finally stopped playing hard to get, but the warden had gotten a little bent outta shape after the last riot, and all extracurriculars had been canceled for the day.

Eh, no matter.  As much as he enjoyed the small artistic challenges of crafting, he loved even more the opportunities to contemplate in private the revenge he would wreak on his enemies as soon as he got outta here.  Specifically, those he would wreak on a certain obnoxious old man with the manners of a Chester White hog, and a nasty, sweaty, noodle-armed boy who kept meddling in his courtship with the love of his life.

For them, it would definitely be something long, and lingering.

But first, of course, Gideon needed to figure out how he was going to get outta here.

It was possible that a window of opportunity would open soon; Daddy had told him during his last visit that Mayor Beffufflefumpter wasn’t looking so hot lately.  And while he’d always wanted to become mayor hisself, he’d happily settle for being the power behind a puppet mayor-

What was that?

The boy sat up with a little frown, and tilted his head.

Mebbe he was just hearing things, but for a moment he thought he’d heard the sound of a footstep in the corridor.

Normally this wouldn’t be quite so strange, except that it wasn’t time for the guard to make his inspection of this cell block…and whoever it was had sounded like they were trying to move as quietly as possible.

Around here, that normally meant some kinda jailbreak was in progress, but no one had mentioned anything to Gideon about one, and he thought he’d made it abundantly clear that all plans for escape ought to be run by him first, because his fellow inmates, bless their little black hearts, didn’t always think these things through-

Oh great gosh almighty, there was someone standing right in front o’ his cell!

A tall figure-not tall enough to be Ghost Eyes or Killbone, but still mighty tall-looming in the shadows like some kinda specter, just standin’ there and starin’ at him through the bars; and if Gideon squinted, he thought he could make out a strange, pale blue light glowing from its chest.

Maybe those tall tales about spirits o’ previous convicts haunting the prison weren’t as tall as all that.

A chill ran down Gideon’s little ol’ spine, and for a long, horrible moment he wished he had his amulet back so he could defend himself against whatever this apparition might try.

But young though he might be, prison had toughened him during his time served, so after a moment he squared his round little shoulders and got to his feet, clenching his fists and jutting his pudgy jaw as much as it would jut.

“Who’re you?!” he demanded.   “Speak, apparition!”

Or at least, he started to demand that.

He only had time to get the first couple o’ syllables out, before FZZZT-ZZZZAPPPP!!!!

…Calm down, everyone, it’s not what it sounds like.

It wasn’t a perfect hologram-the little beast had spoiled it by getting up like that-but Ford thought it should pass muster if anyone came to check on Gideon before he could put him back.

It was only a matter of seconds for him to pick the lock on the cell door and slip inside, assemble the hologram against the wall next to the door so that it projected the image of Gideon stretched out on the bunk, then pick up the stunned boy and, after placing a neuroparalyzer on the back of his neck just in case, sling him over his shoulder, staggering a little under the unexpected weight (were all nine-year-olds this heavy?) before he managed to adjust accordingly.

He slipped out again as quietly as he’d come, and headed for the Mys-for home.

Chapter Text

Stan let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding when the door of the Shack opened and Ford came striding in, carrying a familiar hairspray-sticky lardball (wearing orange instead of the usual blue) tucked under his arm like a suitcase.

…It wasn’t like he was worried or anything, he just wanted to get this dumb ritual thing over and done with as soon as possible.

“Is everyone here?” Ford asked, setting Gideon down on the floor.  Stan braced himself in case the little runt tried anything…but to his surprise after a moment of teetering stiffly he toppled onto his side, looking more like a statue of himself than a living breathing nine-year-old.  The only things that showed he was still among the living were his piggy eyes, wide and darting around with a mixture of fear and helpless fury.

“I used a neuroparalyzer to incapacitate him for the time being,” Ford said, following his gaze.  “It seemed like the most effective way to avoid any undue complications in completing the ritual.”

…After a thoughtful moment of processing this, Stan gave the prone form a small nudge of his shoe, which sent him rolling across the carpet until he came to a stop, right at the foot of the yellow armchair.  Then he crossed the room and sat down to enjoy his new footstool, ignoring the noise that sounded suspiciously like squeals of rage trying to push their way through frozen-shut lips.

Hey, he wasn’t gonna pass up a golden opportunity when he saw it.

“Mabel showed up with the emu a little while ago,” he said, folding his hands behind his head and leaning back.

Ford, who had been giving him a look somewhere between disapproval and slight amusement, blinked in confusion.  “...The what?”

“Wendy’s ex.  I heard her call him that once, think it’s teenage slang for being all dark and broody.”  It didn’t make a lot of sense to Stan (read: none whatsoever), but he found most of the lingo used by teenagers nowadays confusing, so it wasn’t exactly new.

Ford ran a hand through his hair, making it fluff up even more at the top.  “...I suppose their feathers are somewhat dark…and perhaps the way their bodies are designed might make them appear to be brooding…but there are so many other types of birds that would fit that description better.”

Stan shrugged.  “Far as I’m concerned, nothing young people say makes sense anymore.”

He was disgusted by the amount of warmth that pooled in his gut at Ford’s responding chuckle, but he couldn’t help it; even if things were still awkward between them, he’d waited so long to hear that laugh again, and spent so many sleepless nights fearing that he’d blown all possibility of hearing it out of the water for good-

Jeepers cripes, Stanley, you sound like a teenage girl excited that the cute guy finally asked her to the prom.  Get a grip .

He cleared his throat.  “Me and Wendy got McGucket and one of Mabel’s friends here as candidates for the glasses symbol.  I think they’re all in the kitchen.”

“You think ?!”  Ford’s calm deserted him in the blink of an eye.  “We really shouldn’t leave anyone who’s part of the Zodiac unsupervised right now!  In fact, why are you here instead of with them?!”

A second later he had grabbed Stan’s shoulder and was hauling him towards the kitchen, barely remembering to roll Gideon along with his boot (accompanied by more muffled indignant cries).

To Ford’s relief, the kitchen was crowded with people who were part of the Zodiac-and who, aside from him, Stanley and Fiddleford, all seemed to be in various stages of adolescence.

And for some reason, the group was standing around the kitchen table, where Fiddleford was sitting across from a petite Asian girl, both wearing expressions of intense concentration.  Mabel was standing on a chair in between them, holding a magazine and frowning thoughtfully.

After a moment she looked up.  “Okay, next question: what is the only species of bird that can fly backwards?”

Fiddleford tilted his head and scratched under his hat.  “...Ah think Ah saw a goose do that once?  ‘Course, it mighta been just a flying machine o’ mine that went haywire, it’s all kinda scramblified still…”

The girl waved her hand.  “Oh, I know this one!  Hummingbird!  They also possess no sense of smell, but have excellent color vision!”

“Yay, point to Candy!”  Mabel high-fived the girl, who was apparently her friend, and made a little mark on a notepad lying on the table.

“What is going on?” Ford interrupted.

Mabel looked up with a bright grin.

“Oh hi, Grunkle Ford!  We were having trouble deciding whether Mr. McGucket or Candy was a better fit for the glasses symbol, so we’re having a trivia quiz to figure out which of them is smarter!”

“Ten bucks on the old man,” a very sallow, spotty-faced youth wearing a black hoodie with the heart symbol on it whispered to Wendy; Ford had to do a double-take to assure himself that he wasn’t a zombie, and realized that this must be the emu Stan had mentioned.

“You’re on,” Wendy whispered back.

Despite his nerves still buzzing with anxiety, especially as he did a quick headcount and realized that there were only seven members of the Zodiac present (where the devil were Dipper and Soos and whoever the llama symbolized?!), Ford felt an amused smile stealing onto his face at his niece’s unique approach to the problem.

“Unfortunately, Mabel, my research indicates that the symbol is based on the concept of wisdom, which is very different from just possessing knowledge.”

Remarkably, he didn’t feel the whoosh of the irony in his being the one to say that going completely over his head.

“...Oh.”

The disappointment in Mabel's face made an uncomfortable feeling rise in Ford’s gut.

“I-I didn’t-it was a very creative solution,” he tried to backtrack.  “It just wasn’t-oof!”

“You had a good idea, pumpkin,” Stan cut in, removing his elbow from Ford’s side, “but maybe we oughta just form the circle, and try it with both of them ta see which one works.”

“Yes.  Of course.”  Ford patted his pockets.  “We need to move to a spot with more space for everyone to be in a circle…and does anyone have a pen?  A marker?  Anything?”

“Ya mean like that pen in your coat pocket?”

Ford looked down at his pocket.  “...Oh.”

“Dude, if you’re gonna try drawing the Zodiac that big, you’re gonna need a bigger drawing thingy.”  Wendy reached into the emu’s pocket and yanked out a can of spray paint.

“Hey!  I was saving that!”

“Saving the world’s more important, Robbie!”  She tossed the spray paint to Ford, who caught it with a nod of approval.

Next to him, Stan sighed and began rolling Gideon towards the door.  “There’s room in the museum.  C’mon, everyone, let’s go get set up.”

As the little party left the kitchen, Ford glanced out the window at the dirt road.

Still no sign of the golf cart, or Dipper, or Soos.

…I have a very bad feeling about this.

Bill is probably watching , and if he’s figured out what we’re up to-

If they’re not here by the time the circle is finished, I’m going out to look for them myself.

I know that Dipper is a very capable young man, and Soos…has Dipper with him, but…I wish I hadn’t had to get any of them mixed up in this.

Chapter Text

“Did we have to ride in this piece of junk?!  I’m pretty sure just being in it is a health hazard!”

Pacifica had her hand clamped down over her hair, trying unsuccessfully to stop it from being blown completely into disarray and yelping as the golf cart drove over a pothole.

“Do you want to walk instead?” Dipper demanded.  “Because that can be arranged!”

Pacifica scowled, but slumped down in her seat without further comment.

Even when she’s trying to be better than her parents, she’s still a royal pain.

Dipper wished they’d had an extra walkie talkie they could have left at the Shack.

Or that Mom and Dad had been able to afford cell phones for both him and Mabel.

Or that they had arranged some other form of long distance communication, so he could find out whether or not the rest of the Zodiac had been found and retrieved.

In an attempt to distract himself from his worries, he tried to imagine what gathering all of them together would do.

All Great Uncle Ford knew was that if they “joined together,” they would be able to stop Bill.

Soos had suggested that maybe that meant if they all held hands, they would turn into symbol-based superheroes with “total radness powers,” but somehow Dipper didn’t think that was likely, even in a place so given to unlikeliness as Gravity Falls.

…Of course, if it did turn out to be something like that, then he wondered what kind of powers the symbol of the pine tree would give him.

Off the top of his head, he couldn’t think of anything as cool as the kind Mabel’s shooting star would probably give her.  Unless maybe he started having chlorokinesis abilities?  He could definitely learn to work with that…Ooh, or maybe he’d be able to grow as tall as a pine tree?  I mean, he already had the size crystal flashlight, so he wouldn’t necessarily need an ancient prophecy to help with that-

“LOOK OUT!!!!”

A hulking figure had clomped out into the road ahead of them, before coming to a swaying halt right in the center.

Dipper barely hit the brakes in time to stop the cart from colliding head-on with it, and he felt a sharp pain lance across his chest from slamming against the seatbelt.  It was only thanks to the amount of time he’d spent driving this thing that they didn’t end up tipping over.

He looked up, panting, and saw a chiseled chest covered in coarse brown fur, partially covered by a drooping gray beard and even droopier mustache.  Not to mention a very familiar pair of fists…in a spot where you wouldn’t usually expect fists to be.

“...Testosteraur?  Is that you?”

Dipper wasn’t sure how to feel about this; he hadn’t seen the manotaur since earlier this summer, and since it had been after he’d called him and his people jerks for wanting him to cut off one of the Multi-Bear’s heads…he had a feeling this meeting might not go well.  And what the heck was he doing so far from the Man-Cave, without the rest of the manotaurs anyway?

Testosteraur staggered a little on his hooves, almost like he was drunk, before flashing a wide, toothy grin at him.  “Yep, that’s definitely me, just your old pal Testy here to catch up on old times!  How’s it hanging, Pine Tree?”

Dipper’s mouth went dry.

His already sweaty hands were suddenly slick against the steering wheel.

He tried to subtly reach for the reverse switch, but before he could even touch it a meaty hand clamped on the front of the cart with a crunch of metal and plastic.

“Ah ah ah,” Bill scolded, shaking a finger at him; his unnaturally yellow eyes gleamed with dark delight.  “You know it’s rude to run off when someone wants to talk with you!  I really expect better from you pitiful meat sacks!”

“Uh, dude?”  Soos’s voice was uncertain, but beginning to quaver into pure nervousness.  “That voice sounds kinda familiar.  That’s not really Test-Testo-he’s not in there right now, is he?”

“Wow, Question Mark, you really can be quick on the uptake when you wanna be!”  Bill leaned his full weight onto the hood, still wearing that cheerful grin.  “And honestly, I’m kinda flattered you remember my voice!  Almost makes me wanna forgive you for blasting me in the eye with all those giant neon question marks!”

“Wow, really?”

The smile disappeared in a flash.  “No.  I really, really want to tear a question mark-shaped hole in your gut and pull your intestines out through it.  But instead-” the manic grin returned as quickly as it had gone- “I’m gonna keep all of you alive until I can have a talk with old Fordsie!  We’ve got a deal to make!”

And then he started to raise his hand.

Dipper wasn’t sure what Bill was planning to do.  Hoist the cart into the air and carry them off in it?  Grab them right out of their seats?  Bend the metal until it formed a makeshift cage around them?  He could honestly see him carrying out any of these actions-or none of them, and do something completely unpredictable instead.

But before the demon could have a chance to act, Pacifica lifted her arm and gave him a spray right in the face from a bottle of perfume.

Bill gave an ear splitting shriek , and lost his grip on the cart as he staggered back, scrubbing furiously at his face-particularly his eyes.

Dipper wasted no time in starting up the engine again, and steering around him before taking off frantically towards the Shack, and safety.

“You’re gonna regret that!” Pacifica yelled, twisting around until she could glare at the massive figure they were leaving in the dust.  “Just a squirt of Enfant Riche Gâté costs twenty bucks!”

“I don’t think they care about money where he’s from!”  Dipper skidded around the corner on two wheels; already he could feel the ground starting to shake under the impact of pursuing hooves.

He’d seen how fast the manotaurs could run; how strong they were.  And he’d had first hand experience of how cunning and intelligent Bill was.

If they couldn’t find some way of slowing him down…keeping him away from the Shack until they’d figured out how to complete the ritual…they were dead.  Probably literally, now that they’d actually made him mad.

Think think think !  We’re in the real world, not the mindscape, so we can’t use our imaginations against him-but maybe-

It was a crazy thought, but Mabel had been able to successfully use Dipper’s weaknesses against Bill when the demon was possessing him , and the manotaurs had only one weakness that he knew of.

He jerked the wheel around, steering the cart back towards the forest.

“What are you doing?!” Pacifica demanded frantically.  “He’s coming after us!”

“I know!  I have an idea!”  With one hand, he reached into his vest and yanked out…a package of beef jerky.

And, with a mental apology to Testosteraur, he began looking for a deep ravine or something that he could throw it into.

Chapter Text

“I’m going to find them,” Ford finally announced.

It had been almost an hour since the group had gone out to round up the remaining members of the Zodiac, to say nothing of the fact that Ford had finished spray painting the image of Bill and the ten symbols surrounding him into Stan’s floor, and there was still no sign of either Dipper or Soos.  All his instincts (or paranoia, if you wanted to get technical about it) were screaming that something must have gone wrong.

Tossing the now-empty can of spray paint back to the emu, he checked to make sure he was wearing his gun-he was-and wondered if he should grab his shock gloves while he was at it, since you could never have too many weapons when dealing with Bill…but that would mean having to go down to the basement to get them, taking up even more time that they didn’t have.  He would just have to hope that his gun would be enough.

As he was heading for the door, his ears picked up a frantic set of footsteps pounding the floorboards behind him, and then Mabel charged ahead of him, brandishing her grappling hook.

Immediately Ford hooked the back of her sweater and hoisted her into the air.

“No.”

“Grunkle Ford!!!!” Mabel protested, kicking and squirming like a scruffed kitten.

“No.  All of you are staying here until I return.  Lock the door after me, and if anyone shows up check their- what did I just say, Stanley ?!”

Stan half-twisted his body, which was already halfway through the window, and glared at Ford over the bat he was carrying.  “Heck if I know.  I kinda tuned you out after the part where you started tryna tell me I couldn’t go out ta look for my nephew and handyman.”

“We can’t afford to split up the Zodiac anymore than we have to right now!” Ford spluttered.  “And in case you’ve forgotten, he’s my nephew too-”

“Yeah, and he’s my brother!” Mabel snapped.  “If you think I’m gonna just stay here when he might be in trouble, you’re crazy!”

For some reason, the stubborn assertion of sibling loyalty caused a knot to tie itself in Ford’s stomach, and his grip on her sweater loosened briefly before he managed to tighten it again.

He was just about to start voicing his counterarguments-more people leaving the safety of the house meant more potential targets for Bill, he had the most experience in actual battle out of all of them, he needed them to protect the Shack-when he saw Wendy leaning into his line of vision.

“Dude, just accept that you’re gonna lose this argument,” she said.  “We can hold down the fort until you guys get back.”

Ford glanced at his unbelievably stubborn family.

He glanced back at Wendy, who raised a meaningful eyebrow at him.

He made a sound of pure, unadulterated frustration between his teeth.

And then there was a sound of screeching tires outside, followed by the crash of the front door bursting open and a stampede of running feet.  And then a familiar anxious voice calling, “Great Uncle Ford?  Mabel?  Anyone?!”

“Dipper!”  Mabel finally slipped out of her sweater and ran to meet him in just her T-shirt and skirt.

Out of the corner of his eye Ford saw Stan’s shoulders slump in visible relief, before he began trying to maneuver his body back through the window.  Wendy went over and helped him squirm loose.

Half a minute later, the children stampeded into the room, accompanied by Soos and a young blonde girl who looked to be about Dipper and Mabel’s age.  All of them were covered in an assortment of twigs, scratches, and leaves, and looked as though they’d been running around in a strong wind.

Ford didn’t know why, but something about the blonde filled him with an irrational sensation of immediate dislike.

As soon as he laid eyes on her, Stan shot her a look somewhere between confusion and annoyance, before turning to Dipper.  “You brought the Northwest kid here?  Seriously?”

Oh.  That’s why.

The aforementioned Northwest kid’s face flushed angrily, but just as she was opening her mouth Dipper cut in, “She’s got the llama symbol, Grunkle Stan.  And she just sprayed Bill in the face with perfume, so she’s definitely tough enough to handle this.”

She blinked, and flushed again, but something about it seemed much less angry (it almost sounded like Mabel uttered a muffled squeal at that same moment, but since she was pulling her sweater back on at the same time it was probably just his imagination).

“Huh.”  Stanley’s expression became a little more approving.

Despite himself, Ford also felt somewhat impressed; he hadn’t realized someone from the Northwest family would have the courage to fight back against Bill like that (or, frankly, do their own dirty work).

And then it dawned on him what Dipper had just said.

“You encountered Bill?!”

Dipper finished pulling a twig out of his vest.  “Yeah, but don’t worry, Great Uncle Ford, we used the fact that he was a manotaur’s body to lure him away with some beef jerky and trap him in a ravine!  We’ve got at least a little time before he gets free, right?”

He looked so hopeful that despite his misgivings, Ford tried to smile reassuringly.  “...Well done, my boy.  But yes, we should probably get started on the ritual as soon as possible.”

“Yeah, can we hurry this up, please?” the Northwest girl asked, in a very petulant voice.  “I’m gonna be in hot water if my parents find out I’m in this-” she saw the looks Dipper and Mabel were giving her, and however she’d been about to refer to the Shack died on her tongue.  “...If they find out I’m here.”

Stan gave her a long, hard look, but finally shrugged and glanced at Ford.  “If she starts talkin’ smack about us or the house, ya think you can neuroparalyze her too?”

“If it truly becomes necessary.”

“Uh, what are you gonna do to me?” the Northwest girl demanded.

“Nothing.”

Ford did a quick headcount: one, two, three…yes, all ten of them were there.  Technically twelve, because Tate was sitting in the corner next to an exhibit of “Rodents of Unusual Size,” reading a magazine, and they still weren’t sure if Fiddleford or Candy fit the symbol of the glasses yet.  But now was as good a time as any to find out.

Reluctantly he pulled the rift from his coat pocket, and placed it in the center of the painted circle-right over Bill’s eye for extra spite.  He had no idea if this would actually work, but there was no direct evidence to the contrary, and, well, what other options did they have?

“All right.  Everyone, we need to step into the circle and join hands.”

Stan groaned.  “Please tell me we’re not gonna haveta sing Kumbaya or something.”

“Aww, I love that song,” Soos protested.

“Focus, please!”  Remember, Stan is taking this seriously, he’s just naturally aggravating.   “Pay attention to where your symbol is-while they don’t necessarily need to be in the order I’ve put them in, it will probably work better if everyone just follows the placement.”

To his relief, a moment later everyone started moving to their respective spots.  Even Gideon, who Wendy rolled over to the star symbol.

It took them a minute or two, but at last they were settled more or less in position: Ford at the head of the circle, with the emu-Robbie, he reminded himself-on his right, followed in rapid succession by Gideon, the Northwest girl (when he was making the circle he’d initially planned on putting Mabel there, but upon reflection decided he didn’t want her anywhere near the little creep), Dipper, the glasses symbol, Mabel, Wendy, Soos, and finishing with Stanley.

Fiddleford and Candy looked at each other uncertainly for a moment, and then Fiddleford tipped his hat and gave her a little bow, gesturing to the glasses symbol.

“Ladies first, young’un.”

Candy gave a little giggle and curtsied back.  “You are too kind, Mr. McGucket!”  She stepped into the circle, and exchanged excited elbow jabs with Mabel.

“Okay.  Now, everyone hold hands,” Ford commanded.  “If my research is correct, this will create a mystical human energy circuit.”

“Uh, what’s that mean?” Robbie asked.

“We’re about to find out.”  And Ford reached out and grabbed the sweaty, fingerless-gloved hand.

Robbie jerked slightly in his grasp, but then reluctantly leaned down and picked up Gideon’s limp hand-and as soon as they connected, Ford felt a tingle all over his body, like he’d just walked on his body-switching carpet in his socks, and a soft white glow began to emanate around them.

Gideon made a shocked sound through his closed lips.

“Whoa…totally metal,” Robbie muttered.

Ford wondered what he thought metal had to do with anything, but as long as they completed the circle it didn’t matter.

He turned to Stanley, and held out a slightly more hesitant hand.

…High six?

Stanley, do something!  STANLEY!!!!

Finally!  After all these years of waiting, you’re actually here!  Brother!

They’d had so many opportunities to fix their relationship, and all of them had gone to waste through their own foolish inability to communicate and let go of petty grudges (though as he’d realized, perhaps Stan’s grudges were not as petty as he’d made himself believe all these years).

Perhaps if they could work together now in order to save the world, things could finally be good again.

But even if it was necessary for the ritual for Stan to be in the circle, Ford suddenly began to worry that it had been a colossally presumptuous mistake to position his twin right next to him; perhaps he should have put him in a different spot-between Soos and Wendy, who it would still be awkward for him to hold hands with but not as bad, or next to the children, or-

Stan’s eyes looked equally uncertain about this situation, but after a second he offered Ford a tentative smile and slowly started to lift his hand.

And then one of the walls caved in with a CRASH.

Everything dissolved into chaos; the little group screamed, pulling apart as they stumbled over themselves and each other in an attempt to dodge flying chunks of wood and shards of glass.  After only a second of shock Ford frantically dived around the stampeding bodies towards the middle of the circle, trying to see if the rift had been jostled or-Tesla forbid-knocked over in all the excitement-

No, there it was, still in one piece, and he was able to snatch it to safety just before Soos accidentally stomped on it.

Ford rolled, and came up into a crouch, cradling the rift in one hand and drawing his gun with the other, as he looked up to see who-or what-was responsible for this home invasion.

One of Stan’s exhibits, the Sascrotch, was obliterated into stuffing by a massive, green, scaly, clawed hand smacking it out of its owner’s way as it stomped inside, broad shoulders and thickly muscled arms breaking loose a little more of the wall on the way.

The tops of its pointed ears scraped against the ceiling, and through its jutting fangs Ford thought he could see a triumphant smirk.

And that was before the gremloblin opened his golden eyes wide and bellowed at the frightened humans, “PEEKABOO!”

Chapter Text

Even though he knew who it was-had been expecting it-Ford still felt a shiver of horror run down his spine at the sound of that familiar, whiny voice that managed to still push its way through the gremloblin’s natural growl.  It felt like an eternity since the last time he’d heard it, but it was still far too soon.

All the same, he hadn’t spent decades in the multiverse honing his skills to start getting paralyzed now-not when he had so much more to lose.

He only permitted himself a moment of frozen fear before he took aim and fired off three direct hits at Bill’s chest, which was far too big of a target for him to possibly miss.

Unfortunately, while his aim was true, either the body of the gremloblin was made of sterner stuff than he had anticipated, or Bill’s disturbingly high tolerance for/enjoyment of pain was just too high: the blasts made contact, but all they did was leave behind a few blue-black burn marks on the green scales.

Bill looked down at the scorched areas and laughed as if he’d just been poked in a ticklish spot, before raising his head again and grinning directly at Ford.

“Well, well, well-well-well-well-well!  Someone sure knows how ta say hello to an old friend!”

“We are not friends!” Ford snarled, quickly avoiding his eyes.  “You’re nothing but a lying monster-”

“Yeah, yeah, I get it, you think I’m the spawn of Satan.”  Bill waved a dismissive paw.  “You and everyone else, Stanford.  Now how about you make things easier for everyone, and hand over that pretty little rift?”

By way of response, Ford turned up his gun’s setting as high as it would go, and fired again.

It didn’t even slow the demon-possessed gremloblin down.

He shrugged off the blast as if it were nothing, and lurched across the room towards Ford with a roar, forcing him to dodge aside like a matador, so instead Bill wound up slamming into the opposite wall.

“C’mon, I just barely got this place fixed up again!” he heard Stan protesting peevishly over the sounds of screaming and crashing.  But at least when he looked over his shoulder, he could see him herding the group out of the room, so at least he was still taking this seriously.

“Great Uncle Ford!”

His attention was diverted to Dipper, who was standing in the doorway, waving frantically.

It took Ford a moment to realize that he was gesturing for him to pass him the rift.

Every instinct screamed to do no such thing; the thought of the massive, clawed, fanged, venomous quill-covered behemoth currently being inhabited by his archnemesis turning his attention on the small, fragile, sweaty body in front of him was…simply too horrible for him to imagine.

But then Bill was lunging back through the hole in the wall towards him with a blood-chilling snarl, and none of his shots were having any effect, and he started dodging and weaving and trying to keep him away from the rest of the group and avoiding meeting his eyes all at the same time but he couldn’t keep it up forever, and if he didn’t do something else fast Bill would get his claws on the rift-

Trust no one trust no one trust no one -

With a cry of half-desperation, half-anguish, Ford dodged and rolled again, and when he straightened up it was to toss the rift out of the gremloblin’s reach.

Dipper lunged forward-but he’d misaimed, the boy was too far away, he would never reach it in time-

A blur of pink came skidding across the floor, just in time for the delicate snowglobe to land with a thump right in her midriff.

“Ha!  I knew this extra soft sweater would come in handy one day!”  Mabel sat up, clutching the rift and laughing triumphantly…before grimacing and rubbing her stomach where it had made impact.  “Ow.”

“GIMME THAT!”  The Bill-gremloblin started to lunge towards her-but Ford leaped onto his back, driving his boot right between his shoulder blades.

It wasn’t enough to actually hurt him, but the impact did knock him to the ground.  Ford barely felt a sharp sting spreading through one of his legs and his arm as he grabbed onto the ears to keep from being thrown off, and realized too late that he’d been stung by some of the gremloblin’s many quills.

It’s okay, it’s just a little venom, nothing I haven’t had to power through before.

Remembering what had worked last time, he slammed the butt of his gun against the back of the gremloblin’s head as hard as he could.

Bill just laughed, and threw him off before slowly getting to his feet.

“He’s already unconscious, IQ-how do ya think I got in here?  Not that I’m complaining about you giving me a little blunt force trauma, though.”  He staggered and blinked, shaking his head.  “Whoa, that actually gave me double vision for a couple of seconds!  Neato!”

…What in Tesla’s name is wrong with this creature? Ford wondered, not for the first time.

He tried to get up, and found that his limbs had become sluggish and weak, and it was all he could do to push himself into a sitting position.

The rapidity of my heart rate combined with my swift movements must be causing the venom to spread more quickly.

That’s not good.

He struggled to lift his trembling arm, and find a new spot to aim at-maybe one of the gremloblin’s kneecaps?

A large green claw plucked the gun from his hand, and crushed it with a horrible screech of metal.

“You just don’t give up, do ya, Fordsie?”  Bill grinned down at him, before kicking him back down with a swift movement and then planting his clawed foot down on his chest.

“Grunkle Ford!”  Faintly he heard the sound of Mabel’s wail from the doorway, and hoped Stan was getting everyone to safety-wherever that might be.

Ford tried to grab Bill’s leg and shove him off balance again, to squirm until he could grab the backup gun tucked in his boot, to do something , but his limbs refused to obey like he wanted them to.

“You have no idea how badly I wanna kill you in front of your friends and family right now,” the demon purred, digging the tips of his hind claws into Ford’s chest.

“It’d be pretty easy with this meat puppet, and there’s so many ways I could do it!  I could carve you up like a Christmas turkey with these,” he flexed his meaty hands- “or put you in my mouth and see how many bites I can take outta you before you just stop working-” he made a chomping motion with his jaws- “or, heck, I could just crush your bones one by one!  The possibilities are endless!”

Despite himself, a spark of helpless terror crawled up Ford’s spine.

“But if I do kill you, then…it’s all over.  I can’t hurt you anymore.  And my life would become sooooo boring .”  The jutting lower lip tried to twist itself into a pout-not an easy feat with those large tusks of his.

If he was hoping that Ford would feel sorry for him, it wasn’t working.

“Besides, I’m kinda hoping that after I get that rift and start Weirdmageddon, I can persuade you to join me instead!”  The mouth twisted into a grin.  “I mean, with that extra finger of yours,” he used the tip of one claw to trace one of said extra fingers, “you’d fit right in with my freaks!  You’d be one of the guys, just like you always dreamed about!”

A memory of every time he’d told his former muse about wishing he’d had a group of friends he could fit in with rushed in, along with a wave of bitter nausea.

“So whaddya say, Stanford?  For old times’ sake?”

“Never,” Ford snarled through gritted teeth.

The demon sighed dramatically.

“Y’know, I was pretty sure you’d say that.  You’re so noble , Fordsie.  At least, y’know, when you’re not doing something morally dubious like creating a mind control tie.”  In a movement as casual as swatting a fly, he sliced the tip of one claw down Ford’s cheek from the corner of his eye down to his jaw.

He gasped at the feeling of hot, sticky blood welling up and dripping down his face, and struggled to lift his arm again.

Just push through the pain come on stupid unresponsive nerves work with me here-

“Relax, I’m not gonna kill you!” Bill chirped, grabbing his arm between two fingers.  “But if someone doesn’t bring me that rift right now-“ he glanced pointedly in the direction everyone else had fled- “they’re gonna haveta watch me hurt you bit by bit until it’ll be a miracle if you can ever walk again, let alone use those special freaky hands of yours, and then if you’re lucky maybe I’ll just drive you nuts by making you look into these cool new peepers-”

“Hey!”

Both man and demon turned their heads, and saw Stan in the doorway of the museum, with the rift clutched in one hand-and a peculiar device in the other, aimed directly at it.

Chapter Text

“Hurt one hair on his head, and the snow globe gets it!”

Not a phrase Stan had ever imagined using.  But he put as much force into it as he could, and tried to glare intimidatingly at the big green Star Wars reject pinning his brother down without actually meeting its eyes.

Bill blinked, one eye at a time, before asking slowly, “...What the heck?”

Stan put every ounce of snake oil salesman he could into his voice.  “This is a bona fide interdimensional rift disintegrator.  McGucket made it.”

Technically the truth.

The demon snorted.  “Just how dumb do ya think I am, Goldfish?  There’s nothing in this world that could even try to destroy that rift without opening it further, and you know it.”

It was Stan’s turn to scoff.  “Maybe you know it, but nobody told this nutcase it was impossible-” he jerked a thumb over his shoulder at McGucket, who looked a little indignant at his description but then shrugged and muttered “That’s fair” before he resumed herding almost everyone towards the gift shop, and the comparative safety of the basement, in case their hastily-made plan went pear-shaped- “so he went ahead and did it anyway.  Trust me, if anyone could figure it out, it’s him.”  He carefully positioned his fingers so they would conceal the fact that the “invention” was the egg beater with the can opener stuck on top, and a few wires and other odds and ends coiled around the whole caboodle.

It only needs to distract him long enough for the knuckleheads to get in position.

The monster’s claws tapped uncertainly against Ford’s chest.  That was good; as long as he could put even a hint of doubt in him, that was a point in their favor.

Just a little longer…

“...Ya know, come to think of it, I should probably just do it anyway.  Get you out of our hair for good.”  His finger twitched against the trigger-

“Hold up a sec!  Let’s talk about this.”

Stan hid a smirk.  “Yeah?”

Bill scooped Ford up into one meaty claw-he dangled from it like a rag doll, but at least he was still breathing, and based on his frustrated frown, still trying to move his limbs and fight back-and crouched down until his face was more or less on Stan’s level.

It drove all Stan’s conman instincts nuts not to look him in the eyes, since that was where you could see people’s intentions best, but he made himself focus on the monster’s ridged forehead instead.

“I think you’ve got the wrong end of the stick here, Stanley,” Bill crooned, leaning forward on his knuckles like a gorilla.  “You’ll be waaaay better off in the long run if you just hand over that rift to me.”

Stan raised an eyebrow.  “Ford says if you get your mitts on it you’re gonna use it to destroy the world.”

Bill tilted his head thoughtfully for a second…then nodded.  “Yeah, I guess I will when I’m done having fun with it.  But who knows how long that’s gonna take, with so many lovely toys to play with?  And besides, whaddya think’s gonna happen after all of you click your heels and form your magic Kumbaya circle?”

Before Stan could answer, the demon leaned in close to his ear and whispered, “Do you really think Stanford’s gonna wanna keep you around after?”

“Stanley!  Don’t listen-mmph mmph mmph!”

Bill’s massive thumb clamped down over Ford’s mouth, reducing the rest of his words to muffled garble.

“Hey kid, let Mom and Dad talk for a minute, will ya?” he scolded, before turning back to Stan.  “Trust me, I’ve been in his head.  I can tell you every nasty thought he’s had about you, every time he thought about how much better off he would’ve been if he’d gone to that stupid pretentious college, how many golden opportunities this golden boy lost out on, all thanks to his screwup twin.  Ya think that’s all gonna go away just cuz you said you were sorry after forty years?”

A hot finger of panic ran itself up Stan’s spine to the base of his skull.  “...He said-he couldn’t lie while he was under the truth spell-”

Bill snorted.  “Oh sure, he says that he wants you back now.  Heck, he might even’ve meant it.  But what about the next time ya screw up something important to him, or the next time he wants ta be his own person?”  He lightly tossed Ford up and down in his claw, oblivious to the suppressed yells coming out from under his thumb.  “In spite of everything you’ve done for him, all it took was one dumb mistake for him to hate you.  Why bother working so hard for the approval of someone who’ll take it away so fast?”

Stan cringed.

He wondered if Bill had managed to read his thoughts when he was lying awake the last few nights, trying to convince himself this was real.

Knowing the jerk, he probably had.

“...So what’s in it for me if I give you the rift instead?”

“MMPH!”

Bill grinned.  “Whatever your heart desires, Stanley!  Riches, girls, monsters to punch in the face-anything!”  His free claw abruptly clamped around Stan’s shoulder in what was probably meant to be a friendly squeeze.  “Not to mention the undying friendship and loyalty of a bunch of fun new pals who would never abandon you at the drop of a hat!”

Even though he still wasn’t looking directly at his eyes, out of the corner of his line of sight Stan could see pictures flickering in them: him standing in the middle of a group of misshapen monsters that he was gonna go out on a limb and guess were more creatures from his world.  One of them, a blue-green weirdo with a big keyhole in his forehead, had his arm slung around vision-Stan’s shoulders, and they were laughing like they’d just heard the funniest joke in the world.

Then he was with Bill, who was back to his usual triangular shape, and Bill was zapping him with a golden light; as soon as it engulfed him, he stood up straight, visibly losing all his aches and pains, and his chest and shoulders began bulging with muscles until he looked almost like he was in his prime again-heck, he looked better than he had in his prime.  Vision-Stan stared at himself in amazement, and then grinned at Bill and gave him a high-five, before the two of them climbed aboard a massive pirate ship straight out of the history books that was hovering in the air, with Bill’s crew of freaks already waiting on deck.

“Think about it, Goldfish,” Bill purred, as the vision-ship sailed off into the sky, “You, me, and my Henchmaniacs would all be an unstoppable team of adventurers, exploring the vast seas of the world-heck, the entire universe, together!  A real family, just like you’ve always wanted!  And all I’m asking in return is for you to hand over that rift!”

…If he’s so powerful, why doesn’t he just take it from me?

Huh; maybe he can’t.  Maybe some weird demon thing means he needs me ta give it to him.  

Stan could hear the blood pounding in his ears, and something in his chest that had long been dormant sitting up in excitement just looking at the ship.

Don’t get me wrong, part of him knew it was probably all a pack of lies; he’d read Ford’s journal, and he knew a conman when he talked to one.  There was no way things would be as sunshine-and-roses as Bill was making them sound if he gave him the rift.

But the other stuff…it was enough to give him a bit of a pause.

And then he heard a tiny creak from across the room-just the small, insignificant sound of hinges being turned as wood was pushed aside, and the top of a blue and white hat appeared in the window.

And Stan was reminded what he’d been stalling for.

“...You’re right,” he said hesitantly, forcing his eyes away from the tempting vision in the gremloblin’s gaze.  “I don’t know if me and Ford are gonna be able to fix things for good, or if I’ve screwed up too much for him to wanna keep me with him the rest of his life.”

Ford made a muffled noise of anguish, and the demon finally let go of Stan’s shoulder to hold out his hand for the rift eagerly.

“ But ,” Stan quickly stepped back out of reach, “that doesn’t mean for sure that we're too broken to fix.  And either way, you’re forgetting something, Bill.”

“Oh yeah?”  Bill’s shock was turning quickly into slow, menacing rage.

“That this is about a lot more than just ME!”

From outside, Dipper took that as the signal, and turned on the flashlight with the size changing crystal; within seconds Bill was engulfed in a beam of bright pink light.

A few seconds after that Mabel lunged into the room, wielding a large glass jar, and scooped the now-shrunken demon into it.

Chapter Text

Ford felt like he could breathe properly again.

And not just because the feeling was finally starting to come back into his limbs.

“S-Stanley,” he croaked, as he managed to sit up, with arms and legs that still trembled like a newborn giraffe’s.  “I-Stan, I-”

“Later.”  Stan lifted him up the rest of the way, and slung one of his arms over his shoulders.  “Let’s get this stupid ritual thing done before the jerk finds someone new to possess.”

In the basement they found that Fiddleford, of all people, had scrawled out a replica of the Zodiac on the floor using what appeared to be a gigantic barrel of glitter paint.

“Aww, I was saving that for a rainy day!” Mabel protested.

“Sorry, honey, but it was the first paint thingummy I found readily available!” Fiddleford said sheepishly, attempting to wipe his beard on the front of his overalls and only succeeding in smearing a long sparkly streak down both of them.

“I get it.”  She still gave a sigh of lament as she set the rift down in the center of the circle, then skipped over to the shooting star symbol (try saying that three times fast).

Everyone else started filing to their appropriate spots in turn; this time Candy let Fiddleford step into the glasses spot.

“Ya think you can stand up on your own?” Stan asked.

It took Ford a moment to realize he was the one being addressed; he gave a shaky nod and tried to pull away from Stan so he could take his own weight.

“...I’m gonna take that as a no.”  Stan picked him back up off the floor.  “Ya got anymore of those nano-thingies?”

“Yes, they should be…around here somewhere.  But it can wait until after the ritual.”

Stan sighed.  And then, eyes brightening, he half-carried Ford over to the swivel chair still sitting by the former monitors, and shoved him into it, before wheeling him over to his spot in the circle.

It wasn’t quite the dignified look Ford would have wanted to have for a historic moment such as this.

“You’ll pay for this, Stanford!”

The voice was higher and squeakier than Ford had ever heard it, but it still made a chill run down his spine.

Bill was hopping up and down in the jar, which Candy was now clutching protectively, pounding his fists on the glass and champing his jaws in rage.

“I just gotta find a new sucker to let me in their head, and when I do I’ll come back here and pull all your spleens out through your noses!  I’ll do finger painting with your blood and make furniture outta your bones, and sit on it while I have a lovely dinner made out of your kidneys!  I’ll-!”

“Quiet, you!”  Candy tapped the side of the jar, knocking him off his feet with an angry squawk.

“Now, kid, be nice to the little guy.”

Ford shot a look of pure disbelief at Stan, who shrugged.

“What?  Give him a break, he’s had a very jarring experience.”

…It took Ford a moment to register exactly what his brother had said.

Had he just-?

Mabel was the first to start giggling, but Dipper and Soos quickly joined in, while Stan cackled proudly.

“Y-you’re right, Grunkle Stan,” Mabel finally managed to get out through her mirth, “I’m just concerned that it’s not good for him, keeping his feelings all bottled up like this!”

Bill sat up with a frustrated growl, and rammed himself headfirst into the side of the jar; all he succeeded in doing was staggering back with a hilariously dazed expression on his face.

“Whoa, dude,” Wendy chimed in with a wide smirk, “keep that up and you’re gonna finally break that glass ceiling!”

Even though it wasn’t that funny, it was enough to make everyone start cracking up.  Heck, Ford thought even Gideon might have let out a small snort between his still-clenched-shut lips.

And maybe it was just stress and mild hysteria, but even as they started joining hands again he found his own shoulders shaking with sudden, deep belly laughter along with them.

Even though he knew they should be focusing on completing the ritual, something about taking a moment just to taunt his former tormentor felt…incredibly satisfying.

Now they just needed to finish things before he actually had a chance to carry out his threats.

The white, tingling glow quickly began spreading from person to person just like before-Ford, Robbie, Gideon, the Northwest girl, Dipper, Fiddleford, Mabel, Wendy, Soos, Stanley.

For a moment the Pines twins looked at each other uncertainly.

“Don’t you dare, Stanley!” Bill shouted from his prison.  “You complete that circle, and I will make you rue the day-!”

The next thing Ford knew, Stan’s old, leathery hand was clamped stubbornly around his, as seemingly the entire basement flooded with light.

It was a little like when the portal had finally been opened, except Stan could still feel his feet planted firmly on the ground, and a tingling feeling like an electric current running through him (Except it wasn’t painful this time.  …Not that he knew from personal experience or anything what that felt like.  Definitely not because he’d almost stopped his own heart escaping from jail in Colombia because he’d refused to be beaten by the electric fence when he was this close to getting away.) and into the hands he was clutching.

The light flared for a second, so bright he had to close his eyes-before shrinking down into a billowing pillar in the center of the circle, with tiny strands of light flowing from the heads of each of the people in the middle to connect to it.

The pillar slowly began to shape itself, molding and stretching like a piece of clay before some masochistic filmmaker forms it into a movie piece that will then be moved one frame at a time to look like it’s moving itself, bit by bit turning into something recognizable as…a giant pair of disembodied hands.

Pale gray, six-fingered hands, looking like they were wearing a pair of gauntlets like a medieval knight’s, emblazoned with symbols that flickered in and out of sight as they moved: a pine tree, a stitched heart, a goldfish, a bag of ice, and so on.  And they were clutching a large ball of blue glowing yarn, and a pair of glowing knitting needles.

“...I don’t know what I was expecting, but it definitely wasn’t this,” Wendy mused aloud, as the hands began casting on some stitches.

“It is a little unprecedented,” Ford murmured, leaning forward in his chair as much as he could.  “I suspect that the nature of the energy circuit is affected by those who are working together to form it.  If someone here had been particularly adept at sewing, for example, perhaps they would be using a giant needle and spool of thread instead.”

“Whoa…I always knew my knitting would save the world one day!” Mabel said brightly.

“No you didn’t,” Dipper objected, and grinned when she made a face at him.

“Uh…should we be worried about that?” the Northwest brat interrupted, as the hands picked up the snow globe-and began unscrewing it.

Stan glanced at Ford-but even though he was frowning a little nervously, he wasn’t getting panicky.

“It’s fine, the ancient voodoo thingy probably knows what it’s doing,” he called to Pacifica, who tossed her hair and tried to pretend like she hadn’t been worried at all.

Behind them, Bill made an anguished sound as the rift floated free-but before it had moved more than a few feet into the air, one of the needles neatly speared one side of it, as the other needle hooked itself into the loops and-there was no other way of putting it-began stitching the darn thing together.

It was oddly soothing to watch.

Weird, but still soothing.

With every stitch the needles made, the different parts of the rift were pulled together, leaving only a stitch of blue mystic yarn stuff-and even as Stan watched, the stitches began to vanish, leaving only empty air.

Then, when there were only a few stitches left, the hands paused.  One of them handed off its needle to the other one, then turned and made a beckoning motion.

Everyone looked around in confusion-until they realized the hand was gesturing to Candy.

She stepped forward uncertainly, and when she was just outside the circle the hand lowered itself to her level, and made another motion.

“Oh come on!” Bill yelled peevishly, “Can’t we discuss this like unreasonable eldritch abominations?!  I demand to see the Axolotl-!”

Candy set the jar onto the giant palm.  “Goodbye, Mr. Cipher!  It has not been a pleasure making your acquaintance, no matter how adorable your usual form is!”

“I’ll give you adorable -!”

The hand rose, and tossed the jar-demon, gremloblin and all-into what remained of the rift.

All that could be heard echoing from the other side was a long, drawn-out screech of frustrated rage that no longer sounded even remotely like an actual person, before the hands got back to work.

And then there were three stitches left…

Two stitches…

One.

As the last strands of the rift disappeared, a glowing pair of scissors emerged, with handles shaped kind of like llamas, and clipped the yarn free.  It shone bright against the darkness of the basement for a moment, and then vanished.

So did the needles.

So did the yarn.

So did the scissors.

And after steepling together and making a motion almost as if they were bowing to them, so did the hands.

For a moment all was quiet, as the remnants of white light floated back down and reabsorbed themselves into the members of the Zodiac, as they finally allowed themselves to let go of each other’s hands.

Stan didn’t know about everyone else, but for him it felt like he’d been running for a very long time, and was just now starting to get his strength back.

His legs buckled, and he actually staggered against Soos for a second before he managed to lock his knees and straighten up again.

Whoa…doing that better not have taken a few years off my life or something.  I need whatever time I got left-

“WE DID IT!!!!”

Before he knew what was happening, Stan was being actually lifted off his feet by a pair of freakishly strong arms, that, yes, were already starting to tremble, but still wrapped around him as tight and hard as they could while their owner leaped up out of the swivel chair and squeezed him and laughed in loud, hysterical relief and actually spun around in a circle for a second before losing his balance and making both of them fall to the floor in a way that Stan could tell his back and knees were going to hate him for later.

And he could already hear frantic doubts scurrying in the back of his head, whispering that this was too good to be true, the nerd was just relieved that the nightmare was over and he’d realize his mistake soon enough, Stan was just dreaming-

Only he hurt too much to be asleep, and this didn’t seem to be ending, and he could feel warm six-fingered hands squeezing his ribs and the back of his neck like nothing else in the world mattered at this moment-

And screw it, he didn’t wanna waste anymore time worrying about whether he was truly forgiven and accepted again.

So he lifted his arms and held on just as tight, and nestled his cheek on the corner of that stupid trench coat, and let himself feel whole.

Chapter Text

Bill was gone.

Bill.  Was.  Gone .

And as soon as Ford could make a quick trip to the caves and destroy those cursed cave paintings, he was never going to find another foothold in this dimension.

The old man felt almost drunk on the tidal wave of emotions this realization caused.

He could honestly not remember the last time he’d felt this truly, genuinely…safe.

Well, there was that time he’d spent in Dimension 52, but that hardly counted.  He hadn’t felt content enough to stay there, it was ultimately just another milestone in helping him accomplish his ultimate quest.

But now…it was over.

His world was safe, Bill was gone, and Ford had not only lived to see it happen, he was there to see the aftermath too.

And he had no idea what he was going to do with himself now.

He wondered about it as the neurotoxin finished wearing off and he regained full control of his limbs.

He wondered about it while he snuck Gideon back into his cell (where, before removing the neuroparalyzer, he explained to him, calmly, what exactly would happen to him if he came anywhere near the Pines family or their home again, or if he made any further attempts to ally himself with Bill; judging by the puddle of cold sweat he’d left the child in, he suspected he might have finally gotten the message).

He wondered about it when he returned to the Mystery Shack and found Fiddleford and Tate had started repairing the damage to the wall, using pieces of metal that looked suspiciously like they’d been salvaged from the dump and painting them to match the surrounding wood.

It was…unconventional, to say the least, but they’d agreed to do it for free, again, so he supposed he didn’t have any real room to complain.

And he wondered about it when the remaining members of the Zodiac, looking almost as shell shocked as he felt, congregated in the living room.

After a minute of silence, Mabel was the first to speak.

“…So we just basically saved the world, right?”

Dipper nodded, and leaned against her shoulder.  “Yup.”  Then he gave a somewhat dazed laugh.  “Wow.  I…wow.  Nobody’s ever gonna believe this.”

Wendy sighed, and sprawled on the carpet.  “There go my hopes for making a fortune by giving reporters my exclusive life story as the hero of Gravity Falls.”

There was a ripple of laughter in response, followed by another moment of silence.

Finally Stan asked, “…Who wants pizza?”

“Me.”

“Yeah, pizza sounds good right now.”

“My parents say pizza is peasant food.”

“That’s because they’re idiots, Pacifica.”

“…Maybe just one slice.”

A little over an hour later, the Northwest girl was on her third slice of pizza, and was sitting with Mabel and Candy and the emu, giving each other makeovers.

They seemed to be having plenty of fun just working on one another, but Ford was careful not to make any sudden moves that might draw their attention.

The rest of the group sat or lay in various stages of repose around the living room, looking better now that they’d gotten some food in their bellies, their eyes glued to the television, where a quaint-looking kid’s show starring an anthropomorphic duck in a deerstalker was playing.

Is it normal for children and- Ford glanced at Soos- man-children to recover from trauma this quickly?

No, of course not, they’re just remarkably resilient.  Most likely as a result of regular exposure to Gravity Falls’s typical levels of weirdness.

…They never should have had to experience something like this, though.  So many things could have gone wrong; if we hadn’t found everyone in time, if Bill had managed to take the rift, if Stanley hadn’t had the strength of character to say no to him-

“Sixer, you’ve been pacing for hours.  Siddown before ya fall down.”  Stan gave him a sardonic look as he gnawed a leftover crust.

“I’m fine, and it’s been nowhere near that long.”  He began pacing in the opposite direction, reminding himself to at least do everyone the courtesy of not getting in front of the TV.

“...Soos, ya know what to do.”

The handyman saluted, and lumbered upstairs.

Ford gave Stan a puzzled look, but when no explanation was given he went back to pacing and alternating between being wracked in the throes of guilt and dazedly wondering what he was supposed to do with the rest of his life.

He was therefore unprepared for when Soos returned, and with reflexes like a bullfighter wrapped him in a weighted blanket.

“What the-!”

Ford arched his back in an attempt to throw the blanket off, but Soos quickly pulled him into an ample hug, pinning his arms to his sides at the same time.

“Just relax, dude.  Feel the comforting warmth surrounding you,” he crooned in a tone that was probably meant to be soothing.

“Release me at once!”  To his alarm, despite his protests Ford could feel his muscles all starting to relax at the same time-being cocooned in the blanket appeared to be having a peculiar soporific effect on his nervous system.  He couldn’t even muster the energy to be embarrassed by the stares and snickers from the other occupants of the room at his plight, or the flash of what he thought might be Wendy’s phone camera.

“Bring him here,” Stan gestured to the dinosaur skull with a smirk; a moment later Ford found himself being lifted all the way off his feet, and carried over to sit on the skull.

His attempt at standing up again, at protesting that he wasn’t a child that needed to be bundled up and put to bed, was arrested by the feeling of thick fingers burying in his hair, right down to his scalp.

Ford’s treacherous body relaxed even further, tilting towards his brother in eager desire for more.

“Whoa; can’t believe that still works.”  Stan snickered, and began gently scritching his fingers back and forth.  “Little greasy, though; you gotta wash this floofy mop tomorrow.”

“It’s not that greasy,” Ford grumbled, even as he half closed his eyes in pure pleasure.

“It is, you’re just delusional.”

Ford grumbled again, more half-hearted than before.

“Relax, Poindexter,” Stan murmured as he began rubbing little circles against the base of Ford’s skull.  “We’re all safe, and we totally kicked the little jerk’s butt.  Or, y’know, whatever he has instead of a butt.”

“Best not to speculate on it too much,” Ford said dryly, and was rewarded with an equally dry chuckle.

“Either way, you got time to relax for a spell.”

He had time.

Ford let out a sigh, and shrugged out of his trench coat under the blanket, letting it slip down to rest in a puddle by his feet.

Time for him and Stanley to get to know each other again.

Time to get to know Dipper and Mabel for the first time.

Time to do whatever else he could to make amends with Fiddleford and help him find somewhere to stay that wasn’t the dump.

Time to perhaps connect with the children’s parents-though heck if he knew how he was going to explain where he’d been for the last thirty years.  Were they open-minded enough to understand, or would he have to rely on Stan to come up with a semi-plausible lie?

Time to figure out what he was going to do now.

According to some signals he’d been receiving on one of his transmitters, there were signs of anomalous activity in other parts of the globe that might be worth exploring…perhaps he and Stanley could start looking for a reasonably priced fishing boat strong enough to be on the ocean…

…But they could discuss it later, when they weren’t in a room full of nosy adolescents.

For now, in his half-drowsy state, he decided to see if he could solve the mystery of who had shot Ducktective before the big season finale.